Retouching Portraits: Skin Softening with Texture

Skin Softening with Texture

                                      Before                                                AFter

Step One:

Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to duplicate the Background layer.

Step Two:

Photoshop Menu: Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur

Move slider until skin smooths out, and different skin tones start to go away.
Don’t click OK.
Just remember the number you stopped at, (9 ?)
Click the Cancel button.

Step Three:

Photoshop Menu: Filter Other > High Pass.
Enter that number you memorized from the Gaussian Blur dialog (9 ?)
click OK.

Step Four:

Reopen the Gaussian Blur filter
Add (1/3) of the amount you entered in the High Pass filter in the previous step.
In this case, 33% of 9 is 3
Click OK.

Step Five:

Invert this High Pass layer
Photoshop Menu: Image > Adjustments > Invert
Or press Command-I. (Mac)
Control-I (PC)

Step Six:

In Layers panel change the blend mode from Normal to Linear Light

Step Seven:

Lower the Opacity of this layer to 50%

Step Eight:

Step Nine:

Press D to set your Foreground color to white
Press B to get the Brush tool
in the Options Bar, choose a medium-sized, soft-edged brush and set the Opacity to 100%.
paint just the skin areas avoiding all the detail areas like the eyebrows, eyes, hair, nostrils, lips, teeth, and the edges of the face.

Step Ten:

Check and see if you missed any areas
In the Layers panel, press-and-hold the Option/Alt key and click directly on the layer mask thumbnail
Brush and paint in white right on the mask over any spots you missed.
When done Option-click on that layer mask thumbnail again to return to the normal image.
Look at the before and after.

Thanks to Scott Kelby