Smooth skin (3 simple methods)

Method 1

It’s quick, results are poor but good in some situations.

1) Open a picture in Photoshop, a portrait maybe

2) Use Healing Brush or Clone to repair skin imperfections

3) Duplicate the layer (CTRL+J)

4) Go to Filters » Blur » Gaussian Blur, and enter the desired value, until you have a convenient result, and click OK.

5) Click Add layer mask, from the bottom of the Layers Palette to add a mask on the blurred image.

6) Select the Brush tool (B), set the foreground color to black, check out the size and the hardness, and start painting over the areas you want to reveal. Eyes, mouth, nose, ears, jewelry and maybe hair. This way you keep the skin blured, and yes, smoother.

7) Once you are done, reduce the opacity of the layer until you have your desired result.

You are done.

Method 2

It’s more accurate and preserves details nicely.

1) Open a picture in Photoshop, a portrait maybe

2) Use Healing Brush or Clone to repair skin imperfections

3) Go to Channels in the Layers Palette, hold CTRL and click the Red Channel. All red pixels in the image are now selected. Generally speaking red it’s found on skin.

4) Now go back to Layers and hit CTRL+J to make a copy of the selected pixels. New layer is created.

5) Like in the first method, go to Filters » Blur » Gaussian Blur, and enter a value, until you have the desired result, and click OK. As you can see the eyes, mouth, hair, are not so affected by the blur filter.

6) Click Add layer mask, from the bottom of the Layers Palette to add a mask on the blured image.

7) Select the Brush tool (B), set the foreground color to black, check out the size and the hardness, and start painting over the areas you want to reveal.Eyes, mouth, nose, ears, jewelry and maybe hair. In this case I recommed, the brush opacity somewhere around 30%. As you see the result are more complex and you have a nice blur over the skin.

You are done.

Method 3

This is the way most professional photographers use. Details are preserved. Skin = beautiful.

1) Open a picture in Photoshop, a portrait maybe

2) Use Healing Brush or Clone to repair skin imperfections

3) Right click the background layer and convert it to a Smart Object.

3) Hit CRTL+J to duplicate the layer.

4) Guess that? We are gonna we smart filters. Yes we can modify them any time without destroying the image. Go to Filters » Other » High Pass and set a value of 3 pixels or any other you feel comfortable with. And click OK.

5) The image will be gray. As you can see in the Layers Palette the filter is applied. There is a little icon there on the right, you can double click on to bring the High Pass filter window, and change the value.

6) If you already doubled clicked the icon change the Mode to Hard Light.The tone of skin should be uniform, but not so much, not to loose the details. You can reduce the opacity of the High Pass filter by clicking the little icon on the right. The window appears, set it, done. Check the results. One word: details

7) Next we are going to apply one more filter. It’s kind of the opposite. It’s a Low Pass filter. Simply go to Filters » Blur » Surface Blur. Carefully set the Radius and Threshold value until you have a fine result. The tone of skin should be uniform, but not so much, not to loose the details. You can reduce the opacity of the Surface Blur filter by clicking the little icon on the right. The window appears, set it, click OK.

Guess what! You are DONE!

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and maybe found it useful

Eyes Color Retouch

Step 1: Take an image and drastically alter the person's attitude simply by working with the eyes.

Step 2: Start with a snapshot and either crop out all but the eyes or just zoom in to that portion of the face.
Now, duplicate the Background layer.

Step 3: Now basic re-coloring again, just as a warm up. Let's brighten the whites first. Select the Dodge tool and, with a soft brush and the Range set to Highlights, lighten the white areas of the eyes.

Step 4: Double-click the foreground color and change it to blue, green or whatever tone you like, but here's my choice.

Step 5: Select the Paintbrush. With a round feathered brush and the Mode set to Color, paint out the former hue and replace it with the blue.

Step 6: HmMMMmmMm! I like this effect! Let's try it with a yellow/orange:

Step 7: Now, I want this person to turn nasty, so switch to a red and try it again:

Step 8: Select the Burn Tool with the Options seen in the capture below.

Step 9: Run the tool around the perimeter of the iris and on the skin above, below and around the eyes.

Step 10: To darken things up even more, duplicate this layer and set the Blending Mode to Multiply.

Step 11: To brighten the eyes again, simply add a mask and paint over the irises in the mask with black.

Creating a Lava Texture from Scratch

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a molten rock or lava texture.

We will begin with a blank canvas of 400x300px. Press the D key to make sure our colors are Black and White (the default).Next, goto Filter > Render > Clouds. This will use the foreground and background colors to generate some random clouds:

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Now goto Filter > Render > Difference Clouds:

Repeat this filter until you get a texture you like. Press Ctrl+F to repeat the last filter. We should have something like this:

Now we want to change the color, so goto Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. Check the Colorize option, and play with the sliders to get a color that looks like molten rock:

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Once applied, we should have something like this:

The next step is to duplicate the layer, so right-click it in the Layer Window and choose Duplicate Layer. Now experiment with changing the Blend Mode of the top layer to see which looks best. This is Color Dodge:

And this is Soft Light:

Experimenting with these settings and different colors, you can create an array of different textures.