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If you're like me, you take a ton of portraits as part of your photography repertoire. Whether you're working with models in a high fashion shoot or everyday clients looking for a simple headshot, everyone wants to look their best in the final image. Even if you happen to capture a great photo in camera, there may be some additional edits required to ensure you deliver the best possible image. Smoothing skin tones can help reduce some of the harsh, unpleasant changes in skin tones that can occur. I regularly rely on 3 specific techniques that I believe produce the best results, taking into account my photography situation and goals for the shoot. I'll take you through all 3 techniques step-by-step. Before you incorporate any of these skin smoothing processes, you'll first want to perform any major edits to the photo that involve color temperature, major blemish removal (spot healing, healing brush, patch tool), or contrast and exposure adjustments. This will help ensure that your skin smoothing effort will produce the best possible results, regardless of the chosen technique. Let's get started!

Frequency Separation

How to: - Create a new merged layer using Control + Shift + Alt + E or Command + Shift + Option + E - Name the new merge layer "color" - Make a copy of the new merged layer and name it "detail" - Hide the "detail" layer for now by clicking the small eye icon next to the layer - Select the "color" layer and add a Gaussian Blur filter (Filter-> Blur -> Gaussian Blur) - Starting at 0, increase the level of Gaussian Blur to a point where you see very little details. - Once you have a rating with very little details, click OK - Re-enable the "detail" layer by clicking on the small eye icon next to the layer

- With the "detail" layer selected, go to Image -> Apply Image - In the Apply Image popup, select "color" in the Layer drop down - In the Blending drop down, select Subtract - Set Scale to 2 - Set Offset to 128 - Click OK - With the "detail" layer selected, change the blend mode to Linear Light - Hide the "detail" layer again to work on the "color" layer

- With the "color" layer selected, right click on the brush icon and select Mixer Brush Tool - IMPORTANT: Set the following values for the mixer brush settings in the top menu - Wet: 5%, Load: 75%, Mix: 90%, Flow: 15%

- With a soft brush (Hardness 0%), use small, controlled strokes to paint across areas of similar color tone on the skin. Make the brush size smaller, if needed. - DO NOT paint broad strokes over the whole face or the results will look terrible. - The goal is to soften the transition between color tones, thus smoother looking skin. - Avoid the eyes, lips, nostrils, and any laugh lines around the mouth. Smoothing these areas will look very unrealistic. - Optionally, apply the same technique to the neck, chest, arms, legs, or any other exposed skin. - Re-enable the detail layer and voila!

Pros: - Retains nice detail - Retains accurate color tones of the skin - Good when you want to retain unique characteristics of the face, like freckles or beauty marks Cons: - Time consuming and tedious - Skin does not appear as smooth as High Pass Filter with Gaussian Blur or Neural Filters

High Pass Filter With Gaussian Blur

How to: - Create a new merged layer using Control + Shift + Alt + E or Command + Shift + Option + E - Label the new layer "skin smoothing" - Select the new "skin smoothing" layer and add a Gaussian Blur filter (Filter-> Blur -> Gaussian Blur) - Starting at 0, increase the radius of Gaussian Blur to a point where you see very little details in the face. This could be a very high number and that's not unusual. - This is just a test of the Gaussian Blur radius. Do not apply the Gaussian Blur, but make note of the final radius. Ideally, this number should be divisible by 3, but that's not a hard requirement. - Once the radius is noted, click Cancel

- Staying on the "skin smoothing" layer, add a High Pass filter (Filter-> Other-> High Pass...) - Enter the rating number captured for Gaussian Blur in the previous step. If 30 was the radius for Gaussian Blur, enter 30 for the radius of the High Pass filter - Click OK to apply the High Pass filter

- Staying on the "skin smoothing" layer, add a Gaussian Blur filter (Filter-> Blur -> Gaussian Blur) - For the radius, take the value of the radius entered for the High Pass filter and divide the number by 3. If 30 was the radius for the High Pass filter, enter 10 for the radius of the Gaussian Blur. Round the value to the nearest whole number, if needed. - Click OK to apply the Gaussian Blur - Invert the image using ctrl + i or command + i - Change the blending mode of the "skin smoothing" layer to Linear Light - Add a black mask layer to the "skin smoothing" layer, by holding alt and clicking the new mask layer icon - Select the brush tool and set the color to pure white - Using a soft edge on the brush (Hardness 0%), paint over the portions of the skin that requiring smoothing. This could be the face, neck, arms, or any exposed skin. - Switch the brush color to black and paint over the areas that need to retain details, such as the eyes, lips, nostrils, ears, clothing, hair, etc. - If the effect is too much, reduce the opacity of the "skin smoothing" layer to a level that is more realistic

Pros: - Faster and easier than frequency separation - Skin tones are very smooth - Good for cases where details are less important, no freckles, wrinkles, etc. Cons: - Details in the skin are minimized or eliminated completely - May not look realistic in certain lighting situations or if the layer opacity is too high

Neural Filters

How to: - Create a new merged layer using Control + Shift + Alt + E or Command + Shift + Option + E - Label the new layer "skin smoothing base" - With the "skin smoothing base" layer selected, add a Neural Filter (Filter-> Neural Filter) - Select Skin Smoother from the Neural Filter menu - Photoshop will automatically select the face area of the image. If more than one face is in the image, select the face for smoothing - Set the value for Blur to the desired level - Set the value for Smoothness to the desire level - For Output, select New Layer - Click OK - Label the new layer "neural filter" - Add a white mask to the neural filter layer - Select the brush tool and set the color to pure black - Using a soft edge on the brush (Hardness 0%), paint over the areas that need to retain details, such as the eyes, lips, nostrils, ears, hair, etc. - If the effect is too much, reduce the opacity of the "neural filter" layer to a level that is more realistic

Pros: - Faster and easier than both Frequency Separation and High Pass with Gaussian Blur - Skin tones are very smooth - Good for cases where details are less important, no freckles, wrinkles, etc. Cons: - Details in the skin are minimized - May not look realistic in certain lighting situations or if the layer opacity is too high - Only works on the face

Which Skin Smoothing Technique Should You Use

As with everything in photography, it depends. Each of these techniques is effective. I've used them all at various times in my career. Selecting the right technique is about weighing the pros and cons against the specific photo you're working with. Here are a few things to consider that may help you decide: - Timing - if you're in a hurry to deliver the final images, frequency separation may not be the way to go. - Zoom / Crop - if you're zoomed tightly onto the face, it may be important to reserve as much detail as possible so that your photo maintains a realistic look - Genre - if you're shooting specifically for glamour or beauty, neural filters and high pass with gaussian blur can efficiently smooth skin tones in a way fits the concept - Subject - subject matter plays an important role here. if i'm shooting a professional headshot, my subject may want to look more realistic, without too much smoothing. One final thought on smoothing skin tones. Call it a "pro tip". Restraint might the most important tool in your editing process. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you have to, or that you have to do it to an extreme. Use these techniques in a manner that gets you the best quality images. Remember that you're shooting human beings, not porcelain dolls. If you think you have the right level of smoothing, maybe reduce the opacity by another 5% just to be sure. In fact, there's nothing wrong with skipping these techniques altogether. Let your photographer's intuition guide your editing to create the best quality images, no matter how many or how few editing techniques you decide to utilize. I hope you found these techniques useful.