Soft Filter

[rabman]

I think I know the answer to this but I still want to ask. Just yesterday I spoke to another hobbyist photog friend who mentioned getting a softening filter for portraits. My immediate response was "Does that even exist? Why would anyone do that with all the portrait software available?"

After a bit of research I found they do exist. As i thought, Are they remnants left from film photography that most don't use anymore?

 

[Josh66]

Why would anyone do that with all the portrait software available?

Because it's better.

PS can get you close, maybe even so close that most would never notice, though. Plus, it's just more fun to do it without PS... And some people prefer to get it right in camera.

I have a Soft Focus lens that I play around with sometimes. It gives an effect that would be very hard to mimic convincingly in PS. It's basically spherical aberration on demand. (And yes, you can 'turn it off' and use the lens normally.)



I suspect that most don't use them anymore - preferring to do it on the computer though. Some would say that it's better to do it on the computer, because you can always go back to the original file if you want to. You can also just take another picture with the filter off if you think you might not like it though...

 

[rabman]

Wouldn't a soft filter soften the everything, not just the skin?

 

[Josh66]

Yeah, but if it's out of focus (background maybe) you won't really be able to tell. I mean, you won't be able to tell if it's soft because of the filter, or soft because it's out of focus.


Something a lot of people used to do is get a UV or some other clear filter and smear some oil/grease on it. If you do that, you could control where the effect is applied and where it isn't. For example, you could just smear it where the person's face is going to be.