Take a look at the following patches, they are taken from two separate photographs after enlarging them 10 times. Do they look like someone’s skin to you? Do you see any skin texture, which at this magnification should look like Lunar surface.

The practice of selecting the model’s skin and applying a heavy dose of Gaussian Blur may give the illusion of an “angelic face.” But even angel skin has texture! Look at some paintings by Da Vinci, Caravaggio, and others. I know, they are paintings and not modern.

Forget the ancient, let’s take a look at a similar section of facial skin from a sample photo edited by David Cuerdon, one of the instructors on KelbyTraining.com and a professional portrait retoucher. Compare this fragment to those above and decide which one looks beautiful, sensual, touchable, plausible, and convincing.

So, where does this “trend” come from? Before the advent of digital photography photographers used other tools to enhance the look of the models, celebrities they photographed. These tools ranged from careful lighting, to nylon women’s hosiery stretched over the lens. Those who could afford used dedicated soft focus lenses that provided a gauzy look to the photograph diminishing major details but never totally eliminating. Of course, there were filters used in front of normal lenses that provided similar results.

After the advent of digital photography things got a bit out of hand. Those with some skills in editing software like Photoshop started using layers that combined a slightly blurred layer with a normal photograph to imitate the look of the soft focus lenses or filters. When used properly, this method can still provide compelling results but one must have the vision and the patience to learn and apply the tools. Or, one can buy a “filter” plugin for Photoshop and let it decide what to do. One such filter was made by Kodak and at the request of a friend I tested it and got horrified by the results. The filter indiscriminately selects the skin and blurs it to the nth degree, creating what I started calling electroluminescent plasma skin. With the blessing of competition judges, the use of this kind of filters and home-brew variations gradually increased to the point that some now consider it “normal”. Friends, there is nothing normal about it at all. It is not only not normal, it is not photographic. I have no problem with extensive editing of photographs, so my position is not one of a purist. However, the misuse or even abuse of the tool, no matter how many practice it does not make it the new normal. Calling this a new trend ignores the qualities of photographs and remains indifferent to below par use of the tools.

To illustrate what the origins of this misunderstood and often misused “skin softening” I borrowed a Canon 135mm f/2.8 Soft Focus lens from Canon and photographed a person and a bunch of flowers. Canon 135mm Soft Focus lens has settings that provide no softening, and level 1 and level 2 softening. Additionally, the softness is most pronounced at the wide open f-stop and it progressively diminishes as the diaphragm is closed. I photographed the person (my patient wife) and the flowers (Coreopsis in our front yard) at the widest f-stop and in the same sequence, no softening, level 1, and level 2. Then I cropped an enlarged portion of each image to provide even more detail. There is no amount of sharpening added to any of the photographs and they are as they came from the camera except for reducing the image size for Web use. Take a look at these photographs and continue reading below. I think the amount of softening is a bit excessive but I wanted to show the maximum effect to compare against the digital counterpart of it. Even then, the maximum softness does not provide results similar to the blurred skin.

Now, several things should be easy to observe:

1. None of the photographs using any of the settings is “blurred”, I would probably characterize the result as “veiled”
2. The skin retains the texture, wrinkles, and other major blemishes
3. The result does not even remotely resemble Gaussian Blur which parametrically averages pixels to smooth the differences and results in plastic look
4. Whereas the desired result is “de-emphasized differences”
5. Soft focus lens does not discriminate eyes, they get veiled too
6. Similar results can be obtained in Photoshop with a little more care

My principle reason for this series of writings is not to interfere with anyone’s artistic freedom. However, not mentioning the misuse of tools and the sacrificed photographic principles would have bothered me more than the flak I may get in response to my posts. After I wrote the earlier post about PSA being an enabler in this practice I realized I had not provided sufficient explanation why I considered these ill-conceived practices. So, this installment should provide enough historical, technical, and aesthetic material to explain my position and hope that the portrait and model photographers take what I have presented to heart and reconsider their practices.

In the hope of helping the transformation, I am making my presentation notes from NECCC 2010 on this subject freely available. Download the document, share it, use it, think about it, and hopefully adopt the working principles in your photography. Below are the before and after results of editing that I demonstrated at NECCC 2010, and they are a little more than I would have done had it not been for the demonstration of different tools.

Good photography does not need gimmicks.

An advertising watchdog group in Britain has banned two overly retouched L’Oreal ads featuring the actress and model, claiming that the digitally altered images are misleading, the Daily Mail reported.

The Advertising Standards Authority in the U.K. is demanding that the company pull a two-page magazine ad Roberts did for Lancome, one of L’Oreal’s makeup brands, claiming that the actress’ flawless skin is too good to be true.

I have been writing about this, even made presentations (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) to photographers last year, that this kind of “retouching” is total nonsense and in a recent post “On Photography” I even chided PSA for not promoting better photography. This kind of action is necessary, not only for photographic reasons but more importantly for personal values for young women and men. Now that regulatory forces stepped it, I sure hope that the photographers step up to the plate and do the right thing. Judges, do not reward this kind of photography for it is neither good photography nor good values. Photographers, do not resort to “cheap” techniques and devalue your work. Honest work eventually shines.

Read the full story in NY Daily News

I have been a NAPP subscriber for many years, and also joined the sister service KelbyTraning.com a few years back. I like the group not only because of the fine magazine and the NAPP Web site, not only because they bring varied programs to their members from shooting to outputting, but also because they bring unique programs like A Day With jay Maisel. I enjoy following these programs, that alone is worth the money. But I also want to support them by my membership so that they continue offering their rich resources to me and photography fans all around.

I encourage you to take a close look at NAPP, and Kelby Training. You will not be disappointed with their offering. I want them to be aware of my support, so please use the links here to visit their sites. Kelby media also provides significant support for our local camera club, Photographic Society of RI, and I want to show them my appreciation by making my friends aware of these services and rich sources of photography related information.

Get a free copy of The Best of Photoshop User: The Twelfth Year DVD as a bonus gift. Just use this special discount code — FRIEND — online or when calling NAPP customer service at 800-738-8513

This discrepancy has two sources. The first one is Adobe settings for units which uses 72 ppi for the screen resolution although most screens today provide higher resolution than that; not by much but higher nevertheless. The second source of the problem is that different monitors show different “actual” resolution than the nominal reported one. So, the crucial thing to do is to measure the pixels/inch for your specific monitor. Here is how.

1. Create a blank document that has 300 dpi print resolution, 9″ x 9″ in dimensions. This will create a blank document 2700×2700 in pixel dimensions
2. Fill it with white if it is not already filled
3. From the menu choose “View/Print Size”
4. With an accurate ruler and using great care not to damage your screen measure the displayed dimensions in inches. In all likelihood it will be a good deal smaller than 9 inches
5. Divide 9 inches by the actual measurement you obtain from the screen which will provide the correction factor. I am not using an example since this number may vary from one screen to another.
6. Now, go to “Edit/Preferences/Units & Rulers” and find the screen resolution. Most likely it is set at 72 pixels/inch
7. Multiply the current ppi, 72, by the correction factor you calculated above and enter that in the screen resolution field. Click OK.

The resulting screen resolution may have a decimal fraction, that’s OK and it will not necessarily be 96 ppi either. My screen’s actual resolution turns out to be 94.299. Your number will likely be different from this

From now on, when you choose “View/Print Size” your screen will display the actual dimensions of the print. I told you it was simple, but I wish Adobe could find a way to automate this.