How to soften the skin in Photoshop

This is a  Photoshop tutorial where  you can learn how to soften the skin tones.

Open your image and go to the channels palette (panel in CS4)

Click in the red channel

And select the image with the rectangular marquee tool. Then go to Edit> Copy or Ctrl C

Go back to the layers palette (panel) and click in the New Layer icon. Then go to Edit> Paste or Ctrl V

Now you have a black and white image in front of your original picture.

Then we go to Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur

And we set the Radius where the image is really blurred and the details disappear

We set the image mode to Luminosity

and the Opacity to 45%

Now you can work with the levels or the curves to improve the over all contrast.

We go back to the black and white layer and we add a layer mask

We set the default colors by pressing the letter D and choose the the brush from the tool box

Look for the air brush, set the opacity in 60% and the hardness of the brush in zero.

The idea is to erase the layer mask using the black brush in the eyes, teeth, hair and other details that should not be blurred. You can restore the mask with the white brush and you can change the opacity as needed.

Now we have the final image ready!