Sunday, March 20

CoffeeShop Perfect Portrait 3!!!

I am so excited to present to you my newest free retouching action, CoffeeShop Perfect Portrait 3!  This action is a one-stop portrait action and works on all skin tones.   I have spent so much time working on this action and I am really proud of this updated version.  I have improved Perfect Portrait 2's Vivid Color layer, added a Boost layer that is gorgeous on skin, reduced the amount of contrast overall, and made the skin smoothing layer automatic.  If you love Perfect Portrait 2, you are going to love this version even more.

You must have a working knowledge of layer masks if you want to use this action.  If you haven't used layer masks you don't realize what you are missing, so please read my detailed tutorial.  When this action finishes you won't see a drastic change in your image UNTIL you paint on layer masks. 

Action download at the button of this post!


Instructions for using CoffeeShop Perfect Portrait 3 Photoshop and PS Elements Action:


Original image, SOOC (straight out of the camera).  Other than white balance adjustment and major skin issue repairs, you should be able to start this action with no other adjustment.


Start the action.  The action will flatten your image (if it is in layers) and then a levels adjustment panel will pop up.  Adjust the shadows, highlights and midtones using the little sliders under the graph. You can also select Red, Green or Blue from the pull-down menubar to adjust those individual channels if needed.  Levels is a powerful editing tool and if you want some tips and tricks on using it effectively, please read Amanda's tutorial.  I love holding down the alt key when moving the highlight slider to make sure I am not blowing out skin.


Now the fun part.  ♥  Perfect Portrait 3 uses my new amazing method of auto skin smoothing.  I have been wondering if this was possible for some time, so I sat down and googled- and found nothing...  Then I had one of those "ah ha" moments and after a few hours of playing I figured it out on my own. 

Unfortunately my first method worked brilliantly in Photoshop but did not work in PSE, so back to the drawing board.  But as you know I am stubborn and a few more hours later I figured out how to do it.  This auto skin smoothing works really well and in most cases you don't even have to paint on the layer mask at all.  You have to love that improvement. 

When the  Replace Color  panel comes up, simply use the eyedropper tool (it should be selected already) and click on the skin.  The skin should turn bright white (as seen in this image).  However, unless your skin is evenly lit, parts of it might not be selected. 


If you want to select more skin, click on the eyedropper with a "+" by it (seen above) and click on an area of the skin that was not selected (parts of your image that are not white).  Then dial the Fuzziness slider down to remove the selection from other parts of your image. You can also click on the eyedropper with  a "-" by it to remove parts of your image from the selection.  Don't be a perfectionist, you can always add/remove the skin smoothing by painting over the layer mask after the action finishes. 


After the action runs, you should see 15 layers over your background.  We will start from the bottom and work our way up to the top.


Remove red from skin layer: Make sure your brush is in Normal mode (top menubar) before trying to paint in layer masks!  Click to select the black layer mask, and use a soft white brush at low opacity to brush on parts of the skin that are too red.  You can also adjust the layer opacity if you remove too much red, or paint back over the layer mask with black.


Vivid Color:  Click to select the black layer mask and use a soft white brush to paint over areas you want a pop of color.  Adjust brush and layer opacity to taste.


Boost: Adjust Boost layer opacity to taste (it is preset to 15%) and use the layer mask if necessary.  If you are working with a portrait with darker skin, try changing the blending mode from Overlay to Multiple for a soft glow.  Otherwise the skin might look too light.


Sharpen:   This layer is turned off, so if you want to sharpen your image click on the little box on the left to turn on the eye (as seen above).  Use the layer mask if necessary and adjust the layer opacity to taste.


Brighten:  Adjust opacity of this layer to taste.


White Teeth:  Click on the black layer mask to select, and paint over teeth with a soft low opacity white brush.  Adjust layer opacity to taste.  Don't make the teeth too white!



Urban Grit: This layer will add a gritty feel to your image, and I love to paint over walls, clothing, trees, hair, basically anything that looks good with extra sharpening. Click to select the black layer mask and paint over your image with a soft white low opacity brush and adjust the layer opacity to taste. Don't use this layer on skin, it looks horrible.



White Whites:  This layer is to make the whites of the eyes whiter.  Click to select the black layer mask and paint over the whites of the eyes with a soft low opacity white brush and adjust the layer opacity to taste.  Don't make the whites too white or it looks freaky.


Eye Define:  Click on the black layer mask and then use a white brush to paint over the iris, eyebrows, and eyelashes. I usually use 100% on the iris and 25% or so on the eyelashes and eyebrows.  Adjust the layer opacity to taste.


Bright Eyes:  Use a soft white low opacity brush to brush over the iris to bring out the colors and brighten them.  Then adjust the layer opacity to taste.  Don't make alien-looking eyes, go light on this step.


Soft Skin:  The skin should be soft already and you can adjust the opacity of this layer to taste (preset to 75%).  You don't want the skin to look like plastic, so use this in moderation.  To remove areas of softness on your image, click to select the layer mask and paint on the image with a black soft brush, and to add softness click to select the layer mask and paint on the image with a white soft brush.  I usually don't have to do anything to the layer mask.  I seriously love this action.  :-)


Soft Glow:  Click on the black layer mask and paint on the skin with a soft low opacity soft brush.  Adjust the layer opacity to taste (preset to 25%).  If you are working on a portrait with darker skin, change the blending mode from Screen to Overlay or Soft Light for an amazing glow. 


Dodge/Burn:  This is a wonderful layer to do final adjustments on your image.  Click on this layer to select and use a soft low opacity black brush to paint on the image where you want it darkened (burned), like for a vignette.  Use a soft low opacity white brush to paint on areas you want lightened (dodged).  If you mess up, simply Edit, Fill the layer with 50% gray and start over or paint over the layer mask.


Vignette:  This layer automatically darkens the edges of your image and is turned off.  To turn it on click on the little box to the left until you see a tiny eyeball.  Adjust opacity to taste, and try it in soft light or multiply blending mode to get the best result for you image.


B&W:  This is a simple B&W conversion layer, but it can be invaluable if you want to quickly see if an image would look great in B&W.  If it looks nice but not perfect, turn it off and flatten your edited image and then use your favorite B&W editing technique or action.

If you want to do your full B&W conversion in Perfect Portrait, turn this layer on before doing any other adjustments and then edit the layers.  You can actually get stunning B&W's this way.  You can also easily do selective coloring (as seen below).  Turn on the B&W layer and then click the layer mask to select and use a soft black brush to paint over the image where you want to add color.


I know this sounds like a lot of work, but once you have run this action a few times you will find you can go from SOOC to gorgeous in just a few minutes.


Perfect Portrait 3 works great on all skin tones and also your basic snapshots.  This action should run in PSE6 and up and all versions of Photoshop CS.  I am coming out with a mini action that has the skin smoothing, boost and a cool define layer for those times you just need a simple action to fix skin.



Download the completely free Perfect Portrait 3 PS/PSE action here.  And please leave a comment after you try it and let me know what you think.  I hope you love it as much as I do.  ♥

Do you want to download thousands of professional CoffeeShop PSE/Photoshop actions (including exclusive ones not found anywhere for free), textures/overlays, scrapbooking papers, clip art/design elements, photo storyboards and frames, and Lightroom presets from this site in one convenient zipped file AND help support this one-woman blog?

Just click here for my CoffeeShop Mega Download Pack!

113 comments:

  1. Thanks for this! Looks awesome!!

    You rock, Lady!! :)

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  2. Thank you Rita...looking forward to trying this out.

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  3. This is AWESOME! Thank you Mrs. Rita!

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  4. Downloaded/tried on one image, but I need to take a bunch of face shots of my kids today so I have more to play with. Thanks for doing this -- for free!

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  5. That is just gorgeous! I can't wait to play! Thankyou so much for all your hard work and things, I just love using your actions.

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  6. Thank you Rita. This looks like a fantastic all inclusive action. I can't wait to try it out. Have a great Sunday. :)

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  7. I appreciate the wonderful tutorial along with the action. I love your tools and blog.

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  8. Can't wait to try it out. Your Perfect Portrait actions have always been my favs. Thanks a bunch :)

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  9. Looks fabulous as always, Rita! Thanks so much, I can't wait to try it out!

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  10. Unbelievable...you're amazing! Thanks so much for all the time you save us...I'm sooooo grateful!

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  11. I played! I love it! And thankyou for that great step-by-step.
    Thought I'd include it here, hope this works. If not, it's at my blog.
    [img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-PKs9U53LwFs/TYZWoD1mgbI/AAAAAAAAFXI/IXlIC4Zx4F4/s1600/IMG_6891e8x10.png[/img]

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  12. Thanks so much for sharing all your hard work!

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  13. Oh, thank you so much, Rita! I just used it on a portrait and it's absolutely fabulous! Such a timesaver!! Just love how it softens the skin on it's own! Tremendous. Thank you thank you!

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  14. Thank you so much for this fantastic Action! I have had a quick play with it and this is what I ended up with.
    [IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v166/bulletbrain56/Action%20Try%20Outs/CS_PP3_BeforeAfter.jpg[/IMG]

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  15. You.are.amazing!!!!! Thank you

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  16. You are just incredible. I've been a lurker for a long time and have downloaded and used a bunch of your incredible actions!!! Just wanted to say thank you!

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  17. Tried it, awesome, amazing...love it! The skin softening layer is OMGoodness, so very cool, I didn't have to adjust anything. Thank you so much for your hard work. May you be blessed richly and in all things for your extremely generous spirit!

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  18. Thank you for your another amazing action!

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  19. This action is amazing!! Thank you for all of your hard work and for making our lives easier!! Greatly appreciated!!!!

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  20. Hello and Thank you for this item...

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  21. thanks Rita- this looks fantastic : ). Thnaks for your continuous hard work!

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  22. Brilliant! I've been looking forward to this ever since you first mentioned it, and it certainly has lived up to and exceeded my expectations! The tutorial was great too, and has helped me get the most out of the action!

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  23. Thank you so much!! I even saw another local photographer have your blog on their website! You're everywhere! :o)
    You make my pictures SO much easier to get out. I LOVE your actions! And OF COURSE you did the zipped download AFTER I spent hours downloading all the actions. LOL

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  24. First of all - um, hello! 90 actions?!?! That is just, amazing. And that you offer them all for free? Wow. Can I tell you again THANK YOU and you are AWESOME! So many of my favorites are yours.

    Can't wait to give the new Perfect Portrait a try.

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  25. yay! thanks so much for sharing.. like I said b4.. just when I thought perfect Portrait can't get any better.. you do it! fabULOUS work! thanks so much for sharing your life, tips and talent with us.

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  26. You are super awesome, Rita!! Thanks so much & can't wait to try out PP3!

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  27. Thank you so much for this post. I want to let you know that I posted a link to your blog in CBH Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, under the Page 4 post on Mar. 21, 2011. Thanks again.

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  28. Thanks for sharing! Can't wait to play with it!

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  29. You're amazing. Thank you so much. I LOVE your actions.

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  30. OMG! I love this! I purchased elements about 2 months ago and I love this action!

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  31. Rita! I am so excited to try this out tomorrow (if I started now, I'd be up all night...lol!) Thank you for the detailed instructions on each step! Sometimes I hose up a setting and am so thankful that I can come back to see how it's supposed to be :) You are the best!

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  32. Thank you sooooo much!
    I use the Eye Define layer also for knitted clothing (hats and diaper covers on newborns), I paint over them with 100% white and it looks awesome!
    Greetings from Hungary:
    Szilvia

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  33. Great job on this action, I have tried it out on a few images so far and LOVE it!! Thanks for all that you share!!

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  34. Rita once again you ROCK!!!! I love it. Can't wait to play around with it some more. Thank you!!!

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  35. Thank you SO MUCH - you are totally saving my bacon here! I am doing a small scrapbook (in a hurry) as a birthday present, don't really know my way round portraiture too much, so this is really helpful. It even works on my creaky old Photoshop7!

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  36. Thank you so much, your actions save me tons of time!

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  37. Just wanted to leave a quick note that I am loving Perfect Portrait 3! I'd been using Perfect Portrait 1 in combination with Baby PowderRoom forever. There were a few things I didn't quite like in Perfect Portrait 2, but 3 is awesome! It's completely replaced my Perfect Portrait 1 + PowderRoom combo.

    I've found that the B&W layer has worked great for me to quickly get rid of red eye caused by a flash. I use the paint bucket to fill the layer mask on the B&W layer with black, and then use a soft white brush with about a 30% opacity to paint over the pupils where there's red. Repeat that a couple of times until it looks nice and natural, and done!

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  38. Wow! I love your past Perfect Portrait actions. I hadn't been able to use this new version until just today, and I have to say that it is absolutely the best! I have to admit I was quite skeptical of your automatic skin smoothing layer, but I have been very impressed with how well it works even without tweaking!
    Thank You so Much!

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  39. I didn't think you could improve on Perfect Portrait 2 but you have. I use PP on every photo and now I have even more tools to make my clients photos rock! Thanks so much. I love the B&W and color combo, used on my blog www.mummynmephotography.blogspot.com just today. Thanks so much Bonnie

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  40. Love this action! I just tried it out on some photos of my daughter and I am loving it. I'm taking free portraits of the moms in my mommy group and I'm going to use this on them! Thanks a bunch!

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  41. Looks very good and fast usually i do my own pp, but i needed a fast action to do the pp i require, in my images thanks so much for sharing!!

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  42. Rita

    I LOVE you!!! I've always been a big fan and have proclaimed my preference for your generosity and products from my site at www.methepicturetaker.blogspot.com forever, but this is fabulous. Has already saved me sooooo much time!!!

    ((hugs))

    Kristin

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  43. I'm far from a photoshop expert, which is one reason I'm such a fan of The CoffeeShop Blog. Thanks so very much for your generosity! I've done many photoshop learning tutorials, but your blog is more helpful than the rest. Thanks again! Love the new skin-softening in Perfect Portrait 3!

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  44. Thank you sooo much for this! This just took some of my photos to a whole new level!

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  45. This is fabulous - thank you so much for sharing and for the step-by-step... soooo helpful :)

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  46. You are inspiration. Thank you so much for all the works. coool

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  47. Thanks for sharing your work. It really rocks... :)

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  48. Wow, this action is awesome! Provides great control and a logical progression in making beautiful portraits. It's a hammer when you have a nail to pound in! Rita, you're amazing...a donation is coming!

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  49. Thanks very much!! Helped take my portraits to the next level!!! Great work!!

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  50. I use this (and your other actions) aallllllll the time!!! Thank you SO much! :)

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  51. this is awesome! it makes such a big difference! thank you, thank you, thank you!

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  52. Rita! Perfect Portrait 3 is great, but as there is a stage which lightens every thing, I find my whites blown out (like white clothes), I don't know at what point this happens so cant stop it from happening.
    I can't remember this occurring in PP2? How can I overcome this?

    Also please can we have the FLICKR site running again as the discussion groups are SOOO helpful, you can find topics by searching and people help each other out, its not the same doing it on facebook :(

    Thanks so much for sharing your awesome actions xxxx

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  53. Just turn off/on the brighten and boost layers to see if one of those are blowing out your whites. Then use the layer mask or turn them down.

    Unfortunately I don't have time to have a Flickr group since it must be constantly monitored since it is public. I was getting overwhelmed and something had to go... Rita

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  54. I've been using the original for ages and just tried this new version on a photo of my kids. I LOVE the auto skin smoothing, it's brilliant! I also like the quick B&W, it's a nice way to gauge whether an image works or not. Thank you so much for all your hard work.

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  55. Hi Rita, I just found your site today and can't tear myself away from the computer! tried this just now on a few photos and it's fantastic! thank you! I look forward to learning so much from you.
    :)

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  56. Hi Rita, I just found your website today and tried this action first, it's fantastic! Can't wait to try more! :)

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  57. LOVE perfect portrait 3!!! thank you so much and the tutorials are awesome and so user friendly! thank you thank you! "Liked" you on fb now and also left some props for you on my photography page facebook.com/jessicamariephotography

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  58. Right near the end of the action, I get two errors. The first is "The command "Make" is not currently available." (with options to Continue or Stop) followed by "The command "Move" is not currently available." The first error looks like it occurs right after the Background Copy layer is created while the second seems to occur after the Dodge/Burn layer is created. I'm using Photoshop 6.0. Any idea what these mean and if they are affecting the action? The end product always turns out really dark, but if I hide the Background layer, then it looks pretty good. I end up with 17 total layers.

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  59. I have PSE 6 and just ran this action. It was working great, until it said can not make FILL layer. Now I'm looking at a white fog over my image. It went as far as to make those 15 layers...but something went wrong. Please help! :-(

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  60. Hi, I'm not sure if my last comment went through or not, if it did then disregard this duplicate :) Anyway I am trying to use this action in PSE10, and the layers are doing their thing but if I try to paint black/white on the filter to adjust the effect, it doesn't paint! I have even checked it by making it red, and sure enough- nothing is painting. Am I missing something? I have run other actions of yours and not had this problem. I push brush tool, then select white to paint on the black filter and it doesn't work. :(

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  61. Hi I just left you the previous comment about not being able to paint the layers. Feel free to not even post it! I am just getting more familiar w/ these techniques and I'm thinking it mostly had to do with the type of brush I was using, that it just didn't show up that well until I'd done it several swipes on top of itself.

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  62. Is there a way to disable the creation of layer sharpen/vignette/b&w? I don't use them, so I'd like the action not to create them in the first place.

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  63. You can turn off any layers if you have Photoshop. Unfortunately PSE users can't edit actions. Rita

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  64. I was trying this out but I kept getting the error that the command fill is not currently working. When it gets through all of the steps my image looks mostly white. What do I need to do?

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  65. Make sure you are starting with a flattened image that is sRGB and 8 bit. That should do the trick.

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  66. Wow, thank you so much! I love that I can tweak everything, but it takes a lot of guess work out. Thanks for being so generous with your talents!

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  67. This is great! Thank you. New user to Elements and photography and I am loving your blog.

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  68. I'm having the same problem as some others, I am using CS5, the image is flattened, sRGB and 8 bits. When it runs, I get "The command "Fill" is currently not available". It does this about 5 times and finishes and I have a mostly white image.

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  69. If you are getting Command Fill not available, perhaps you should go download the action again and reload it? I don't know what is going on because I haven't seen this warning yet, on several versions of PSE, CS and Mac and PC... I am sure there is an easy fix... Have you tried resetting your tools?

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  70. I tried that and reset my tools. Still getting the same error. Any more advice.

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  71. Don't know cjam! Maybe google to see if anyone else had this same issue? Are you running it on a jpg? It doesn't work with any images?

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  72. wow....just wow! Just started trying to teach myself photography. This is amazing at making people POP without looking edited. Thank you so much for sharing.

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  73. I finally fixed the Command Fill etc error message!!!!!! There is something that needs to be checked in the adjustments palette that somehow, I must have unchecked. Your wonderful actions are working again and I am so happy!!! You can read about it here - http://www.gettotallyrad.com/faq/command-invert-is-not-available/

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  74. WOW THANK YOU SO MUCH for the longest time i have been trying to figure out how to get the soft skin without looking to out of focus and such..... now i can!!!!! thank you from the bottom of my heart!!

    i can't wait to try this on senior portraits now!

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  75. Thank you so much for sharing your talent. I can't wait to try some of these out. xx

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  76. Thank you so much for the great actions and for making them available for free. I appreciate your generosity.

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  77. Thank you for your generosity and hard work with these actions. Much appreciated.

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  78. I am working on a portrait that has no gray in it. I not quite getting the levels to look how I want them to. I tried using the eydropper on the whites of the eyes, but still not quite getting the results that I want. Any suggestions?

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  79. Thank you so much for this awesome action and tutorial. Here is what I did with it!
    http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a250/ballerinagirl07/DSCN1003beforeandafter.png

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  80. Thank you Rita. I just wanted to let you know the actions that you have shared have restored my passion for photography. I am absolutely in love with them all.

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  81. I can't tell you enough how much I love your work/actions. They are amazing. Your generosity is appreciated more than you will ever know.

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  82. Totally amazing - thank you so much for you actions and generosity - you are one amazing lady - thanks you

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  83. I'm having the same problems that Greg and cjamsmom had - command fill not available etc. I've looked for something to check or uncheck in the adjustment pallette, but all I see is new adjustments affect all layers below / new adjustments clip to the layer. (I've googled this and didn't see an answer.) Do you know what fixed their problem or what might fix mine? I know I used the original PP before and it was awesome! I thought I have used this PP3, but it's been a while. Thanks!

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  84. You are so completely generous and your work is amazing! I am a new-er photoshop user and your actions really are fantastic! Thank you!

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  85. I love this and use it all the time but for some reason all of a sudden I can't paint in the action but only when I am on the background layer! HELP!

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  86. Thank you so much for this action, I use it regularly to great affect. However, I have noticed recently that it is not very good with dark skin. I have a photograph of a gentlemen with very dark skin and the skin softening just wouldn't recognise his colouring. Any tips?

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  87. Thank you so VERY much! I love your actions and especially love that you explain things step by step for us 'newbies' to photoshop!

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  88. I just tried this on a portrait of my daughter and got fantastic results! Thank you!

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  89. I've been doing photography for a long time, but I had my first newborn shoots this last month--wanted to try it out a new genre of portraits to see if I would like it. I wanted a skin smoothing action that would give me professional results without having to drop a lot of cash, since both shoots were freebies for friends. This was PERFECT! Thank you for your wonderful work!

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  90. This is my new favorite action! I just spent the last hour redoing every portrait that I could find in my drive. Thank you for generously sharing your talent with this hobbyist!

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  91. I seriously use the original version of this action on EVERY picture I take...hadn't checked back in a while but I can't wait to try this new version...Thanks so much for all your actions, I love them, but PP is my all-time fave, can't believe it's still free

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  92. I think I would really love this action! Do you have something similar that will work on PSE 10??? Thanks

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  93. i love, love, love this action! i use it on so many of the portraits that i edit. i just recently updated to PSE 11 because of problem with my previous version. any chance you have something for PSE 11?!? :)

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  94. Thank's Rita awsome actions... you are an artist! :)

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  95. I absolutely LOVE this action!! Thank you so much. I have quite a few actinos from your site and they are all awesome.

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  96. Photo actions are always awesome. :)

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  97. First of all I want to thank you big time for being so generous! I LOVE your actions! I feel embarrassed to ask, but perhaps you know whatever stupid thing I must be doing here. I'm trying to use your Perfect Portrait 3 action and everything was going beautifully, as I follow your tutorial on your blog, until I got to "Eye Define" and then my brush just simply stopped working. After trying everything I could think of, I tried to go on to the next step, "Bright Eyes" and the brush wouldn't work there either. I'm up to 100% opacity with a soft white brush and normal mode. Any ideas for me? Thanks so much for all you do.

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  98. I'm your new fan!

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  99. I'm not sure if this will help anyone having the problem of the PowderRoom action stopping with an error message, but I too was having that problem. I went up and clicked on Select on the menu at the top and then I unclicked 'Edit in quick mask mode' . Then it worked with no problems.

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  100. I know you have so many comments and I don't know if you still reply to any of them, but I have a question about this Action that I'm hoping you can help with. It appears to be running fine, and as it is running I see all of the layers mentioned above. But at some point in the process, several of them disappear from my Layers menu. I don't see Soft Glow through B&W. My layers stop at Soft Skin (Smooth Skin on my computer). Any guesses as to why I might not see these layers?

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    1. Just reset your Photoshop preferences (Google the keystroke, I can'r remember it offhand). That should fix it!

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  101. So, I use this action on EVERYTHING! But I am planning to start using LR more...do you have anything close to this built into LR yet...or if you are bored could you make one in LR? lol...that was a joke, I know us working Mamas are never bored. :)

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    1. I don't but I could look into it! Thank you for the suggestion Skyye!

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  102. Good post however I was wanting to know if you could write a litte more on this subject?

    I'd be very grateful if you could elaborate a little bit more.
    Bless you!

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  103. Thanks alot Rita.. This is just amazing

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  104. I have been using your actions for years and LOVE THEM ALL! (that I've used) I appreciate all you do!

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    Replies
    1. Wow, thank you so much Monica! I have the best readers.

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Rita