The glamorous, blemishless look

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beatspinazz

New member
hey. could someone help me out on this. how do you go about achieving that smooth sort of almost artificial look on people's faces.

kind of things are blurred out slightly yet appear to be in focus especially the eyes are sharp?

will appreciate any info
 
Start with some airbrush makeup.

Follow up with some extremely soft lighting.

And finish off with Joey Lawrence's Photoshop Techniques DVD.
 
It's called soft focus.

Import a file into your time line. Then import the same file and put it on top of the first file on your time line. At this point you should have two of the same exact clip one right above each other. Then use Gaussian Blur on the top clip I'd blur it to about a radius of 7 or 8. Then take the same clip with the Gaussian Blur on it, and lower the Opacity to like 55% or so. Render.

And there you have it. A quick and easy soft focus effect. Hope this makes sense.
 
There are better ways to do that!

Soft focus in post is usually a horrible idea unless carefully controlled with lots of advanced settings. This is because reducing sharpness via a blur... blurs 'everything' evenly... although lowering opacity on a dual layer clip does soften the blow. So the previous recommendation is better then simply blurring. There are filters used on camera in conjunction with camera techniques that can better hold the sharpness of the overall image but reduce the smaller imperfections.

Try this:
1) Diffusion filters in camera. These filters don't diffuse light evenly. They diffuse the greater exposed areas the most. Hence the darker edges and parts of an image don't go 'soft' as much as the 'brighter'... thus since the actresses skin tone will be greater then the lips, eyes, and most likely hair, the skin will have that diffused glow and sharpness is lost at greater amounts where you want it and not all over.
2) Soft FRONTAL light. As mentioned before, soft light is great... but side softlight is still going to show imperfections. The best way to hide wrinkles and other 'imperfections' is to light from just on axis with the camera. This will fill in the imperfections and not cause the recessed shadows of off axis lighting such as side lighting.
3) In conjunction with point #1... over expose the face a little more then you normally would. This will cause the diffusion filter to strengthen on the skin tones, thus creating the 'glow' I think you are referencing.

Then you can do post tricks. I find since the filters in camera are bias toward light and dark values, the sharpness of an image can be better retained while the bright skin tones will diffuse and become 'soft' of blemish and wrinkles. This can be done in post, but I figure you would have to selectively create rotoscoped 'power windows' to better preserve the sharpness of the eyes and rest of the scene while trying to blur the face. I guess this only works for fair skinned Caucasians.... don't know what they use on Oprah! I'd like to know!
 
Can someone upload a specific still because I completely interested but have no clue what anyone is talking about.
 
When I first started using HD, most everyone I knew shot "clean", with no filters aside from Polas, NDs and grads (NDs, sky effects) for fear of doing irreversible harm to the image.

As HD quality has improved, photographers have begun to introduce more cinematographic filters in their work. Nowadays, I commonly use Black Pro Mist and Classic Softs - usually 1/8; 1/4; 1/2 increments (never successfully used a full) to reduce facial lines, blemishes and pore detail.

The BPMs bring your sharpness down, while the black controls the loss of contrast a bit. It is hard to find examples of these, but suffice it to say that a 1/8 and 1/4 BPM is very subtle compared to the 1, 2 and 3 value versions you might find grabs of online.

The Classic Soft filters won't give you too much bloom in your highlights if you stay below 1/2 CS.

These filters are worth the investment - I'd recommend them after a good set that includes a Schneider POLA; ND 3/6/9; Grad ND6 or ND9.

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