How to get this effect?

[muanylah]

My niece wants me to photoshop a picture of her, but she's dead set on me making it like this. However, I have no idea how to achieve it. Can someone tell me how to get the skin this smooth and glowy?

Yes, I know it's not realistic looking, but she doesn't want it like that.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[ibclare]

I would think there is a gaussian blur involved. Possibly HDR techniques are applied. I have a method which might get you something similar but is likely not what was used for this, although there is a similarity to HDR in the steps I created, combining a suggestion from the forum and my additions.

Would you post your picture? If you will permit me, I'll try a couple things then post the pic with an explanation.

 

[muanylah]

This is the picture.

 

[ibclare]

I gave it a go and didn't do anything like I planned to do. But here is what I came up with. I may have brightened up the face too much, easy to fix. What do you think?



Here's another version; this one with a cooling filter (makes it less yellow, more blue)



Take into consideration that the example image you provided is a different kind of image, different skin quality, better exposure, and so on. You may be interested in looking at plugins that are made for changing skin tones.

Here is a site with some actions to look at:
http://www.thephotoargus.com/freebies/100-outstanding-photoshop-actions-to-enhance-your-photography/

 

[Dataflow]

something like this?

 

[AbdulW87]

here is my try

 

[ibclare]

No work yet this afternoon, so I had one more idea on this, lol. I made one more where I darkened it overall to give her a little more dimension, then I added a soft light layer for white highlights and adding in a bit of skin tone color.

I've made a composite to compare the 3.



BTW, Abdul and Dataflow, it looks to me like your eyes and maybe a few other things need sharpening. I do this by sharpening the layer, then making the layer a smart object, adding the blur, then painting out the parts I want to stay sharpened. Just a tip if you haven't already tried it.

 

[Hoogle]

truth be told I highly houbt you will get that effect on your image unless you find someone willing to put a lot of time into it and repaint your picture over the top of yours. The key factor to this effect is nice even lighting so you dont get highlights and shadows.

but here is a quick variation on everyone elses.

 

[ibclare]

Laid a filtered image on overlay or soft light on top? Maybe more than one overlay? I like the contrast, deep face color and bright highlight.

 

[Hoogle]

Close about 20 layer of painting over it and varying adjustment layers especially color balance curves and contrast merged down duplicated then playing with blending modes at this point I realised I made some mistakes so gave up

 

[muanylah]

I didn't like how yellow she kept coming out, so I tried something new with this picture.


And I ended up with something like this. (I was playing around with actions also)


I got a little bit closer, but I don't know. I think I need to adjust the radius I use on the surface blur.

 

[Hoogle]

That would have been the better picture to upload to begin with

I like the walking dead zombie look though I hope she sees the funny side to it for your sake lol. Good job

 

[Hoogle]

see this took 20 seconds to do as it was even lighting and no blown highlights and probably could achieve a lot better results if I spent more time added more of a wax texture and color corrected some more.

 

[cyclone2426]

Here's my take on it.....

 

[mattattack347]

This is what i got.
View attachment 19060
I did this mainly for a "learning exp" so I only did about 10-15 layers.
of paint.
And was indeed very hard.
But, i doubt other people would put half that effort without some cash.
Hope, it is good for ya.
To remove watermark type "I LIKE COOKIES."

 

[muanylah]

That would have been the better picture to upload to begin with

I like the walking dead zombie look though I hope she sees the funny side to it for your sake lol. Good job

I didn't have that picture in the first place to upload, I had to search for it. Took forever.

I don't think she see's the funny side, but I certainly do. lol

 

[muanylah]

I don't know what paint thing you're talking about, but I just played around with Surface blur. I was always trying to use the Gaussian blur, but it never came close to what Surface blur did.

 

[Paul]

Two images of the same, top layer you paint out the highlighted parts with a smudge brush and blend to the desired level.
On a new empty layer apply white paint over blurred portions and blur to your desired level, change to any of the settings you wish.

 

[Dataflow]

try "Reduce Noise" filter with all the setting except the strength at zero instead of using the blur filters

 

[ibclare]

Well, days later I know. But I pulled this psd up for a different reason and thought I'd try a cpl more things. One, hoogle played with filters so I decided to try a plastic wrap filter at soft settings; first made the layer a smart object, brushed on the plastic wrap mask to move it from the background and clothes, then set the blend mode to soft light. This darkened the BG too much so I did a levels adjustment layer and brightened it. Then I brushed on that mask to darken the face and the clothes back up and a touch here and there. Finally, I copy merged all the layers and used the smudge tool at 5%. I had been a bit afraid to use it before but it worked nicely as Paul showed to give more of that waxy glow. Oh and by this time, the eyes had turned brown, so I copied and pasted the originals and sharpened them up.



BTW Muanylah, if you do like this effect, even part of it, let me know and I can give you the steps I used, including how I would improve them if I did it again.