Advanced Skin Softening

This technique that I picked up from Kevin Ames does an amazing job of simulating a Hasselblad Softar #2 filter in that it softens the skin tones, but at the same time, introduces a little bit of soft flare and lowers the contrast of the image. Perfect for fashion photography.

Step One.
Open the photo you want to soften.

© BRAND X PICTURES

[View full size image]
Step Two.
Press Command-J (PC: Control-J) twice to create two duplicates of your Background layer in the Layers palette. Then, hide the top copy (Layer 1 copy) by clicking on the Eye icon next to it in the Layers palette, and then click on the middle layer (Layer ...

Get The Photoshop® CS Book for Digital Photographers now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial