HELP Ive got goosebumps!!

Had a maternity session with a friend yesterday. Despite the room being very warm - we still have goosebumps and obviously all the other 'joys of pregnancy' skin probs!!

I have CS3 - can someone please advise how I can smooth the skin - and overall make this pic look better?

Thanks for your help

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I'm not at home so I don't have access to my tablet for real editing, so I ran this through Noiseware and came up with this....


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If I were to edit this in CS3, I might try to use blur or smudge on the belly and legs...nice picture btw!!

Don't know if this helps or not. Just a few minutes with the Clone Stamp, Patch Tool, and Gaussian Blur filter and I managed in a very sloppy manner to smooth the skin a bit on the belly and leg, but obviously more needs to be done. How much more, or less, is a matter of preference I suppose. I also played with curves a bit in an effort to sqeeze as much detail out of the scarf as I could, but the histogram shows a lot of blown highlights, so there might not be much more you can do in that regard. Pity, because it appears there is some nice texture in it that would read well in B&W

I'm not a portrait photographer--I don't even own a flash--so obviously I don't have much experience with skin softening/smoothing, but I'm pretty sure my methods are sound. I've used them in the past on family photos and what not...you know, covering up my nephew's acne, that kind of thing, so I know they work. Anyway, it's a place to start.

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Try using the "Smart Blur" or "Surface Blur" filters, starting with a radius of 1 or 2 pixels and a threshold of about 8. Command/Control-J to duplicate the original image on a new layer, do the blur operations, tweak to taste. Next, create another duplicate of the original, put it above the blurred layer and sharpen it to taste. Create a mask for this layer, show none (i.e., the mask is all black). Take a soft brush with the foreground color set to white and paint on the mask for the sharpened layer to paint in areas that can hold sharpening - the hands, the lace pattern of the underwear, edges, etc. Flatten the image and do a curves to get the contrast you want. It is all a matter of how much detail you want to smooth and how much you want to retain. By splitting the smoothed and sharpened details onto two different layers you can play with painting in detail and the opacity of the detail, etc.

Good luck!

Kirk

In this edit I did the following:

1. Create a new layer background.
2. Top menu bar -> Filter -> Noise -> Dust and Scratches- set to Radius of 3.
3. Top Menu bar ->Filter ->Blur ->Gaussian Blur- set to a radius of 2.0
4. Top menu bar -> Layer -> Layer Mask -> Hide All. Select white from your pallet and paint the areas you want to smooth. You can adjust the opacity of your brush for more or less smoothing. You can also adjust the opacity of the layer to get your final results before flattening layers and saving.

Walkingmanblues wrote in post #5865097
I also played with curves a bit in an effort to sqeeze as much detail out of the scarf as I could, but the histogram shows a lot of blown highlights, so there might not be much more you can do in that regard. Pity, because it appears there is some nice texture in it that would read well in B&W

I'm not a portrait photographer--I don't even own a flash--so obviously I don't have much experience with skin softening/smoothing, but I'm pretty sure my methods are sound. I've used them in the past on family photos and what not...you know, covering up my nephew's acne, that kind of thing, so I know they work. Anyway, it's a place to start.

On the original it has no blown highlights - I actually lightened the pic a bit to get a lighter look on the belly as it was very dark. I dont own a flash either - had to do with natural light coming through a window with a big piece of creamy coloured malerial hanging over it to soften it!

Thanks for all the help - really appreciate it - I have CS3 but no clues as how to use t!