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