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DO NOT use Skin Retouching filter in ON1 Effects for portraits!!!! This filter is a vestigial filter and the ON1 Portrait AI module produces much better results for portrait work. And Portrait AI does more than skin retouching. Learn more about ON1 Portrait AI here.

Why Is Skin Retouching Still In ON1?

If the filter is old technology and ON1 Portrait AI does better work, why is the Skin Retouching filter still around? The answer is backward compatibility. ON1 Photo RAW has been a product for many years. Older presets use the Skin Retouching filter. Your library may have non-destructive edits using this filter. Photographers hate when a software upgrade changes the way their finished work looks. So the filter remains in place.

And … understanding what the filter does might suggest uses for it outside of portraits. Watch the video to see how Skin Retouching played a role in creating this photo of the Oregon coast.

The Skin Retouching Sliders

There are a few controls in the Skin Retouching filter in ON1 Effects.

• Blemishes: Downplays and removes small skin blemishes

• Smoothing: Reduces and smoothes skin texture

• Shine: Reduces light shine on skin

• Evenness: Makes the colors across skin more even and uniform

• Color/Range: Select a tone from the photo to use as the base skin color. The range slider refines the breadth of colors to be considered as skin and affected by the filter.

The workflow for this filter is to use the Color picker to select a tone from your subject’s skin. Then, adjust the Range slider to have the appropriate amount of skin tones affected. As the Range slider is adjusted, a charcoal black overlay shows areas outside of the color range. These areas are unaffected by the Skin Retouching filter. Often, the masking tools are needed to further target the filter to only the areas you wish affected.

Then, adjust the other sliders to taste to suit the mood and needs of the image.

A Landscape Photo Use For The Skin Retouching Filter

At its core, the Skin Retouching filter is a color smoothing adjustment. A selected color range is made smooth, and its colors are made more even. This filter can have uses outside of portrait work. In this photo of the Oregon coast, I used the Skin Retouching filter to add additional softness to the sand, which in turn added additional emphasis to the coarse and jagged rocks.