This is a technique I learned from Chicago-based retoucher David Cuerdon. David uses this technique in fashion and glamour photography to give skin a smooth, silky look, and it's also popular in shots of female seniors (not high school seniorsthe other seniors). Step One©ISTOCKPHOTO/MATEUSZ ZAGORSKI Open the photo to which you want to give the glamour skin-softening effect and duplicate the Background layer by going under the Layer menu, under New, and choosing Layer via Copy (or press Control-J). Step TwoGo under the Filter menu, under Blur, and choose Gaussian Blur. When the dialog appears, enter from 3 to 6 pixels of blur (depending on how soft you want the skin) to put a blur over the entire photo. When it looks good to you, click OK in the dialog. Step ThreeNext, lower the Opacity of this layer by 50%. At this point, the blurring effect is reduced and now the photo has a soft glow to it. In some cases, you may want to leave it at this, with an overall soft, glamorous effect (you sometimes see portraits of people over 60 with this overall softening), so your retouch is complete. If this is too much softening for your subject, go on to the next steps. Step FourWhat really pulls this technique together is selectively bringing back details in some of the facial areas. Press E to switch to the Eraser tool, choose a soft-edged brush from the Brush Picker in the Options Bar, and erase over the facial areas that are supposed to have sharp detail, such as eyebrows, lips, and teeth. What you're doing is erasing the blurriness, and thereby revealing the original features on the Background layer beneath your blurry layer. Step FiveDavid completes his retouch at Step 4, leaving the subject's clothes, hair, etc., with the soft glow. I prefer to switch to a larger, soft-edged Eraser tool and erase over everything else except the skinso I erase over the hair, the clothes, etc., so everything has sharp detail except the skin. This is totally a personal preference, so I recommend trying both and seeing which fits your particular needs. Before After |