SKIN TUTORIAL

I though I show you how I retouch the skin of people in my photos.
There are few things that I think people do wrong when they retouch skin.
1. Some just blur the skin, which looks like a portrait with blurred skin…
2. Some overdo it.
3. Some forget that people still should have pores and things in the skin even if they are retouched.

So here is the basics on how I fix my skin, and still have it looking real.

Here is the before shot.
(Click on the photos to see a bigger version)

And here is what we will be doing.

And if you think is how a retouched shot should look, then think again (I see so many photos like this everyday).

Step 1.
The first thing you need to do is fixing the basics stuff, like removing pimples, birthmarks and so on with the Patch tool.
Nobody has perfect skin…

Step 2.
Take your photo you want to fix, select Color range (Select – color range…)
Choose the skin color, so most of the skin is selected.

Step 3.
After you have selected the skin and pressed OK, the skin will be selected.
Now press Cmd + J (on a mac) or Ctrl + J (on a PC).
Then take the eraser and remove everything else from the photo except the skin, then duplicate the skin layer once more.

Step 4.
Select the layer below, this will be the blurred skin.
Go to Filter – Blur – surface blur.
In this example I used the amounts:
Radius: 28
Threshold: 27

Step 5.
Go to the second skin layer and go to filters – Other – Highpass.
Here I used Radius: 4.7
This will be the pores and skin textures you will put back on, after you have blurred your skin.

Step 6.
This is how it should look when you have the blurred layer on the original photo.
You will notice that it’s too blurred, but that is okay, I usually blur too much and then with the opacity on the layer I change how strong it will be.

Step 7.
Now put on both the skin layers and start changing the opacity of the blurred skin layer to get it look good again.

Step 8.
Put the texture skin layer to soft light in the layer drop down.
And play around with the opacity on this layer, you will have to play around with the opacity on both the blurred and the texture skin layer to find the perfect combination, there isn’t one right amount that you should use.

After you’ve found the perfect combination of the opacity of the texture and the blurred skin layer you should have something like this.
Which is good looking skin which still has the pores and texture on it.

As requested here is a before and after version.
(Click on the photo to see bigger size.)