Smooth a lady's skin?

Taking shots of a friend, but they are a bit too detailed. Could someone describe a way I could use CS5 to make the skin 'smoother'?

Thanks

lightroom is a lot easier for quick work such as this, and especially if you are just starting out.

I depends on what exactly you're trying to achieve... simply removing blemishes, etc does not require as aggressive retouching as glamour or fashion retouching. Here's a quick edit using dodging and burning (Curves adjustment layers); with time much more could be done such as balancing the lighting between the background and the subject.

I'm not wanting to create a perfect skin smoothness here (probably a bit too unrealistic). I am seeing more skin pores? on her cheeks than l like, and a bit too obvious lines in the forehead.
I've used LR and Photshop for years, and know tools to 'smooth' or eliminate things, but have spent very little time with closeups of a pretty model. And I know that a closeup of a girl's face has little room for error.
Trying to do her a favor, so I was looking, asking about any good tips or methods, for best enhancement before going forth with it.

Thanks for any

just tone down clarity and sharpness a bit with LR. feather on your way out as to blend.

Ahem. https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1191223

dave_p wrote in post #14752564
Ahem. https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1191223

Thanks for the info. I went to that site and read what he did, I played with it a bit, but decided it was more than needed for this. I ended up using a bit of Gaussian blur, just on her face, and history brushing the blur back out of her eyes. I think it worked ok in this case.

I've got an action for this that I created from a tutorial I found some time ago, which gives pretty good results. Going from memory, it involves duplicating the picture, applying a high-pass filter, inverting it, gaussian blur and overlay mode. I can't remember the radiuses though. Keeps the texture but basically reduces micro-contrast, works like a charm. Plus you can play with the opacity to dial it down if you want.

I have an action too. Don't know if armis' action is based on this tutorial, but take a look.

http://www.photoshopes​sentials.com/photo-editing/smooth-skin/

Am I the only one bothered more greatly by the photographer missing the exposure than by her pores and wrinkles on the forehead being revealed by a sharp lens?!

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Smoothed and lightened a little.

Wilt wrote in post #14757028
Am I the only one bothered more greatly by the photographer missing the exposure than by her pores and wrinkles on the forehead being revealed by a sharp lens?!

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO

That was my first thought too. An extra third- to half-stop of exposure will do wonders for a lady's complexion. But it looks like this one is fairly underexposed to start with, so you need a bit more than that. If you shot in raw, you have a lot of flexibility here. Bump it up by a full stop (or maybe more!) and see how it looks.

For cleaning up blemishes without losing realistic texture, I like Cameron Rad's "The Perfect Lie" technique. Do a search on Youtube for "perfect lie tutorial" and it will come up. After getting my head around the steps in the video tutorial, I made an action for the steps to make the texture and tone layers, so it's just a single click to set up a couple minutes to remove individual blemishes.

If you're using the ol' gaussian-blur-and-mask technique, you might as well just use the Skin Smoothing preset in the Lightroom adjustment brushes. The end results are about the same, and you save the extra step of opening the file in Photoshop.

Wilt wrote in post #14757028
Am I the only one bothered more greatly by the photographer missing the exposure than by her pores and wrinkles on the forehead being revealed by a sharp lens?!

No; but then, that wasn't the OP's question, was it?

This method works really well.

ScubaDude wrote in post #14760401
This method works really well.

I think he forgets to use Gaussian blur.

http://retouchpro.com/​tutorials/?m=show&id=2​13