Another "How'd they do that???" question...

It's just a ton of photoshop smoothing work. Looks a bit overdone to me, but different strokes for different folks I suppose.
 
A book I like with info about portraits and digital retouching is Lee Varis' "Skin".
 
I agree that it looks overdone. It is just too perfect looking.
 
There is a difference between clean looking skin and looking like a living mannequin kind of skin.

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A book I like with info about portraits and digital retouching is Lee Varis' "Skin".

I have that book, an excellent read and it is about FAR more than just skin retouching. It discusses camera settings and how to set your exposure for different kinds of skin to get different results.

Most fun part is learning how to place tattoos on people... lol.
 
Well smooth skin helps too. If you read the paragraph above the photo, it says she's in seventh grade. Youth does have it's privileges.

That and it makes the PP a lot faster.
 
Both the picture of the girl AND the picture of the guy without the shirt look far, far overdone to me. Glaringly photoshopped.
 
There are a ton of portrait type of programs that do exactly that, make the person look like they came out of a plastic factory... it was appealing a couple years ago when new in the industry... today it looks deeply unrealistic and IMHO, unprofessional. Some cleaning is sometimes warranted, but not to these levels.
 
There are a ton of portrait type of programs that do exactly that, make the person look like they came out of a plastic factory... it was appealing a couple years ago when new in the industry... today it looks deeply unrealistic and IMHO, unprofessional. Some cleaning is sometimes warranted, but not to these levels.

Jerry, what are the names of these portrait programs? I agree with everyone, the effect is totally overdone, but I think if it's used once in a while, that's okay. I just really want to learn the technique.
 
My #1 pick that I have available to me: Imagenomic Portraiture for PS.

My #2 pick that I have available to me is a separate external program: Portraiture Professional

I hear a lot about the other ones, I just am very satisfied with these 2 as they are very good and I do not do very much skin smoothing.

In the book SKIN by Lee Varis, they go through tons of "how-to" in terms of PS skin smoothing techniques that is also VERY good.

In general, I would promote knowledge and understanding before leaving it to some program to "plastify" someone's face. Then once the understanding is in place, looking for 3rd part apps is a good alternative. ;)
 
You really don't need a program. Just select the area you want to smooth with the lasso and use Gaussian blur to smooth it out. Play around with the amounts and you will soon have it down.

I use this all the time for crows feet and wrinkles in general. Used carefully you can make a lot of friends fast. :)
 
Thanks guys. I am going to work on it in PS. More than adopting that as my new way to retouch, I'm just curious to learn any and all techniques. The pregnant celebs I shoot will prob love it a lot. :lol:
 
If you don't have much time, a fast way to get nice skin (not the best way however) is to create a duplicate layer, apply anti-noise to taste, then add a mask full of black, then paint white onto the parts of the face that you want to smooth. This will oftenn look very good and clean.

Otherwise if you have the needed time, there are better ways...
 

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