Best skin retouching methods - What's your opinion?

[Fishyesque]

What in your opinion is the best method for skin retouching? And why? And what I'm thinking of is not like.. plasticish look, but more natural. But still magazine sorta beautiful.. Sorry, I'm a bit confusing.
Thanks
Peter

[saby]

Hi Peter,

I think there are lot of methods to soften skin, to color cast, giving lights you can learn about here, what I allways do, check the orig and retouched expressions it should be the same, and I think totally cleared skin impersonal so I allways save mole and sunspots to keep human like.

saby

[jjjay00]

It also depends on taste. Soft plastic skin can be appropriate for some images, keeping it real i.e. moles/pores etc in tact can also be appropriate - all depends on the image. I've worked with images for 5 years now, even did some work for art retailers who wanted photo retouching - what the retailer thought was good versus what their customer thought was good versus what I thought was good was at times completely different. I always say in retouching you cannot work off a template (one method) and expect the same result on various images. Skin can be tricky and at the same time can be the simplest of touch ups to do. I love the deep softness and hence always use gaussian blurring > dodge and burn > selective colour - and finally (if necessary) spot healing or cloning. I did see a post somewhere in here where someone had attached a wonderful skin enhancement which looked VERY real, so much softer, sipple and clearer than the original yet with the pores completely in tact and visible. I'm still waiting for the person who posted it to reveal his/her secret.

[emilylt87]

somtimes i add a bit of noise back in, but most of the time i use surface blur with a mask on everything but the skin, then i Fade surface blur to about 60%, it keeps it more natural, let me know what you guys think.

[Fishyesque]

Is there a tutorial anywhere that uses surface blur for skin?
Thanks

[DannyRaphael]

Try google search on: photoshop tutorial "surface blur" skin

I found a few links that look promising.

[aaRonology101]

its all about dodge and burn ..

[Revolver]

Originally Posted by aaRonology101

its all about dodge and burn ..

what do you mean by that? I looked at your images and the skin texture is beautiful. . .do you find dodging reduces the appearance of larger pores? what's your technique?