Skin Smoothing

I was wondering what you all use as a skin smoothing process in cs2. I tried a couple on the net however I was not happy with the results. Any help you can provide would be great. Thanks.

Can you post an effect you're trying to mimic? There's so many varieties of skin smoothing that it's hard to guess which one you're wanting. Do you want the "romantic" one, or the one (often done with noise ninja) where it just hides minor zits and pours?

Have a look at this thread by our own Mizuno. This works really well. I also have a plugin from Nik Software that does a pretty decent job of it.

if you have a cs3...i think there is only 3 steps using convert using smart filter..

ssim wrote in post #3273281
Have a look at this thread by our own Mizuno. This works really well. I also have a plugin from Nik Software that does a pretty decent job of it.

Which NIK Plugin is it..

I've seen some good comments regarding 'Portraiture' plugin from http://www.noiseware.c​om but my own preference is using the actions from http://www.1clickactio​ns.com.

The is also a Digital AirBrush (or something similiar) from Kodak that I once tried but I wasn't too impressed.

I use a different combo of steps for every picture. I must please ask you to not use any method that involves blurring, median, or anything of the sort. It looks amateurish most of the time. Search up 'high pass' smoothing and other non blurring techniques. You can even use skin[and/or just it's texture] from another picture. It's a little more involved but the results are that much better. PM me if you want more detailed instructions.

Check out the portrait retouching folder in my digital darkroom bookmarks