Tuesday, November 12, 2013

CoffeeShop Portrait Express Photoshop/PSE Action!


Today I am posting a brand new portrait action!  This is a wonderful little automatic retouching action that should be run on an image that is already color/contrast adjusted and doesn't need major retouching.

It smooths skin, defines eyes/hair, and adds a subtle color/contrast pop.  In most cases you won't have to paint on any layer masks, they are automatically generated for you.

I want to thank Kira Dawn Photography for allowing me to use her adorable image in this tutorial!!!



When you start the action the Surface Blur pane will pop up (this action will not run in PSE6 and below since those programs do not have Surface Blur).  In this step I usually overdo the skin softening because most of it will be masked out automatically and I can lower the opacity of that layer if needed.  Dial up the radius until the skin looks quite smooth (like plastic) then press OK.


When the action finishes you will have three new layers which you can fine-tune by either painting on the layer masks or adjusting the opacity.  If the skin looks too smooth you can simply turn down that layer.

Mouse over to see the "before".  This edit had no additional tweaks to the action or layers. I just set the Surface Blur radius to 25 as seen in the screenshot above and let the action do the rest of the work.  I think this action is a great addition to your action palette!



I hope you enjoy using this action! Download the free CoffeeShop Portrait Express Photoshop/PSE action.  You can also download it here.  NOTE:  Works in all versions of Photoshop, and PSE7 and up.

Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures.

For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.

12 comments:

  1. Thanks so much! I like the subtle changes from this action.

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  2. This looks fab! Will this work in Elements 9?

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  3. Thanks for all your hard work and sharing it with us.

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  4. I can't even think about this action yet because I am too busy staring at this beautiful baby. How precious!

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  5. This does work in Elements 9. And that baby is way adorable!!!

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  6. Ah thank you!! I'm just working on our Christmas card pictures...this will work beautifully!

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  7. Well, you just made my day! I just tried this and it is INCREDIBLE! I love the soft skin look! Thank you!

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  8. Well, you just made my day! I just tried this and it is INCREDIBLE! I love the soft skin look! Thank you!

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  9. Thanks Rita, can't wait to try this!

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Rita