2 Ways to Get High-End Skin Softening in Photoshop

High-End Skin Softening in Photoshop

Today we’re going to look at 2 ways to get high-end skin softening in Photoshop. Both methods are not complicated and will save you time. We’ll use photoshops Neural Filters for the easiest and quickest way, then we’ll use the Median and High-Pass Filters for a more flexible method. Skin Softening in Photoshop is very easy with these methods.

Today we’re going to look at two ways to get high in skin-softening in Photoshop. Both methods are not complicated, and they’ll save you a lot of time. We’ll use Photoshop neural filters for the quickest and easiest way first. Then we’ll use the median and high pass filters for a more flexible method. When you start off with a quick and easy way, first we’re going to use something that’s fairly new to Photoshop.

High-End Skin Softening using Photoshops Neural Filter

It’s called neural filters. I’m going to duplicate my layer and come up here to filter neural filters. Now, if you haven’t used neural filters before in Photoshop, I highly suggest that you take a look at them and see what you like. I have a link in a description on neural filters and you can check that out. So we’re going to select something up here called skin smoothing.

And notice that the model here has a square that is around her face. Photoshop Neural Filter Skin Smoothing is looking for a face. I selected skin smoothing and I’m going to click here on this button and we already have some skin smoothing. If you come down here and click it says show original, you can do before and after And you can see it’s already done a fairly good job.

But if you want more smoothing, depending on the complexion you’re working on, you can increase your blur and smoothness all the way up. And then come down to the output box down here and select the current layer and say, OK. At this point, you can look at the subject’s face, and if you need more skin smoothing, you can come up to filter in the very top menu item that says neural filters.

And that’s the last thing you did in Photoshop. The neural filters. So you can apply the fact again just by selecting this top menu item or using the shortcut. So if I selected it again, it applied more skin smoothing, but we don’t need that much. I just wanted to show you what it does. So I’m going to hit Command Z, so you may not want to apply this to all the skin areas. So what you can do, you can add a black layer mask, come down to the bottom layer panel, hit alt or option, and add a layer mask.

Now you can get your brush tool, “B” for the brush tool. I usually paint with opacity 100 and I have a low flow. I’m going to say 3%. I’m going to make sure that my hardness is all the way to zero. So I’m using a soft round brush. I’ll make my brush a little bit bigger with my right bracket.

I’ll hit D and that will make sure that I am painting with my foreground color of white, my layer mask selected. I’m zoomed in here a little bit. And so I can paint in just select areas where I think it needs softening. So that way you don’t overapply it. All that softening that we have here available to us at once you can take your time and just apply the softening where you want.

And this method is quick. And it is really good if you’re just trying to apply a softening to the face only. Remember in this case, Photoshop just recognizes the face. You have control of applying as much smoothness as you want. So this way it still looks natural. It’s not overdone. So there’s the before and there’s the after. Photoshop did a pretty good job of applying that filter.

It hasn’t taken away a lot of highlights or shadows, and if you want, you can go further. A good thing to do at this point is you might want to add a curves adjustment and do dodge and burn. I’ll add one curves adjustment. Make it very light, invert the layer mask. Call this dodge. And then I’ll create another curves adjustment layer.

Make this very dark. Invert the layer mask call this burn. And so then you can use your brush tool. Make sure that you’re painting with white. Hit “D” then “X” so that the foreground color is white, whichever you want to start would say. I like the burn layer mask and you can paint in more shadow here on the cheek or any of the darker areas using a low flow.

You could see that already. And you can do the same thing. Dodge paint with white. Maybe in some of the highlight areas, you want to enhance. I’m painting a very low flow and I can group these two layers together, holding shift and clicking on each of the layers, saying command+G to group that call my group D&B.

And of course, if I think I’ve gone too far with both of those, I can lower the opacity a little bit on the group. If I think I’ve added too much softening, I can lower the opacity there just to keep it all realistic and natural-looking and not overdone. So that’s the first method of skin-softening using these skin-softening neural filters and dodge and burn. Here is the before and here is the after.

Use Median and High-Pass Filters to get High-End Skin Softening

The second method that is more flexible has a few steps that we need to go through to set it up. So first we’re going to duplicate the background layer twice. In this top layer, we’re going to name it details and the first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to desaturate that layer.

So it’s command+ shift+U or control+shift+U. And we’re going to right-click on that layer and convert it to a smart object. I’m going to click on the layer below it and call it color. And we’re going to convert that to a smart object also. I’m going to turn off the detail layer and select a color layer, and we’re going to apply a filter.

So I’m going to come up to filter noise median. Now, these filters that we’re applying are the areas that are going to be flexible. We’re going to be able to go back to these filters and change them to help us get the amount of smoothing that we want. I’m going to zoom in here a little bit. Click on the skin and I’m going to increase the radius until I see a good amount of the blemishes gone.

I’m going to say, oh, 25, 26 right there and say, OK. Now, remember, we’re going to be able to go back to these filters and change the values. So now I’m going to make the details layer visible and select it and come up here to filter other high pass. I’m going to bring that all the way down to zero and bring up the radius maybe to 2.5.

Just so I start to see detail and say OK. Now I’m going to change the blend mode of the details, layer two, linear light. Now I’m going to select both of my detail, my color layers, hit command+G put them in a group. And with that group selected, I’m going to make a black layer mask. Hit, alt or option and hit the add layer mask and now just like the other method, we’re going to paint in our skin softening.

So select your brush tool or hit be for the brush tool. My opacity is at 100 my flow’s 3% and I have a soft round brush and with my group layer mask selected, I am painting in the areas where I want the skin softening and you can see that I have my skin texture, but I’m smoothing and the softening effect is not overly done.

I can paint in any of the areas where I want to apply the softening. So I’m going to go through the image and apply it where I feel I want. I have a low flow. I’m really applying it on most of the image I’m building it up slowly so that it doesn’t look overly done. And with this method too, I can paint different areas of the body and get some of that skin softening.

The skin texture is still there. On that group, I can lower my opacity a little bit, and just like the other methods, I’m going to use Dodge and Burn. I’m going to create two curves adjustment layers, one for dodging, bringing up my curves very bright. Select the layer mask and invert it, command+I. This would be my dodge. Create another curves adjustment layer. Make this dark, invert the Layer Mask Command+I.

My burn and I like to group them together, hold shift and select each of the layers, then hit command+G. Now I can select say my dodge layer mask, and make sure I’m painting with a white foreground. My flow is low and I can just paint in a few highlights there. Not too much you see that. I just add a few highlights and as a suggestion, you can add a black and white adjustment layer on top of everything and decrease the reds and the yellows.

So this will put some contrast in the image so that you can see where you want to dodge and burn a little bit better. And this way, you can see any of your highlights a lot easier wherever they fall on your subject, and you can work like this and add your highlights and you can add your dodge and burn that way.

And then when you’re done, you just turn off your black and white adjustment layer. So that’s just a little tip while you’re dodging and burning. Here is the before and here is the after. In my Dodge and Burn group here is called D&B, and I can also change the opacity on that so I can control that way.

I come down here to my group where I have my smoothing on my details and click on this arrow over here and I could see my high-pass smart filter. I can click on that, I can adjust my radius if I need to on my color layer, click on this arrow here’s my median. I can also adjust my radius.

So this method has a lot more flexibility and you have a lot more control over your details. And your dodge and burn. With this method, you can also add some smoothing to other areas of the body. So here is the before and here’s the after you want more in-depth tutorials on skin retouching? Click on the playlist on the screen now.

Read the previous blog article here ➡️. How to Use Photoshop Photographic Toning Gradient Presets for Amazing Skin Tones

See my photography website here ➡️ https://www.charlescabreraphotography.com