This skin softening technique

[crystal_smith5]

<p>Hi all. I was looking at <a href="http://www.bentonphotography.net">www.bentonphotography.net</a> for ideas for a senior shoot I have coming up and I noticed the skin is very soft on the subjects...How was this technique achieved? Looks to be a little more than just a simple gaussian or surface blur thru a layer mask... Any help would be greatly appreciated! :-)</p>

[kyleweems]

<p>the fast/easy way to apply a soft filter look.. duplicate the layer, blur it significantly, drop the opacity. Mask as necessary.</p>

<p>Kyle</p>

[michael_young3]

<p>In LightRoom, paint in a negative Clarity value.</p>

[hannah_givas]

<p>May I add a question onto this regarding above? I Don't want to be rude, not sure if it is allowed?:)<br>

Hannah</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>It's always allowed, Hannah. This is a discussion forum, and asking more questions that relate to the topic of the thread can always add more to the discussion.</p>

[hannah_givas]

<p>My question is regarding masking as mentioned in first response. How exactly is 'masking done? Are there different times of masking for different actions,( layering, extracting, etc....) I have CS4, and have been trying to learn how to extract image and put on different background. I have been able to do that , but there is still a line around the image that I can't figure out how to get rid of. It is part of original background, but I can figure out how to blend so that it looks natural. Is THAT masking? If so how is it done?</p>

[jacques_weyers1]

<p>Or you could go to http://www.imagenomic.com/pt.aspx a fantastic skin retouching software that will save you hours of time.</p>

[hannah_givas]

<p>For skin, I just use the brush in Camera Raw and play with clarity and sharpness to desired skin effect, enlarge and brush skin! So easy, and looks great.</p>

[monika_epsefass]

<p>Hannah, it's about time you buy a book on masking and layers... your questions cannot really be answered in one post. For skin softening, the process involves several layers for sharpening and softening with their respective masks, of opacity and lighting changes etc etc.</p>

[crystal_smith5]

<p>I have duplicated the layer, blurred and used a mask as I stated in my question... it doesnt look the same? Anyone else have any ideas? FYI- I only use CS3.<br>

Thanks</p>

[brian_m2]

<blockquote>

<p>It's always allowed, Hannah. This is a discussion forum, and asking more questions that relate to the topic of the thread can always add more to the discussion.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>A gentle disagreement, Matt. Personally (and no disrespect to Hannah because she's obviously very concerned with acting politely), I think asking a question different from the OP's question in a thread - particularly very early in the thread before many responses have been given - is a form of thread hijacking and should be discouraged. I know that it's happened to me in other fora and it feels like interrupting. My 2 cents.</p>

[charlesheckel]

<p>Crystal, there are a multitude of ways to add blur or soft focus to pictures, and you'd be well advised to Google them. If you want to know exactly how it was done on your specific examples, try emailing the photographer and asking.</p>

<p>Hannah, you already know what a selection is and how to move it to a new layer with ctl-J. A mask is essentially the same thing as a selection, but in selections the pixels of the original layer are usually either on or off with no in-between, and in masks they may have many levels of transparency.</p>

<p>For a simple demonstration, take one of your photos in which the highlights or shadows aren't quite where they should be, and apply a Curves adjustment layer to fix the highlights at the expense of the shadows, or the shadows at the expense of the highlights. Click done, and you've got a white box on your Curves adjustment layer. You can turn the layer on or off by clicking its eyecon, of course.</p>

<p>If you have black and white selected as foreground and background colors, clicking the white box and then ctl-Backspace and alt-Backspace in succession will also turn it on or off, by filling the box alternately with white and black. You can also reduce the effect of the layer by filling the box with various shades of gray, which means that said box is--aha--a mask.</p>

<p>What happens if you click that box and then paint on your original in various shades of gray? You won't get gray, but your original Curves effect in varying intensities, so that you can paint detail into blown highlights (or blocked shadows), making the good Michelangelo noises. Welcome to Mardi Gras.</p>

<p>As for making persuasive composites, the problem is that the original background usually colors a fringe around the object you're trying to lift from it. There are several ways to work around it, one being to select your original, do Select->Modify->Border to select the fringe, and do a Hue/Saturation adjustment to get that fringe in compliance with your new background. You can also use the Eraser with a soft brush around the edges, and surprisingly often the Blur or Smudge tools will confuse the issue sufficiently to make the montage convincing. But there are probably hundreds of ways to deal with your problem--Google, and ye shall goggle.</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>Theres a lot of difference between blurring a skin and retouching a skin to make it look flawless.. 2 opposite thing.</p>

<p>Amateur (no disrespect) tend to like when you have a quick and fast result, and refer a lot of time to skin retouching with how can i do it.. the anwser is always use a blur this, or a - clarity (that blur the skin also).. but the proper and longer way of doing it correctly is to zoom the image and to remove darker or lighter spot on the skin. Yes it seem a long way of doing it but this is THE way of doing it for a more natural and best result. Of course, im talking of the way pro retouched the image, for demanding client.. not your usual Mom client that want her kid to look good ; ) I agree that for those situation, any kind of blur to a certain extend controled with mask could do a quick and good job for the casual Mom client.</p>

<p>The example the OP show is exactly this, a kind of blur applied at large on the skin that remove pores and give this glowy kind of look a la glamour magazine of the 80s.. not that hard to do and certainly OK for many client, but just dont think that it is that easy to make a good skin in a more professional way... if it was, i wouldtn be working as a retoucher still today ; )</p>

<p>Rarely i will suggest a plugin to do something in Photoshop, prefering learning how things work instead of just having to press a button, but in 2010 i will try to be more indulgent when people ask about them, and therefore i will suggest that you have a look at Portraiture to get this kind of job done without too much effort for the kind of result you like and seem to wish to be able to reproduce it quickly.</p>

[midan_smith]

<p>Patrick, ive read your posts extensively and they have proved invaluable for my retouching, just to clarify:</p>

<p>"zoom the image and to remove darker or lighter spot on the skin"</p>

<p>do you mean a zoom and then healing brush in minute detail on every pore/spot/crease (this is what i do and it seems to work beautifully)</p>

<p>or do you mean two seperate curves adjustments, masking for each pore/spot/crease, one to make the dark ones lighter, one to make the light ones darker?</p>

<p>Patrick's methods mean you can then sharpen the skin, and emphasise the perfect texture you have created, instead of blurring it which is usually very obvious. For a quick fix, i like the following 'grunge' remover in cs4<br>

on a duplicate layer<br>

hit gaussian blur till you see the level of smoothness you want - DONT apply it, remember the number (eg.9)<br>

then instead high pass the layer with the number you got from the above step (9)<br>

next hit a gaussian blur with about 1/3 of the number you used (3)<br>

then change the layer to LINEAR blending mode.. it will now look AWFUL.. change opacity to 40% or so, and Ctr+I Invert it.. then paint on the mask. Only takes a few minutes, gets rid of much of the undesirable parts. It wont look very blurred, reasonably natural if used in small doses (i like it for arms etc)</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>first method you describe.. healing brush / stamp tool each problem.</p>