Learning new technique for smoothing skin - Does it work?

[ghache]

I bought Professional Portrait and it is a sample and as effective it looks on the site. What you see is what you get and for only a few dollars. :thumbup:

thats quite a nice software imo, for that price. i wouldnt use it for portrait or other work but i might give it a try for beauty and fashion shots.

 

[Village Idiot]

Yeah, and Doz, not sure what program you're using but doing it manually, it was a PAIN in the butt w/ this one! He's got a lot of stuff on his face. I may have made him a bit too bright in the PP? I'm falling asleep and I didn't have time to mess w/ his eyes to get that glare off though.

I shot this guy about two or three weeks ago.

IMO, the afters all look too smooth and plasticy. What's your workflow? I hate skin smooth as there's a million different ways to do it, and sometimes some techniques work better than others.

What I would suggest is to bring back the opacity a bit in your smoothing layers, not a ton, but just a bit to give the model a more human look. People do have pores and such; removing them makes them look like dolls or mannequins.

 

[MohaimenK]

I shot this guy about two or three weeks ago.

IMO, the afters all look too smooth and plasticy. What's your workflow? I hate skin smooth as there's a million different ways to do it, and sometimes some techniques work better than others.

What I would suggest is to bring back the opacity a bit in your smoothing layers, not a ton, but just a bit to give the model a more human look. People do have pores and such; removing them makes them look like dolls or mannequins.

HAHA! Small world VI! Was it the "wedding" theme shoot? Now that I think about it, I noticed your Flickr had a bride in it but I didn't look through and it didn't click then.

Yeah, w/ him, I just ran the action real quick and it did a little too much for him. I thought the black was a bit dark and the skin was a bit white once I was done but at midnight I was too tired to do it again. I will redo his shot.
I think it works better for certain people than other, like with my wife's skin and Kori's skin it looks more natural IMO.

Doziergraphic thanks! That's a good price IMO and saves some trouble. I will check their trial version to see how it is and maybe better route and faster.

Tbini87 I am not sure how to do it with LR3. I am new to that and I do the initial editing there. Pretty much, WB, black point, contrast, brightness fix etc. Then I switch to Photoshop and now I have it saved as an action so I run that. Doz's program seems very cheap and efficient. I'd give that a try too for the price and looking at the result. Try the trial version like me and see if it's clean. You don't want to overdo it so it looks like plastic. Like with my wife and Kori's pics, if you enlarge them, you can see their pores and it's not completely flat. But it didn't do that for Dylan. His skin is a little harder for me.

 

[Village Idiot]

I shot this guy about two or three weeks ago.

IMO, the afters all look too smooth and plasticy. What's your workflow? I hate skin smooth as there's a million different ways to do it, and sometimes some techniques work better than others.

What I would suggest is to bring back the opacity a bit in your smoothing layers, not a ton, but just a bit to give the model a more human look. People do have pores and such; removing them makes them look like dolls or mannequins.

HAHA! Small world VI! Was it the "wedding" theme shoot? Now that I think about it, I noticed your Flickr had a bride in it but I didn't look through and it didn't click then.

Yeah, w/ him, I just ran the action real quick and it did a little too much for him. I thought the black was a bit dark and the skin was a bit white once I was done but at midnight I was too tired to do it again. I will redo his shot.
I think it works better for certain people than other, like with my wife's skin and Kori's skin it looks more natural IMO.

That's the one. It was in Walkersville.

I always overdo my skin smoothing, then slide it back as needed. You can really start to see the transition when playing with the opacity I think there's a moment when it just pops into place between unmodified, plastic, and perfect. Even if you are running an action that creates multiple layers, you should be able to merge them down and adjust the opacity of the combine output all at once.

 

[MohaimenK]

Aiight come spring we gotta meet up and do some creative stuff :thumbup:

 

[vtf]

I downloaded free trial and am quite impressed with the results.

 

[Robin Usagani]

whatever plugin or action you use to smoothen it, you must mask stuff so you retain the detail of the hair, eyes, clothes etc. You did a good job Mo. I like it. Dont go too much on men. We prefer little rugged skin.

 

[MohaimenK]

Yup! Gotta mask off the clothes, hair and eyes.

 

[Corvphotography]

i love the smoothing MO. I need to learn to do that. good work.

 

[MohaimenK]

Thanks Corv!
Ok guys, so here are some of the videos I saw that helped me learn. Take a look at them, master them, play with them, you'll get the hang of it

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/956390...wdarkroom_com/

CreativeTechs Tips How to smooth skin in Photoshop.

Photoshop Tutorial - Smooth Skin

 

[illbowhunter]

Thanks for the links. I will have to give them a look.

 

[Ajlista]

In my opinion, i think they look spectacular !
I mean i could be wrong, but i love the editing you can really tell the difference