Here’s a Photoshop trick to improve skin with Smart Filters and Color Range selections
Before
After
Create a duplicate of the Background layer (Cmd/Ctrl+J) and then go to Select>Color Range.
In the Color Range menu, set the Select drop-down to Skin Tones and hit OK. This will tell Photoshop just to select skin and ignore everything else.
Go to Filter>Convert for Smart Filters and then go to Filter>Noise>Reduce Noise.
In the Reduce Noise filter, set Strength to 8, Reduce Color Noise to 0, Sharpen Details to 0-10% and untick Remove Jpeg Artifact.
Now, slide the Preserve Details adjustment up and down to vary the amount the skin is soften by. A setting of around 16% works well.
As a Smart Filter, the Reduce Noise filter can be adjusted at any time by double-clicking on it in the Layers palette. Also, blend modes can be applied as well as Opacity controls as this is a separate layer in the composition.
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