Advanced Skin Soft Technology in-depth tutorial

I learned it from Kevin Ames. This technique simulates the Hasselblad Softar 2nd filter, which can soften skin tones, but at the same time it produces few softer spots and reduces image contrast. So it is especially suitable for fashion photography.

First step:

Please open the photo that needs to be soft. Press Ctrl-j (MAC:COMMAND-J) two times, create two copies of the background layer in the Layer palette, then click the Eye icon on the top copy layer (layer 1 copy) on the Layer palette to hide the layer, then click on the middle layer (layer 1) to activate it, Change the blending mode of the layer from normal to dimmed.

Step Two:

Go to the Filter menu, select Gaussian blur from the Blur submenu, and apply a 40 pixel blur to the photo.

Step Three:

In the Layer palette, click on the middle layer of the eye icon, hide the layer from view, then click on the top layer (layer 1 copy), click in the Empty box on the left, make it appear again (the eye icon appears again), and change the layer blending mode on the top layer to lighten.

Fourth Step:

Now go back to the Blur submenu of the filter and apply a 60 pixel Gaussian blur to the top layer.

Fifth Step:

After applying blur, click on the middle layer (layer 1), click on its empty box, display the eye icon, and then in the layer palette to reduce its opacity to 40%.

Sixth step:

Click on the background layer's eye icon to hide it from view, then click the Create New Layer icon at the bottom of the layer palette to create a new layer. Click on the layer and drag it to the top of the layer stack. Then hold down the ALT key (Mac:option key) and select the merged visible layer from the Layer Palette's pop-up menu, which creates a flattened version of the document in the new layer.

Seventh Step:

In the Layer palette, click the empty box on the left side of the background layer to display the layer again, but click the eye icon in the middle two copy layers (layer 1 and Layer 1) to hide them. Make sure that the topmost layer (layer 2) in the layer stack remains the active layer, and then reduce the opacity of the layer to 40%. Lowering the opacity of the layer creates an overall soft effect (if you want this overall blur effect, which is OK), but in most cases we don't want to soften the detail area (eyes, lips, etc.).

Eighth Step:

Click on the Add Layer mask icon at the bottom of the Layer palette to add a layer mask to the blur layer. Press the letter x until the foreground color turns black, and then press B to select the Brush tool. In the Options bar, click the thumbnail to the right of the brush text and select a medium-sized soft corner brush from the brush selector. Now, in areas where you should have detailed details (eyes, lips, eyebrows, eyelashes, hair, clothes, etc., preferably in all areas outside the skin), draw. Note: Press the left parenthesis key to make the brush size smaller and press the right parenthesis key to make it larger.

Before and after processing comparison: (click to see larger picture)

After processing before handling

Category:

• PS Image Processing