How to Remove Acne in Photoshop

How to Remove Acne in Photoshop

Acne creates two separate problems in a photo, the redness left behind and the texture of the blemishes themselves, and tackling the redness first makes the texture work go much faster. This tutorial isolates and neutralizes redness with a targeted Hue/Saturation layer, then uses the Spot Healing Brush’s Content-Aware option to remove blemishes and smooth blotchy texture, finishing with a touch of natural color restored to the skin.

Isolating Reds With a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer

Targeting just the red color range in a Hue/Saturation layer, rather than the whole image, keeps the adjustment focused on exactly the areas causing trouble.

1. Add a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer

   Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer above the image.

2. Select the Reds Channel

   Click the channel dropdown and choose Reds instead of Master, so the adjustment only affects that color range.

Using the Color Range Slider to Target Just the Pimples

The small slider beneath the color range bar narrows exactly which reds get affected, and pushing it can isolate individual pimples from the rest of the skin’s natural tone.

3. Temporarily Exaggerate Hue and Saturation

   Temporarily crank up both Hue and Saturation on the Reds channel to make the affected areas clearly visible, such as by shifting them to a bright green.

4. Drag the Color Range Slider Left

   Drag the small slider in the middle of the color range bar to the left until it targets specifically the pimple areas rather than all of the skin’s reds.

Why Preview With Exaggerated Colors Before Neutralizing

Trying to judge which exact areas a subtle red adjustment will affect is difficult when the change itself is small and hard to see. Temporarily pushing Hue and Saturation to an obvious color like bright green makes it immediately clear which areas, including the lips and every pimple, are actually being targeted before dialing the adjustment back to something natural.

Neutralizing Redness to a Natural Skin Tone

Once the targeting is confirmed, resetting the exaggerated preview and dialing in a subtler shift brings the redness down to a natural skin color instead.

5. Reset Hue and Saturation

   Bring both Hue and Saturation back to zero now that the targeting is confirmed.

6. Shift Hue Toward Skin Tone

   Nudge the Hue slider to the right for a color closer to natural skin tone.

7. Raise Lightness and Saturation to Match

   Raise Lightness and bring Saturation back up slightly until the targeted areas match the surrounding, unaffected skin.

Restoring Color to the Lips

Because the lips fall into the same red range as the acne, the adjustment ends up affecting them too and needs to be masked back out.

8. Paint Black Over the Lips on the Layer Mask

   Select the Hue/Saturation layer’s mask, choose a regular brush set to black, and paint over the lips to bring their natural color back.

Removing Individual Blemishes With the Spot Healing Brush

With the redness handled, the Spot Healing Brush’s Content-Aware option removes the individual raised spots quickly, sampling the surrounding skin automatically.

9. Create a New Layer

   Create a new layer above the Hue/Saturation adjustment.

10. Set the Spot Healing Brush to Content-Aware

    Select the Spot Healing Brush, choose Content-Aware, and turn on Sample All Layers so the healing happens on the new empty layer.

11. Paint Over Each Visible Spot

    Match the brush size roughly to each blemish and paint directly over the raised, visible spots in a first pass.

Smoothing Blotchy Texture With a Second Pass

A second pass with the same Spot Healing Brush targets larger blotchy areas of texture and uneven tone left after the individual spots are gone.

12. Zoom Out to See Blotchy Areas

    Zoom out to spot larger blotchy or uneven areas of texture that weren’t targeted as individual spots.

13. Paint Over Blotchy Areas

    Paint over these larger areas with the same Content-Aware Spot Healing Brush, letting it sample more even skin nearby to fill them in.

14. Redo Any Unsatisfying Results

    Use the Eraser tool to undo any spot that doesn’t look right, or simply paint over it again, since each pass samples a different part of the image.

Why Getting Rid of Redness Comes Before Spot Healing

Trying to heal away blemishes while the surrounding skin is still inflamed and red would leave the Spot Healing Brush sampling and spreading that same redness around. Neutralizing the color first means the skin the brush samples from is already close to a natural tone, which is why the texture pass afterward takes far less time and looks more even.

Adding Back a Touch of Natural Skin Color

Skin naturally has small variations in color across the face, so a subtle layer of color painted back in keeps the finished result from looking artificially flat.

15. Sample a Color From the Lips

    Sample the natural color already present in the lips.

16. Paint on a Soft Light Layer

    Create a new layer, change its blend mode to Soft Light, and paint the sampled color lightly over areas of the face.

17. Lower Opacity to Taste

    Lower the layer’s opacity until the added color reads as a subtle, natural variation rather than an obvious tint.

Why Add Color Back In After Removing Acne

Neutralizing all the redness in the skin can leave a face looking uniformly one color, which isn’t how real skin actually looks even without acne. Painting a small amount of natural color back in on a Soft Light layer restores the subtle variation real skin has, keeping the retouched result from looking artificially flat or overly processed.

Why This Approach Works

Isolating just the Reds channel and narrowing the color range slider is what lets the redness adjustment target pimples specifically, rather than shifting every red tone in the skin including the lips. Neutralizing color before reaching for the Spot Healing Brush is what keeps the healing tool from sampling and spreading around skin that’s still inflamed, which is why the texture pass afterward goes so quickly. Adding a small amount of natural color back in at the very end is what keeps the finished skin from reading as artificially flat once all the redness and texture work is done.

Final Thoughts

Splitting acne removal into a color pass followed by a texture pass, rather than trying to fix everything with one tool, is what makes the whole process go faster and look more convincing. The same targeted Hue/Saturation and Content-Aware Spot Healing combination works well beyond acne too, for any blotchy or uneven skin tone that needs smoothing out.

Quick Reference: Keys, Menus and Settings

• Target the redsHue/Saturation layer, Master to Reds
• See the targetCrank Hue and Saturation, drag the middle range slider left, then reset to 0
• NeutralizeHue a little right, raise Lightness and a little Saturation
• Restore the lipsPaint black on the Hue/Saturation mask
• Heal the spotsSpot Healing Brush J: Content-Aware, Sample All Layers, on a new layer
• Add color backSample the lips, paint on a Soft Light layer, lower opacity