How to Airbrush in Photoshop CS4
Photoshop CS4's healing and airbrush techniques can erase all of your imperfections in photos. Use the healing brush to cover up blemishes, freckles, and wrinkles. Use the airbrush technique to make your photo look like it came right off the page of a magazine.
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Instructions
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Healing Brush
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Select a photo that needs correcting. For example, a girl with a lot of freckles. Use the healing brush to cover them up.
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Click on the band-aid (healing) icon from the tool bar at the left. Right click on the icon and select healing brush.
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Find a clean spot in the photo, and hold down the alt key while clicking on it. This will load the clean spot onto the brush, so you can erase the imperfections.
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Brush or click around on the areas you want to conceal. Don't worry if the color doesn't match up perfectly, as soon as you release the click, the color will blend itself. Continue until satisfied.
Airbrushing
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Go to Quick Mask Mode by clicking Select> Edit in Quick Mask Mode from the main menu bar at the top.
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Select the brush tool and set the brush size to an appropriate one for your photo. Change the hardness to 20 percent.
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Paint the face with your brush. A redness will appear everywhere you brush. To select what you just painted, exit the Quick Mask Mode by clicking the mask icon from the tool bar to the left. To grab only the face, inverse the selection by clicking Select>Inverse from the top menu bar.
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Click Select>Modify>Feather. Set the pixels to 12px (This could vary depending on the size of your picture). To blur the selection, click Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Set the pixel radius to 3px. This leaves the image looking smooth. To keep the selection looking real, add back some texture.
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Select Filter>Noise>Add Noise. Change the percentage to 2.5 and check the boxes beside Uniformed and Monochromatic. To deselect the face, click Select>Deselect. That's it. You've created your masterpiece.
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Tips & Warnings
When using the healing brush it is easier to just click on the imperfections one at a time rather than trying to brush away a large area. The healing brush detects other colors around the spot you are correcting so that it blends in to look like part of the original photo. If you brush too large of an area, it may not blend properly.
