Tutorial Description

Skin retouching doesn’t have to be a long and complicated process. Aaron shows you how to make short work of hair, fine lines, and larger blemishes as well as how to smooth out skin tones with a simple dodging and burning. Learn how to use the Spot Healing Brush Tool, Clone Stamp Tool, and Curves for professional, natural-looking results.

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Flyaway Hairs & Fine Lines

Retouching skin is about making a bunch of small changes while preserving the more important details that make your subject unique. Flyaway hairs that cover the face and wrinkles around the eyes and mouth are two common types of distractions that, when reduced or removed, can help accentuate the parts of the image that matter most.

When working with small blemishes in Photoshop, the Spot Healing Brush Tool should be your go-to. With the Spot Healing Brush Tool active, make sure that Content-Aware and Sample All Layers are selected in the options. Content-Aware instructs Photoshop to use the image information around the area that you paint to fill and replace the contents within the area you paint. Sample All Layers simply tells Photoshop to use the information from all Layers in your project. This allows you to work on a new, blank layer without making changes to the original photo.

With those settings selected, create a new layer and then use the Spot Healing Brush Tool to paint over any hairs, lines, or small blemishes on the skin. You should only have to adjust the brush size to closely match the size of the area you’re trying to remove – Photoshop will handle the rest.

Larger Blemishes

Larger blemish removal works almost exactly the same way, you’ll only be using a larger brush and painting over a larger area. But painting larger areas with the Spot Healing Brush Tool, especially areas that have delicate textures like skin, can result in loss of texture and a blotchy appearance.

There’s two ways to work around this. First, you can use the Spot Healing Brush Tool to paint over that area several times until you get a result that looks good. If that’s not working, get as close as possible using the Spot Healing Brush and then use the Clone Stamp Tool to sample some skin texture from a nearby, unedited spot. You can then paint that texture over the Healing Brush to recover some of the detail.

Simple Dodge & Burn

Dodging and burning is a process of enhancing highlights and shadow areas to add definition and, in the case of skin retouching, even out skin tones. This can all be done using Curves Adjustment Layers and Layer Masks.

To begin with dodging, create a Curves Adjustment Layer and, in the Curves dialog, drag the midpoint up until the darker areas of the image are at a level that you like. Hit Okay and then hit CTRL or CMD + I to invert the Layer Mask of the Adjustment Layer, making it completely invisible.

Set the Blending Mode to Luminosity and then use the Brush Tool at a Flow of about 10% to paint white on the Curves Layer Mask. Paint over any dark areas that you want to lighten up – think dark under eyes and any distracting shadows. Your goal should be to reduce harsh shadows and bring out some of the detail.

Burning (darkening) can be achieved using the exact same process. In the Curves dialog, drag the midpoint down until the brightest highlights of the image are more even with the rest of the exposure. Invert the Layer Mask again, set the Blending Mode to Luminosity, and now paint on the highlight areas that you wish to smooth out.

These two Curves Adjustments Layers should combine to create a natural, smooth skin tone free of distracting shadows or highlight that are too bright.

Retouching Advice

We started off by saying that retouching doesn’t have to be a complicated process, but it certainly can be. Some edits might need dozens of Layers to accomplish the same goals that we set in this example. But these techniques are more than enough to get you started and we’re confident that you’ll see an immediate impact in your photos.

There are countless tools and techniques out there to take your retouching even further. Frequency Separation, retouching products, and more specific cases like retouching for athletes are all great examples.

No matter how much or how little retouching you decide to do, be sure to keep both your subjects and clients in mind. Your subject should still look like how you would expect them to look in real life. Preserving the qualities that make them unique and interesting should be a priority.

And always keep in mind where your final image will be going and how it will be used. You wouldn’t retouch an image for a magazine cover the same way you might retouch an image for your Instagram account.

Keep practicing, keep experimenting, and use the techniques taught here to help develop your own sense of taste and style.

Tutorial Description

Working with RAW in Lightroom is an effective way to take your images to the next level. Learn to dodge and burn your images quickly, easily, and accurately.

Highlights & Shadows

As photographers, our goal should always be to get a great looking exposure straight out of camera. Sometimes it’s not always possible depending on the lighting conditions and resources that we have to work with. Post-processing is an important step and no matter how great a picture might look without editing, Lightroom can help us enhance definition and recover details we didn’t know were there.

In our sample image, since we wanted to capture details in the sky at sunset, our subject is slightly underexposed. Previously in Lightroom, we could have used the Adjustment Brush to select the areas that we wanted to edit and then make the necessary changes to the highlights and shadows. While it was effective in some cases, it isn’t very precise and it would often be better just to send the image over to Photoshop to get the job done.

Now, with Luminance Range Masking, we can choose to have our adjustments appear only within the highlights or the shadows of a photo. This means that we can target specific parts of an image to brighten or darken, recovering details and adding definition that was missing. Best of all, we can save time by not having to send every image over to Photoshop whenever we need precision.

A Quick Guide for Helping Newborns Look Their Best

Welcoming a new life into the world is a profound moment that deserves to be captured and shared. In this tutorial, we cover some of the common traits of newborns and how to apply some light retouching in Photoshop to help them look their best. From adjusting red, blotchy areas to cleaning up dry, flaky skin, we’ll walk you through some techniques that anyone can learn to help capture memories that will last a lifetime.

Using Channels

We first want to reduce some of the redness in the subject’s skin. Rather than tackle each area individually, we can target areas of high contrast using Channels and then make a selection of the parts of the skin that appear darker.

By using Channels, we can make an incredibly accurate selection based off of the amount of contrast present in an image. To view the different color channels, click on the Channels tab. You’ll see three channels listed; one for red, one for green, and one for blue. Our goal is to identify the channel that has the most contrast between the light and dark areas of the photo. This will allow us to select the darker areas, which we can then adjust using an Adjustment Layer. To find the channel that has the most contrast, simply click on each and make a judgement based off of what you see.

If the image appears flat, that channel likely won’t be of much help. If the image has areas of light and dark, it will contain the information necessary for us to isolate the areas of skin that we want to retouch.

Making the Selection

In this case, the green channel has the most contrast. In order to get an accurate selection, we need to exaggerate the contrast in the green channel. First, duplicate the green channel by selecting it and hitting CTRL or CMD + J. Then hit CTRL or CMD + L to bring up the Levels dialog. You’ll see a graph showing the distribution of highlights, midtones, and shadows along with sliders underneath for each. Drag the right most slider about one-third of the way towards the middle. Then move the slider for the midtones just a bit to the left of the first. You should see the background change to pure white and the blotches on the baby’s skin should now appear greatly exaggerated.

Now that we’ve created enough contrast in the skin, we can turn those areas into a selection. Hold CTRL or CMD and click on the duplicated green channel. This will create a very accurate selection of that channel. Switch back to the Layers panel then go to Layer, New Adjustment Layer, and then to Curves. Photoshop will load the selection we made into the Layer Mask of our new Adjustment Layer. If you hold ALT or OPTN and click on the Curves Layer Mask thumbnail, you’ll notice the image will look just like the Channel that we were working with earlier.

Adjusting Skin Tones

With the Curves Adjustment Layer combined with the Layer Mask targeting the darker areas of the newborn’s skin, we can pretty easily make adjustments to smooth out the skin tones. In the Curves Adjustment Layer dialog, drag the center of line up until the darker areas of the skin closely match the lighter areas of the skin. To further blend any inconsistencies in the skin, create a New Layer, switch to the Brush Tool (B), and hold ALT or OPTN to sample an area of skin that has the color you want. Simply paint on the new layer in any areas that you feel could use a bit of blending.

Dry Skin and Other Blemish Removal

In this particular photo, there are some areas of dry skin on the baby’s arm. Fortunately, these are incredibly easy to touch up using the Spot-Healing Brush Tool. On a new layer, paint over portions of the skin that could benefit from a bit of blemish removal.

Add Shape and Definiton

After our adjustments so far, you might noticed that the image looks a little flat. We can enhance some of the highlights in the image which will help return some shape and definition to the subject’s face. On a new layer, select the Brush Tool. Using a large, soft brush paint white over every bit of the subject’s skin. Don’t worry about being precise, as we’ll be using Blend If along with Blending Modes to tell Photoshop specifically where we want these highlights to appear.

Once you’ve finished painting, double click on the Layer that you’ve been painting on. Under the Blending Options dialog, locate the Blend If sliders near the bottom of the panel. Holding ALT or OPTN to split the slider, drag the right half of the slider in the shadows all the way to the right. Then take the left half of that slider and drag it to about the middle. This will tell Photoshop that you don’t want this layer to affect any of the darker areas of the image. Change the Blending Mode to Soft Light and adjust the Opacity until you get a subtle effect that you like.

Tutorial Description

Sometimes babies and newborns will have too much red or blue in their Skin, which doesn’t look great in photos. Learn how to use a reference image to analyze skin tone and apply those changes to correct skin tone!

Use a reference image to compare color

It helps to have a reference image to judge ‘good’ Skin tone. To find a reference image, search on stock websites like Adobe Stock or just browse through google images. You will only be using the reference image to analyze Color, so you don’t need to find the ‘perfect’ photo—just one with good skin color.

To properly analyze skin tone it helps to have a large area of ‘averaged’ color. To get the average color of an area of skin first make a selection around the skin using the Marquee Tool. Then go to Filter – Blur – Average. This will take all of the Color in the selection and average them into one Color – perfect for analyzing average skin tones.

Do this for both the sample image and the image you wish to edit.

How to color match with a Hue/Saturation layer

After creating ‘average’ skin tone blocks in Photoshop, click on the color picker and use the Eyedropper to analyze the Color. Look for Differences in HSL (Hue, Saturation and Lightness). In this case the Hue was different by 17degrees.

To correct Skin color, create a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and click on ‘reds’. Next change the values to match the target skin tone. In this example we change the hue by 17 degrees, Saturation +2 and Value by -5.

Tutorial Description

Who wouldn’t want to spend time Retouching handsome, mature men!? In today’s episode, learn how to eliminate wrinkles and pores, and add color back to the skin!

Keep the Handsome AND the Mature

Before you begin, remember that it is easy to get carried away with editing out elderly imperfections. You want the Skin to be smoother, but not completely devoid of Texture. The goal is not to turn a 60 year old man into a 20 year old! Experiment with lessing the intensity of layers, and playing around with how much you edit out.

1. On a copy of the Background layer (Cmd+J), go to Image -> Adjustments -> Shadows and Highlights. This dialogue is very helpful for editing older subjects, because you can control the Shadows for a less harsh Face.

2. To begin lessening the appearance of things like wrinkles and pores, duplicate the Background layer again. Use the Spot Healing Brush Tool on this layer to paint over unwanted lines. Be sure that “Content Aware” is selected at the top of the Screen. Once you’re finished, don’t hesitate to lower the Opacity of this layer. There’s a good chance your subject will look too plastic if you remove every single imperfection from the Face.

3. As time goes on, we tend to lose some Color and life in the look of our Skin. To add some color back into the image, create a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and crank up the Saturation. Put a Layer Mask on this layer, and fill it with black to Invert it. Now, with a white Brush, you can paint some Color into the eyes and lips.

Tutorial Description

Give skin beautiful tone and texture with this FREE Photoshop Action! Simply load the action and it will automatically separate the skin texture from the skin tone, allowing you to edit each independently. Use it to remove minor blemishes while avoiding obvious spots and blotches in skin color. Then smooth out any harsh transitions between highlights and shadows without damaging any of the natural, delicate skin texture.

Take your retouching skills to the next level with our PRO tutorial How to Master Frequency Separation Retouching in Photoshop. You’ll learn how to use frequency separation to get polished, professional results in any portrait.

And for even more practice, try Professional Beauty Retouching in Photoshop where we walk you through a complete, high-end retouch using professionally photographed RAW images.

Creating a Cracked Skin Effect

In this episode we are creating a cracked skin effect in Photoshop, making it look more three-dimensional and adding blur. Be sure to check out Part 1 where you will learn how to wrap the Texture around a subject’s Face.

How to Give the Cracks Dimension

To apply the cracks in the first part of this tutorial we used the Multiply Blend Mode, making the darks interact with the photo and the Lights invisible. Now we want to add highlights on the edges of the cracks to give them more dimension. We do this by duplicating the original crack layer, inverting and desaturating it, and changing the Blend Mode to Screen. Now we have have white cracks on a Transparent Background. Next we use Blend If to make this layer invisible where the Underlying Layer is darker, removing it from the cracks. This section of the tutorial is pretty complex but will make a huge Difference in the final effect. Next step is to move this layer so it matches the lighting on the original photo.

Create a Peeling Effect on the Cracks

Next step is to make the Skin look like it is peeling up in some places just as paint would. To do this we use a Soft edged brush, painting white on a Soft Light layer. Painting around the cracks and the using the Lasso Tool to remove the Highlights from unwanted areas makes the Skin look as thought it is peeling up. After creating the Highlights we do the same thing with the Shadows, painting black on a Soft Light layer. In this tutorial we cover a small part of the image because of time restrictions.

Add a Blur to Blend into the Image

The original image was photographed using a shallow Depth of field meaning that some of the face is in focus and some of the Face is out of focus. To complete our cracked Skin effect we have to duplicate this gradual blur. To match the blur we use the Blur Tool on a New Layer. Be sure to check the option “Sample All Layers” and set your strength to about 50%. This will allow you to add the blur on a new blank layer, not effecting the layers underneath.

Adding Cracks to Skin

In this tutorial we show you how to create an amazing cracked skin effect in Photoshop. This is obviously not something you are going to do on every portrait you take but when you are looking for a creative outlet adding Texture to Skin is a lot of fun. Our goal is to take a flat image and make it look like it wraps around the subject’s Face and blend the images together to make the effect realistic. This part one of two episodes teaching how to make cracked Skin in Photoshop.

How to Transform and Warp the Crack Texture

The first step is choosing the proper Textures for the Face. For an added challenge try taking the photos yourself, you would be amazed at how many Textures you can photograph during an afternoon walk. For this tutorial we use an image by Liz West.

After choosing the best texture it is time to Transform and Warp it into place. Lower the Opacity of your Texture layer so you can see through to the original photo and hit CMD+T to start the Transform. From here it is up to you to rotate and Scale the texture so it fits the face. After getting the sizing and rotation correct hit CMD+T and right click on the layer and go down to Warp. This is where you want to do the majority of the wrapping around your subject’s face. Pull in the corners and adjust the handles to shape the texture around the Face.

Use the Liquify Tool for Details and Wrapping

After transforming and warping the texture it is time to take care of the smaller details and the wrapping. The Liquify Tool is prefect for doing just that. In this episode we show you how to use the Liquify Tool to push and pull the texture to wrap perfectly around the face, making sure to give the edges special attention, making the Texture look as though it is wrapping around the Face.

We also show you how to use the Freeze Mask Tool to take care of tricky areas like eyes and the nose.

Layer Blend Modes

After the texture is in place and warped correctly we use blending modes to make it look as though it interacts with the Skin. Using a Multiply blending mode will make the Light areas of a texture invisible and the darker areas blend in, the perfect choice for cracks. After changing the layer Blend Mode we use a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer to Color the texture similar to skin Color.

Check out Part 2

Be sure to check out Part 2 of this episode where we show you how to make the cracks look 3 dimensional and add a blur effect the the cracks.

Correcting Skin Tones

Getting your white balance exactly right can be tricky. If you are on the cool side your subjects will look a bit too blue making them look a bit lifeless. We show you a quick method using Color Balance to correct Skin tones and get a nice base for further editing.

Coloring Shadows

If you do want your image to to have cool tones it is a good idea to keep those tones to the Shadows of the image, that way your Skin tones continue to look natural. In this photoshop tutorial we show you how to Colorize using the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and then restrict those Colors to the Shadows using Blend If.

Adding Light Effects

When you are photographing into the Sun you have some great opportunities to add Lighting Effects in Photoshop. From a huge Lens Flare to a subtle Color grade the options are endless and each photo will require a different effect.

In this image we use the Gradient Tool to create a glow on the left side of the image. After bringing in the base Color we use Curves to add a bit of warmth to the Lens Flare.