Tips on softening faces on Photoshop??

[alejandraw.]

Hey guys, what I usually use is gaussian blur just on their skin.. I was just wondering is there other techiques that are more professional looking? Thanks!

 

[Buckster]

If you do this sort of thing a lot, I recommend getting Anthropic"s "Portrait Professional" or Imagenomic's "Portraiture". Both are available as plugins for Photoshop, and both are awesome for that type of work.

 

[skieur]

Paintshop Pro X3 has a Skin softening choice that works well and I particularly like the Nik filter Plug-ins. The Sunshine filter can really change a portrait that was taken outside on a cloudy day, for example and the classic soft focus adjustable filter is great too.

skieur

 

[mwcfarms]

I'm a huge fan of Portrait Professional as well. I bought the original starter one for 30 dollars and I think I am going to upgrade so I can use it on my Tiff's.

 

[Big Mike]

Hey guys, what I usually use is gaussian blur just on their skin.. I was just wondering is there other techiques that are more professional looking? Thanks!

There are many, many different ways to edit skin in Photoshop. Just Google 'Photoshop + skin' and see for yourself.

HERE is a fairly indepth tutorial that I found in my bookmarks.

 

[StarPath]

The link Big Mike posted is good. I see many articles on retouching with complex layering and channel edits and I rarely see results better than conservative gaussian blurring/masking and basic spot healing techniques. If you're editing many images at a time you'll likely find yourself coming back to these basics. If its for commercial print, the extra time and layers of retouching will often be lost in printing anyway.

 

[Dao]

I like this one.

Christy Schuler I Retouching

 

[dallasimagery]

I like to use adobe camera raw for this... by doing a local adjustment and reducing clarity and increasing sharpness. WOrks good and looks VERY realistic.

 

[JimCoventry]

Hey guys, what I usually use is gaussian blur just on their skin.. I was just wondering is there other techiques that are more professional looking? Thanks!

Try, either in PS cS3,4 or 5, using CLARITY in a negative, rather than positive, setting. You can use an adjustment brush and add it where you like... say, just on cheek bones with pock marks or wrinkles. I often use a brush tool set at 30% Opacity and darken/lighten to fill in wrinkles and/or blemishes. Kind of like adding makeup with an airbrush.

 

[GooniesNeverSayDie11]

Clarity slider in ACR works using the adjustment brush. Personally, I prefer the surface blur tool over the gaussian blur tool. I just convert layer to a smart object, adjust until the skin looks decent, paying no mind to the rest of the shot. Then I fill a layer mask with black, and paint in using white on the skin to apply the blur. Prior to this step, I remove blemishes on dupe layer using the patch tool or the healing brush tool. This I do seperate so opacity of blur and blemishes can be adjusted independently. If someone has a prominant mole for instance that is unflattering, you can simply reduce the opacity so that its still there, but less attention grabbing. That way the client doesnt feel like you made them look unlike themselves, but they still look more flattering than they have probably ever seen themselves.

 

[vtf]

This is PSE but should also work on PS. I do use portrait professional and find it simpler to use for good effects.
Photoshop Elements > Retouching > 1 - Smooth Skin