How to Photoshop Skin
Photoshop, a graphics design and photo editing computer software application from Adobe, features a number of tools useful to photographers who are retouching their images. Models are often retouched by professional photo editors whose job is to make the model's skin look as good as possible. With Photoshop, home users can apply many of the same techniques to their subjects to smooth skin, reduce discoloration and remove imperfections. It is difficult to produce a good-looking and realistic edit without Photoshop experience, but users willing to dedicate time to practicing their techniques are likely to be very happy with the results.
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Instructions
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Open the photograph you want to retouch in Photoshop by accessing the "File" menu and choosing "Open." Navigate to the image in the explorer window, highlight it and click "Open."
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2
Select the "Healing Brush" tool from the toolbox. This tool will help to cover imperfections by sampling and replacing pixels in your image.
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Hold down the "Alt" key ("Option" on Mac OS X) and click on an area of your subject's face that is similar in texture and coloration to the area with the imperfection you want to remove. This will sample the pixels of that area to be copied.
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Click and drag your cursor over the imperfection to copy the sampled pixels over the area. When you release your mouse button, Photoshop will apply an algorithm to the area you painted to blend and match the pixels. If you are not satisfied with the result, undo your change and try again, sampling from a different area. You may have to try a few times before you achieve a good and realistic result.
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5
Smooth the face overall by accessing the "Filter" menu, choosing "Blur" and then "Surface Blur." This tool will apply a soft blur to areas of your portrait that do not have high contrast (such as large areas of skin). The settings you apply will depend on your image, but a Radius of 5 pixels and a Threshold of 15 levels is a good place to start.
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Remove discoloration by clicking the "New Adjustment Layer" button in the Layers pane. Choose "Selective Color" from the pop-up menu. In the "Colors" drop down menu, choose "Reds." Lower the "Cyan" slider to approximately -25 percent to make the skin more lifelike and vibrant and lower the "Black" slider to approximately -50 percent to desaturate the skin somewhat to reduce discoloration. These values may have to be manipulated, depending on the coloration of the image.
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