Skin work with Kodak Gem

[ppcass]

One of my toughest post jobs has beem getting skin right. After looking around and asking questions here Scott told me about Kodak Digital Gem Airbrush. i looked it over and even tho it's a little pricey for my budget I bought it and now am playing with it. The first image is the original and the second is the image run thru gem on a new layer and then I dropped the opacity to get texture back. Please let me know what you think of the effect. My goal is a fairly smooth, natural as possible look.

Thanks in advance

[engstrom]

Very nice! I love the smoothness of the skin.

[srwatters]

Here's another secret trick to use. Use the magnetic lasso to select just the face and run the plug-in with between 40 & 50% blend factor. When it finishes, select the inverse and run the plug-in again, this time drop the blend down to between 20 and 40%. You'll find that the body skin will look much better with about 60-80% of the face processing.

I gotta quit giving away all my 'secrets'... Sure, like I'm the first one to do that

PS. Also do all of your other touch-ups first. I use the patch tool almost exclusively on skin blemishes. Works like a charm for me!

[mattchow]

how much is this program?

[Detonate]

It's $100 for the 16 bit version. Well worth it though. I put off getting this for awhile, but wish I would have just jumped on it the first I heard about it.

I've gone back and redone a few old photographs, and this filter really does add a lot.

[CaptainTom]

The skin looks fine. Scott's suggestion sounds really good.

The only problem I have with the photo is:: Why didn't she paint her fingernails red ???
I kinda like red ones.....

[Joe_Lorenzini]

Looks to me like it's worth every cent. Very nicely done!!

That said, here's a web site to let you see what other's are doing with this type of process:
http://glennferon.com/portfolio1/

_/oe

[cmalana]

Looks great! I think I need to bite the bullet and get that for portrait shots!

[bydesignmgd]

Why not use the pen tool, it's much more accurate.

[srwatters]

Originally Posted by bydesignmgd

Why not use the pen tool, it's much more accurate.

You don't need real accuracy when selecting the face. In fact I think a bit of feather on the selection tool makes for a more natural transition from the skin to surrounding area. That and the plug-in only modifies skin tone areas anyway. I imagine if you have clothing or other adjacent areas that are similar in color, a more accurate selection would be OK, but my experience with the tool tells me it's not needed.

[bydesignmgd]

Acutually, utilizing layers and layer masks along with various blend modes, you can achieve the same skin softening as you would with the plug-in filter effect.

[srwatters]

Originally Posted by bydesignmgd

Acutually, utilizing layers and layer masks along with various blend modes, you can achieve the same skin softening as you would with the plug-in filter effect.

Sure, but for the time involved, I'll take my GEM airbrush any day

My goal is to spend no more that 10 minutes per image from raw conversion to tif and web output. I'd love to shave a few minutes off that too while retaining the same quality. Actions and plug-ins are well worth it for me. YMMV.

[bydesignmgd]

You could create an action.