A popular question is, "How do I soften skin features like blemishes, freckles, and wrinkles?"

The steps for softening skin are few. The trick is not to get too carried away with the technique. Taken to an extreme, portraits can look unnatural. Skin can take on a plastic-like appearance.

Here's a 100% crop of a picture of my wife from Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. She liked the backdrop. She did not like the baggy eyes (a retouching subject for another Tip of the Week) or the details on her skin: pores, freckles, etc.

Rather than removing such features completely, I typically aim at reducing them. I usually find this gives a more natural appearance to the retouch.

The first step is to copy the Background layer and work on a copy. Pressing ctl/command-j is the keyboard shortcut. I usually rename the layer to something like "Skin Softening" so I can remember later what I did.

The next step is to apply the Photoshop Dust & Scratches Filter. You can find it under the Filter | Noise... menu item. Start by setting the Threshold to 0 and Radius to 1. Increase Radius until the skin features soften. Then to restore grain and other features, increase the Threshold settings. I found a Radius of 3 reduced the skin blemishes and aThreshold of 6 retained enough grain to look realistic.

The immediate result will be applied to the entire image. This is very likely not what you want. Detail will get lost in the eyelashes, hair, etc. Even the sparkle in the eyes and glints on the teeth disappear.

We need to add a Conceal All layer mask. Press the alt/option key while clicking on the Add Layer MAsk icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. This will add a layer mask filled with black.

Now, grab the brush tool and a soft edge brush. Set the foreground color to white and opacity to 100%. Begin painting in where you want the skin softened. I often switch to 75% or 50% for some features, like laugh lines, too keep them from softening too much.

I find it easiest to switch to the Channels palette and click on the channel for the mask. Your image will look like a Quick Mask selection. You can easily see where you want to paint in features this way. Just remember to click the channel off before you go back to the Layers palette.

The result will be softened skin features that give a gentler aspect to your portraits.

I hope you find this tip helpful in your digital photography.

Enjoy!