HELP! Skin retouch final touches? (w/examples)

hey guys,

I just did my very first fitness shoot the yesterday....talk about stress and fun!

Anyway, I'm in the photo retouch mode and I can't quite figure out how to "smooth"
out the skin.
By this I mean:
- tighten it
- reduce contrast over a skin section
- keep it looking real

Screen shots from CS6:

Straight out of Camera:

With the right exposure there would be much less need for retouching.
.

agedbriar wrote in post #17290657
With the right exposure there would be much less need for retouching.
.

Thats not the right exposure either.

gonzogolf wrote in post #17290666
Thats not the right exposure either.

No, I didn't reshoot...

I've had good luck with frequency separation. Do an online search, there are a number of good tutorials. It takes a little bit of work to learn, but gives good results.

I learned this off KelbyOne...
There's more in depth ways to smooth the skin but I've found this way to be easy enough and works really well in most applications.

Make a new layer...
filter > Gaussian Blur > Set to 24 > Lower opacity on layer to 50% > apply a layer mask > Invert mask (so you see the normal image) > Paint in the blur to the skin (but don't paint over the contrast areas like the belly button and stay away from the edges) > Adjust opacity to make it look the way you want. Easy as that.

EDIT: Also be consistent. Hit all the skin. If you leave out her arms or face it'll look really off.

hey guys,

thanks for the tips! My 19 credits of school has been keeping me from the digital darkroom
arena, but with the break I'm getting a good shot at it.
Frequency separation is brilliant... I love it! It's going to take some getting used to of course...
thanks for the suggestions!