Adobe Tutorial

Written By Steve Patterson

Heres the photo Ill be using in this tutorial:


And heres how it will look with the soft focus effect applied:


Lets get started!

Step 1: Duplicate The Background Layer

With our image newly opened in Photoshop, we can see in the Layers palette that we currently have one layer named Background. This layer contains our original image:


We need to make a copy of the Background layer. Theres a few different ways to make a copy of a layer in Photoshop, but by far the fastest and easiest way is to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac). Photoshop creates a copy of the Background layer for us, names it "Layer 1", and places it directly above the original Background layer in the Layers palette:


Step 2: Apply The Gaussian Blur Filter To The New Layer

To create the soft focus effect, we need to blur the new layer. For that, we can use one of the most popular filters in all of Photoshop, Gaussian Blur. Make sure you have "Layer 1" selected in the Layers palette (selected layers are highlighted in blue), then go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, choose Blur, and then choose Gaussian Blur:


This brings up the Gaussian Blur dialog box. To control the amount of blurring thats applied to the layer, drag the Radius slider at the bottom of the dialog box while keeping an eye on your image in the document window. Dragging the Radius slider to the right will increase the amount of blurring, and dragging to the left decreases the amount of blurring. What youre trying to do here is blur the entire photo without blurring it to the point where you can no longer make anything out in the image. Im going to set my Radius value to around 12 pixels, which works well for the image Im using. Of course, each image is unique, and the Radius value you end up using may be different:


Click OK when youre done to apply the blurring to the layer and exit out of the Gaussian Blur dialog box. Heres my image after applying the Gaussian Blur filter:


Step 3: Lower The Opacity Of The Blurred Layer

At the moment, the blurring is much too intense. Instead of a soft focus effect, weve recreated how the world might look to someone who needs glasses. We need to reduce the amount of blurring and bring back some of the original image. To do that, all we need to do is lower the opacity value of the blurred layer. Youll find the Opacity option in the top right corner of the Layers palette. With "Layer 1" still selected, lower the opacity value of the layer down to somewhere between 50-60%. Im going to lower mine to 50%:


The blurring is now more subtle:


Step 4: Add A Layer Mask

At this point, the basic soft focus effect is complete, but lets fine-tune things by bringing back a little more of the original detail to certain parts of the photo, specifically the two peoples faces and the flower bouquet. Photoshop makes this easy to do thanks to layer masks.

First, lets add a layer mask. With "Layer 1" still selected, click on the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:


Nothing will appear to have happened yet in the document window, but a layer mask thumbnail has now been added to "Layer 1" in the Layers palette:


Step 5: Select The Brush Tool

Select Photoshops Brush Tool from the Tools palette, or simply press the letter B to access it with the keyboard shortcut:


Step 6: Lower The Opacity Of The Brush To Around 25%

Were going to paint with black on the layer mask to reduce the amount of blurring in certain areas, but we dont want to remove the blurring completely. We just want to reduce it, which means well need to lower the opacity of our brush. With the Brush Tool selected, the Options Bar at the top of the screen changes to show options specifically for the Brush Tool. One of those options is Opacity, similar to the opacity option we just looked at in the Layers palette except that in this case, were affecting the brush opacity, not the layer opacity. Lower the brush opacity down to around 25%:


Step 7: Set Your Foreground Color To Black

We want to paint with black, which means we need to set our Foreground color to black. By default, whenever you have a layer mask selected, Photoshop sets the Foreground color to white, with black as the Background color. To swap them so black becomes the Foreground color, simply press the letter X on your keyboard. If we look at the Foreground and Background color swatches near the bottom of the Tools palette now, we can see that black is the Foreground color (the top left swatch):


Step 8: Paint Over The Areas Where You Want To Bring Back More Detail

With the Brush Tool selected, black as the Foreground color, and the brush opacity lowered to 25% or so, simply paint over any areas where you want to bring back more of the original image detail. You can change the size of your brush using the left and right bracket keys on your keyboard, which are located to the right of the letter P. The left bracket key makes the brush smaller, while the right bracket key makes it larger. Youll want to use a soft-edge brush, and you can control the edge hardness of the brush by holding down the Shift key and pressing the left and right bracket keys. Press Shift+left bracket a few times to make the edges softer, or Shift+right bracket a few times to make the edges harder.

Im going to paint over the bride and grooms faces with my brush to bring back some detail. If, after painting over an area once, you find you could still bring back a bit more detail, simply release the mouse button, then click and paint over the same area again. Youll need to make sure you release your mouse button before you paint over the same area again, otherwise it wont work:


Ill paint a couple of times over the flower bouquet as well to bring back some detail, and Ill leave the rest of the image alone so that only the most important areas of the photo are in focus. Or at least, theyre more in focus than anything else. If we look at the layer mask thumbnail again in the Layers palette, we can see the areas where I painted with black:


And with that, were done! Here is my final "soft focus" effect result:

By Dirk Metzmacher

You might have asked yourself now and then „How do I make a soft skin without destroying the pores?“. In this workshop I’ll show you how this kind of touch-up works, and how you can conserve the pores. This goes from basic retouch up to powdering the skin.


Basic retouch
Before we start softening the skin, you should perform a so-called basic retouch. This means that zits, moles and other blemishes are removed. How much you want to weaken things depends entirely on your personal taste, of course.

Before we start softening the skin, you should perform a so-called basic retouch. This means that zits, moles and other blemishes are removed. How much you want to weaken things depends entirely on your personal taste, of course.

Contrary to the Clone Stamp tool which transfers areas exactly as in the original, the Healing Brush tool works by cross-calculating brightness values and thus removing blemishes very cleanly, adapted to the surrounding area.

Skin powdering
Now we get around to doing the so-called skin “powdering”. Duplicate the layer with Layer > Duplicate Layers or Ctrl+J and give the new layer a Vivid Light blending mode.


Press Ctrl+I or use Image > Adjustments > Invert to invert the current layer. Whatever you may see on the screen now: Don’t get confused by that, we’re still on the right track even though it might look a bit funny.

Apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with a radius of about one pixel. Here you should choose a radius just small enough so you can barely see the pores anymore.

Next, use the High Pass filter which you can find under Filter > Other. With this one it’s a matter of taste how strongly you apply it. I usually keep the radius between 20 and 40 pixels.

This change should not be applied everywhere. Select Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All to create a black mask that hides all layer content for now.

Tip: You can also create a black mask by clicking on the Add Layer Mask button in the layer palette and holding the Alt key.


Now use a white foreground color to paint the changes back into the image, but only on the skin. Don’t start off with an opacity of 100%, but experiment a little with the strength instead. You’ll see how the skin becomes noticeably softer and the pores are kept intact.

Tip: If you select Filter > Convert for Smart Filters right after inverting the image, you can do all this retouching in a completely non-destructive way.

In this tutorial I will showyou an old technique done in the digital age with much more precision and control. We will look at two techniques used in fasion retouching for a face and you will see on my example how each one looks. So lets get started!



Im going to use an image I shot recently of Stasha. In case you are interested - this was shot with two flashes bounced off nearby walls and a soft gold reflector which you can see in the background. It was done for a group photography exhibition which opened recently in Slovenia.



Duplicate the existing layer (Ctrl+J) and go to filter/blur/gaussian blur. Dont copy the settings I have but try to mimic the relative effect (amount of blur) I got. Since the radius number relies on how big the image is you cant really use it as a always-works setting. Hit OK.



The next step is to set the opacity value to 50%. You can go lower (I usually go as low as 20%) but to make the effect apparent I am going to use this value. Leave the blending mode to normal at this point or try soft light.



Soft focusing makes the eyes lack detail and this might be a problem for a lot of photographers using film. With digital we can get over this problem by selectively masking out areas we want to attract more attention. In my case this was the lips and both eyes. I created a show-all layer mask and with a big soft brush clicked on the parts where I wanted focus to have a bit less effect.



This image has the same blur layer but this time the blending mode is set to screen and the layer mask is turned off (if it wasnt it would create a skull-like effect with dark outlines around the eyes). Personally I like this effect the most so Im keeping it.



To add some extra spark to the image I have added a curves adjustment layer to brighten up her eyes a bit. And thats it, this concludes the fashion retouching tutorial, I hope you had a nice time. If you have any comments about it I would like to hear them either here as comments. Have a nice one!