Skin softening - is it always necessary?

hehe - I noticed that afterwords and have since fixed it...

once again - you are confusing "retouching" with "smoothing" - I would love to see how you would "record" selective "dodge and burn" as example (something I use the most when retouching my images)

rantercsr wrote in post #18430038
Most times with women i do ,, i just use LR preset and then drag sliders waaaay down to aboit 10 percent or 20 at most of what LR starts off with ..especially when using lighting as it can often make every pore of the skin visible..

ok so I don't "just" do this anymore .. I actually have been staying away from LR "soften skin" ..
only because I've been trying to get better at retouching , I've been trying various methods .. healing brush, clone stamp , frequeancy separation (using various techniques ) etc.

I downloaded some ones "action" .. but all it does is create files .. but I have to actually apply with a brush

JJConstantine wrote in post #18477857
once again - you are confusing "retouching" with "smoothing" - I would love to see how you would "record" selective "dodge and burn" as example (something I use the most when retouching my images)

Smoothing is retouching. Smoothing has been retouching since photographers smoothed skin by rubbing graphite into negatives with their thumbs.

Hehe, tell that to high end retouchers. In this case I don't do any "retouching" as i never smooth the skin (at least not in the way you understand it) - and once again, you CAN NOT record your "high end" retouching actions... Hehe

rantercsr wrote in post #18477859
ok so I don't "just" do this anymore .. I actually have been staying away from LR "soften skin" ..
only because I've been trying to get better at retouching , I've been trying various methods .. healing brush, clone stamp , frequeancy separation (using various techniques ) etc.

I downloaded some ones "action" .. but all it does is create files .. but I have to actually apply with a brush

quick tip, when in frequency separation do NOT edit neither texture or color layers - all you should really do there is create a new layer between them and with a VERY soft brush at extremely low flow just paint the colors you want to achieve - this will create smooth creamy color layer while maintaining all textures. Also, I use dodge/burn in 100% of my retouch jobs