How do you edit a pic. on Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 to look like this [link]?

Question

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d49/happybunny7475/fdjlfhel.jpg

just how it looks flawless and how the lighting is so good

Answer 1

It looks to me as if this is just a well done photograph. If anything was done to it with Photoshop, it's totally transparent. If you ask anyone who uses Photoshop, they will tell you it is always best to start with a really well done photograph.

Answer 2

hey  - the lighting is good in the photo to begin with - They have however put a soft focus glow and skin toning techniques on top...

for skin smoothing:

CTRL J for a duplicate Layer>

Then Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur on the top layer... Not by much though - between 4 and 10

Then ad a Layer mask (bottom tool bar on the layers boy is a rectangle with a circle in it.)

Fill the layer mask with Black  (The layer mask appears as another box next to the layer you have put the mask on.)

The bottom image (sharp one) should now be showing through)

Get your paint brush and while still on your layer mask paint white everywhere you want the blur to show through. Dont go over the eyes and nostrels and lips... These are the parts you want to stay sharp - just the skin.

Answer 3

it looks like flash was used and judging by the composition it seems that it was just done by a standard point-and-shoot camera.  it also may be just natural light coming from the window and illuminating her face like that (i'm actually kind of leaning toward this).  some type of skin-smoothing technique may have been done in photoshop (there are many ways to do it and most require creating new layers to make it look good).  personally, i don't think this picture is that good and is pretty soft in general (though that's oftentimes good for portraits).  read up on skin-smoothing techniques (it's too much to explain here when there're fantastic resources available elsewhere) and try taking a picture like this with natural light coming from a window to recreate the lighting.

Answer 4

Good lighting to start with helps.

Duplicate layer

In the dup layer:

Enhance > Adjust Sharpness > Gaussian Blur

- Amount 200%, Radius 20-25%

Adjust layer opacity to 25-50% to suit

Merge layers

Duplicate layer

In the dup layer:

Paint white over the areas you want to highlight, with brush set to a very large diameter and about 10%

Adjust layer opacity to 25-50% to suit

Merge layers

See what you think.