Little help w/ Skin retouching

[The Wanderer]

I take a few self portriats and I want to make my skin look better in the photos. I have both paintshop pro and photoshop cs... what is the best way to get better looking skin using these two programs?

[scottbergerphoto]

If you are talking about hiding blemishes, you can select the Clone Tool, pick a soft edged brush the size of the blemish, set Feather to 2 Pixels, and select an area of non damaged skin nearby to clone. Just click on the blemish instead of painting it. You can repeat this for each blemish. You could also:
1. Make a duplicate background layer,
2. Use Gaussian Blur (Filter>Blur>Gausssian Blur) on the copy till the whole layer is blurry and you don't see the imperfections,
3. Create a new blank layer beneath the copy. (Ctrl-click on New Layer Icon)
4. Click on the top layer and hit Ctrl-G to link the top two layers,
5. Click on the middle layer,
6. Press D to change foreground to black
7. Use a soft edged brush (Brush Tool, Opacity 50%)
8. Set Blend Mode to Lighten
9. Paint over the ares you want to improve. Adjust the Opacity to taste.
(Source: Photoshop Elements for Digital Photographers, by Scott Kelby)
Give them a try,
Scott

[The Wanderer]

I will give that a try. Thanks for the tip.

Man I tried the ps tip and man it sure doesn't look good. I will have to keep play w/ it I guess.

[scottbergerphoto]

Try lowering the opacity and using darken as the blend mode instead of lighten. Also, this tecnique won't do anything for the skin tone. Fot that you'll need to go into Color adjustments (Hue, Saturation, Lightness).
I usually follow the following order:
1. Crop
2. Levels(white, black, midpoint-gets rid of color casts)
3. Adjust Color
4. Other corrections
5. USM
Scott

[4walls]

Or try the healing brush instead of the clone tool.

[w10d]

photoshop cs... what is the best way to get better looking skin using these two programs?

With CS you can use the healing brush, which in most cases gives a quick and clean skin retouch in a fraction of the time it would have taken an experienced user using the clone tool.

Vary the brush size to suit the area you need to cover...

[The Wanderer]

When I try these I will post the b/4 after so all can see what happened. :)

[msvadi]

a similar question has been asked recently at "Talk..." forum:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=25892
so I'll just copy/paste my answer ;)

"Actually, the patch tool is much-much better than the clone stamp for that purpose. It preserves the texture and you can achive remarkable results with it. That's what Katrin Eismann recommends in her "Photoshop Restoration & Retouching", which is a very good and popular book.

The book describes several techniques on improving the skin look and portraits retouching in general. I like this on in particular:

0. duplicate the background layer and work on the copy.
1. apply "Gaussian Blur" 15%-50%
2. create history snapshot
3. undo "Gaussian Blurr"
4. select "History Brush", set the source to the snapshot created in 2.
5. set the mode to lighten, opacity to a small number and paint over the entire skin.
6. set mode to darken, paint again over the skin.
7. if needed, adjust opacity of the duplicate layer to make the effect you created more subtle."

[Conk]

Here is a tutorial that I have used and have had great luck. Very easy to follow.
http://www.okongraphics.com/tutorials/portraitretouch.html
Reply and let us know how it worked for you.

[paulselhi]

Do have a try with our software "Blackmagic", though it is primarily used to colorize black and white photos it is also excellent for enhancing exsistinng colors

BlackMagic (http://www.black-and-white-to-color.com)

[bluxx]

hi - great tutorials and advice. wow - some of the info is so helpful. I am working on a talk to a local youth group about body image in advertising and wanting to explain how the great art work is simply that - great artwork and that people don't look that good in real life (generally). I am working on a pic of my wife and am trying some of the suggestions here to show how photoshop can really make a portrait look great. One small problem with my pic is the flash has highlighted some parts of her face, if I upload will someone please look at it and advise on how to soften the image?

thanks
Bluxx