Jim-Pops Loc: Granbury, Texas

Ashlie has very porous skin. I wanted to create a soft portrait without over doing it. Open to your opinions.

Looked a bit sharper in photoshop.🤔 I think I had some camera shake.

(Download)

bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

I like this photo. It does lend itself to the soft focus look. In all, I generally don't care for the look, but sometimes, it just works. I do like this image.
Care to expand your method for giving the soft look? I know the things I've tried, and what works for me, but I'm interested in how you achieved your look.

The only real critique, as you mentioned is that upon download, and zooming in, it is much more blurry than it looks in the "thumbnail," but the thumbnail looks pretty sharp, except the lips seem sharper than the eyes.

All in all, I think it is pleasing.

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

I am not impressed with the “soft” portraits.

Jim-Pops Loc: Granbury, Texas

I shot this with a Sigma 85 mm at f/2.8 so I had shallow DOF to start out with. I went into chanels and picked the highest amount of white area. Selected it then back to main photo Copied that part and made a new layer using my selection. I then gaussian blurred the layer, made a mask for the layer and made sure no blur was over eyes or mouth.

Jim-Pops Loc: Granbury, Texas

I understand, I just had a problem with her skin being so porous and felt I had to do something. I have several sharper ones will work on them and see what I can do.
Appreciate your input.
Jim

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

I don’t mean it criticize what you have done. While I understand that portraits can easily be too sharp, the soft look, especially the eyes, is simply not my cup of tea.

Jim-Pops Loc: Granbury, Texas

I agree about the eyes. 👀 I worked on them a bunch to sharpen. I only got them mildly better.

bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

Ever see makeup commercials? Like I said, I don't normally process that way, but sometimes the mood of the photo fits it well.

Not the same genre, but look at https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-615655-1.html

He did mention about the eyes not being what he wanted.

The way I do it (when I feel it's warranted) is to basically make a copy in lightroom. Take one copy and drop down the clarity to a pleasing level, then I open them both in photoshop, put the soft one on the top layer, use a mask and bring back the eyes, mouth, and anything else that "should be sharp"

Alafoto Loc: Montgomery, AL

When using larger f/stops, be sure to focus carefully on the nearest eye to the camera. Back in my wedding photog days with medium format, a piece of white netting sandwiched between two thin sheets of cardboard in a Lindahl compendium shade worked well for softening high key shots, darker netting for lower key shots. Softened complexions without turning the whole scene to mush. Should work with digital as well. One needs to use coarser netting to avoid over softening.

It's a nice shot, though.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Here is my opinion. Her skin looks very soft but there is some texture remaining so not over done. And her lips look great. But her eyes are soft and this is not where you want softness. “The eyes are the portal to the soul.” You want them sharp.

Jim-Pops Loc: Granbury, Texas

Everyone is correct the eyes should have been sharper/focused at least the one closest to the camera. I missed it or I had camera shake. I have some others that are much better but the pose was off to me.🤔

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Soft focus, skin softening, retouching??? Like so many other issues, filters, post-processing, flash usage, and more there is so much opinion, controversy, and argument, here on the forum. Every portrait photographer has their own taste, approach, and style and is certainly entitles to their own methods, likes, and dislikes. Some are impressed with soft ethereal imagery and some may hate it. Others may look at a retouched image and opine that it is too much or too little. For me, as a professional portrait shooter, the decision is easy in that these only folks I need to impress is each individual client. Some lie it soft, some like it razor sharp and many like it in between. It' apr to my job to find out what the client's requirements are, how they want to be portrayed, and, of course, I can suggest my ideas and approaches for them but mostly it is a meeting of the minds before the session and I can then plan my strategies.

There is a difference between original soft-focus photography and various post-processing and retouching methods applied to a sharp image after the fact. Soft focus photography is done with specialized soft-focus lenses or with an ordinary lens, with an appropriate focal length for portraiture, equipped with a high-quality soft filter. As I have explained in my tutorial in this section, the specialized lenses are designed around controlled degrees of various aberrations which yield a wide variety of effects. It results in a kind of "optical retouching" which subdues skin textures, helps reduce the appearance of blemishes. More important it can impart an ethereal, romantic, or fantasy-like look on the image. Some of these lenses, because of their unique aperture/grid designs can produce some very different kinds of "bokeh". A good soft-focus lens does not produce out of focus images- in many cases, it seems like a soft image is superimposed on or offset again a sharp one. Contrast is somewhat reduced by spreading the highlights into the shadows. Usually, the effect is very prominent at wide apertures and diminishes as the lens is stopped down

Filters are yet another issue. Good ones, such as the Zeiss Softer produce an effect akin to the soft-focus lens independently of aperture setting. Softars come in various degrees of softness, are made of an optical plastic with little bubble-like dimples. Another filter, originally called the Rolleisoft filter is made of optical glass with concentric circles seeming etching int the surface. This will produce its maximum effect a wide aperture and again, the effect diminishes as the aperture is stopped down.

Images made with prime soft-focus lenses and high-quality filters can be enlarged without loss of quality.

Poor quality, usually cheap softening filters simply degrade the image and will no stand up to enlargement.

EYES? Don't confuse soft-focus effects with a depth of field issue. If the subject's eyes are relatively too soft, that is not the fault of a good soft focus lens or filter. What happens when the depth of field is shallow and the focus point is not on the eyes. Also, do not confuse edge softening by means of a translucent vignetting device or a soft edge kinda filter with soft-focus effects. It is up to the photograh to confine the effect to the edges of the image an allow the eye to remain sharp. In many of the older model portrait lenses, the focal length and the aperture were such that the eyes were tack-sharp and the subject's ears were entirely out of focus.

RETOUCHING: Manual or electronic retouching has nothing to do with soft-focus optics or techniques. In digital photography, it can be done by various methods. Some simple software programs have an erase or healing tool that can quickly remove blemishes such as acne, scars, moles or other unwanted smaller area of unwanted pigmentation. More experience post-processing operators will use frequency separation, burning, dodging, and manipulation of saturation methods. An allover softening can be added via such tools as an unsharp-mask, lens-blur, and other applications.

Software such as Portrait-Pro offer various "pre-sets" and controllable program for skin softening and general retouching.

Here's the caveat with all of theses post-processing concepts; you gotta know what you are doing and you need to control them. If you don't want plastic-looking skin textures you have to practice and learn to apply the right degree of correction. You need to be aware of facial structure and know what areas to retouch or soften and what to leave alone. For example, if you overdo retouching the lines under eyes you will eliminate the subject's natural eye sockets and perhaps cheekbone structure and create an unnatural likeness. Even the pre-sets in Portrait-Pro are fully adjustable by the operator. Most importantly, you have to acheive good aesthetic control over you lightng and know how to influence skin textures by feathering, lightg quality and ratio control. You can minimize certin wrinkles, circles under eyes and othre issues in your lightng.

So..To create a soft look, you have many tools and controls at your disposal. I start at the camer and with the lighting as to lens choice, filter options, and lighting technique. If f you have a harsh very contrasty, lighting style or ratio you may have difficulty in softening the effect. If however, you use a soft, focus lenses or filters, a sharper lighting, and a bit more contrast may help to preserve contrast in that the soft-focus glass will reduce contrast somewhat.

You can add various softening effects after the fact but the best results are obtained when you approach the session as a planned combination of shooting and post-processing methods.