Advanced Skin Softening

This technique that I picked up from Kevin Ames does an amazing job of simulating a Hasselblad Softar #2 filter in that it softens the skin tones, but at the same time, introduces a little bit of soft flare and lowers the contrast of the image. Perfect for fashion photography.

Step One.
Open the photo you want to soften.

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Step Two.
Press Command-J (PC: Control-J) twice to create two duplicates of your Background layer in the Layers palette. Then, hide the top copy (Layer 1 copy) by clicking on the Eye icon next to it in the Layers palette, and then click on the middle layer (Layer ...

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