FCPX Skin Retouching: A Plugin-Free Guide to Flawless Skin

Full Guide: How to Add a Skin Smoother Effect with Final Cut Pro

Liza Brown

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

It’s quite common for vloggers to try to show the best of their states. However, makeup, weather, and the shooting equipment may disagree. So, how to tackle this problem?

Fortunately, we have the best solutions to fix the skin tone issue by using FCPX’s built-in tools or smooth skin plugins. You will learn how to strategically adjust your footage’s look for stylistic purposes and impress your audience with your video-editing skills. Now, let’s understand what a skin smoother effect is before learning how to add it in FCPX.

• Part 1: How to Add a Skin Smoother Effect without Plugins in Final Cut Pro?
• Part 2: Where to Find Good Skin Smoother Plugins?
• Part 3: How to adopt Skin Smoothing Plugins into FCPX?
• Part 4: How to Smooth Skin in Filmora?
• Part 5: How to smooth skin in Adobe Pro?

Part 1: How to Add a Skin Smoother Effect without Plugins in Final Cut Pro?

Smoothening the skin in Final Cut Pro is very simple. Simply select the video, choose Video effects to be applied, and adjust the percentages from the Inspector pane. You will get wrinkle-free skin with an astonishing look. While multiple plugins are also available to apply a skin smoother effect, you can use the built-in features of Final Cut Pro to smoothen the skin and decrease the amount of contrast.

Here’s how you can do this:

step1Choose the starting image and edit the clip into the timeline. Press Option and make a connected copy of the clip by dragging it up. The start and end points should match for syncing. In the Effects Browser, drag Blur > Gaussian Blur to apply the blur effect on the upper clip.

step2Open the Inspector pan and select Compositing from its bottom. Switch the Blend Mode to Lighten and adjust the Opacity slider as per your desired glow. Usually, 40 to 45% is ideal.

step3Now, go to the top of the Inspector and turn on the blue checkbox next to Gaussian. Adjust the blurring effect until you achieve your desired level of skin softening. It is highly recommended to blur using the horizontal setting to soften the skin while keeping the eyes sharp. Here, the glow is controlled by Opacity while skin softening is controlled by the Blue Amount.

For better results, add a Vignette by selecting and combining the two clips into a Compound Clip. From the Effects Browser, select Stylize > Vignette and adjust drag the vignette. Now, customize the compound clip settings in the Inspector pane until you achieve your desired look. Compare the results between two images before and after editing

Part 2: Where to Find Good Skin Smoother Plugins?

Plugins make it easy for beginners and users with limited expertise to add a skin smoother effect in Final Cut Pro X. You can find both free and paid skin smoother plugins for FCPX online. Given below are some popular skin smoothening plugins for Final Cut Pro X.

1. Skin Smoother 2

Skin Smoother 2 is a powerful and easy-to-use plugin that allows you to smooth out unwanted skin details and enhance your facial appearance.

Price: $19.99 (One-time Charges)

Software Requirements: FCP 10.2 or later

Features:

• Enhanced control over facial adjustments with fine-tuning giving more natural results;
• Precise color sampling without a need to match up with present skin tones; and
• 3 to 5 times faster rendering.

1. Color Finale

Color Finale is a user-friendly, fine-tuned, and fully-featured professional skin smoother plugin purpose bit for FCP.

Price: $152

Software Requirements: FCP 10.4.8 - 10.5.1

Features:

• Color wheels, curves, and LUT utilities;
• A complete professional color toolset for videographers, colorists, and editors; and
• Allows personal preference on the interface.

1. Universe

A comprehensive FCP tool with 89 individual plugins to apply the next-generation skin smoothening and facial improvement effects.

Price: $199/year

Software Requirements: FCPX 10.5 or later

Features:

• Advanced transitions and effects and motion graphics tools;
• A variety of cool presents and text generators; and
• Number counters, chromatic aberration, VHS looks, camera shake, glitch effects.

Part 3: How to adopt Skin Smoothing Plugins into FCPX?

Follow these steps to use the Skin Smooth 2 Plugin for Final Cut Pro X:

1. Purchase and download the Skin Smoother 2 plugin. Go to downloads, unzip the folder containing the plugin and install it on your computer.
2. Open the FCPX, go to Effects, and click on Skin Smoother 2. A list of options will appear. Import the image or video you want to edit.
3. To apply the skin-smoothing effect, click on Add Color Mask, and select the areas of the face where the color mask has to be added.
4. Adjust the Skin Smoothing, Smoothing Mix, and the Softness of the color mask as per your requirements.

5. Finally, click on Add Shape Mask, two circles will appear on the image. Adjust the covering area of both circles for Shape Mask 1 to add a smiling face.

Part 4: How to Smooth Skin in Filmora?

Wondershare Filmora features advanced tuning tools and a variety of video filters and overlays. Learn how to smooth skin or beautify your face in the video with this advanced video-editing software.

1. Open Filmora, open New Project and click Import to load your videos to the timeline.
2. Double click on the video to open the editing window. Open the Color panel and adjust parameters according to your preference such as white balance, tone, and 3D LUT, etc.
3. Open the toolbar, click the Advanced Color Tuning icon, go to the advanced color tuning window, and adjust the white balance, color tint and temperature, HSL, 3D LUT, Vignette, and Light. If you are a beginner, try applying the present templates.
4. To set a specific tone or beautify your video, open the Tools tab and click the Color Correction option to change the color tones.
5. Open Effects and Transitions and select the skin smooth filter. Hover the cursor over the filter and click the plus icon in the middle to add that effect. You can also apply the effect to the whole clip by dragging and dropping it directly onto the video clip.

Part 5: How to smooth skin in Adobe Pro?

Given below are simple steps to create a face matter, control the skin smoothing, adjust color correction, and correct the skin glow in Adobe Pro by using the Beauty Studio Effect:

1. Applying the Beauty Studio effect smoothens all parts of the image including the background. However, it will make your footage look artificial, which is not desired. Hence, turn on the Pixel Chooser, pick two colors with the eye dropper tool. Color A for the darker area and Color B for the lighter area.
2. Underneath the Mocha Matte, use the eyedropper tool to select colors on the skin of the subject in your footage.
3. Now, click on View Matte/Mask to visualize the image areas where you are applying the skin smoothing effect. The Beauty Studio will affect the smoothing effect in the white area while the black area will remain unsmoothed.
4. Adjust the Saturation, Hue, and Luma softness to enhance the appearance of the skin, eyes, and mouth.
5. To prevent the rest of the image from getting affected, create a Mocha mask around the face by clicking on the Mocha logo and drawing a mask with the X-Spline tool. Make sure the mask moves as the subject is moved after your track forward and back.
6. Beauty Studio offers four levels of skin smoothing. You can adjust these levels as per your situation by lowering the smoothing amount for each level. For better results, adjust the levels at 70 or below.
7. For the final touch, adjust the sharpening between 10-20 points, add saturation between 3 to 8 points for color correction, and add 5 to 10 points of glow. Your image is ready, compare the results before and after applying the effect.

Conclusion

Smooth skin with clear facial expressions attracts everyone. You can apply a skin smooth effect in your video by using advanced video editing tools like Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premium, and Wondershare Filmora.

There are two methods to add a skin smooth effect with FCPX: By using in-built software settings, or by using plugins like Skin Smoother 2, Color Finale, and Universe. Use Beauty Studio Effect in Adobe Pro to smooth skin and improve facial appearance. Finally, you can beautify the face in your video by adding transitions, making color adjustments, and applying different effects with Wondershare Filmora.

Liza Brown

Liza Brown is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Liza Brown

Also read: