How to Retouch Skin in Photoshop
In this article, we will list down a few tips on how to retouch skin using photoshop.
Small Blemishes
The main goal when retouching skin is to make tiny changes while keeping the most important details of your subject. A common thing done during a photo touch up is retouching flyaway hair that covers the face. Wrinkles around the mouth and eyes are also two common distractions that could be removed or reduced to improve the appearance of the image.
You can use the Spot Healing Brush Tool in Photoshop when working with such blemishes. This tool, when active, offers a few options for you to choose from. Make sure that Content-Aware and Sample All Layers are checked in these options. The former allows you to get information about the area and paint to fill and change contents in that area. The latter gives information about the layers in your image, letting you create a new and blank layer without making definitive changes to your original image.
After selecting the settings, you can create a brand new layer and use the Spot Healing Brush Tool to cover any lines, wrinkles, hair, or blemishes on the subject's skin. Make sure to adjust the brush size in order to match the area that you're trying to reduce or remove. Photoshop will take care of the rest.
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Larger Blemishes
If you find larger blemishes on your subject, expected to relatively the same thing except you will have to use a bigger brush and you will have to paint over a wider area. However, be cautious because using the same tool for areas that are delicate can result in a blotchy appearance and loss of texture.
So how do you work around this? First, you can use the Spot Healing Brush Tool to cover the area more than once until you get your desired result. If this is not effective, then try to get as close as you can by using this tool. Follow this with the Clone Stamp Tool in order to get a sample of the desired skin texture from a spot that is nearby and is not edited. Then, paint over that texture using the healing brush to recover the detail.
Dodging and Burning
Dodging and burning lets you enhance shadow areas in highlights in order to create more definition or even out skin tones. You can do this using Curves Adjustment Layers and Layer Masks.
To get started with touching, create a Curves Adjustment Layer. Drag the midpoint up until you reach the darker areas of the photo on a level that you prefer. To invert the layer mask of the adjustment layer, use the shortcut CTRL or CMD + I. This will make it entirely invisible.
Choose Luminosity in the Blending Mode. Use the Brush Tool and set it at a flow of 10% or so in order to paint white on the Layer Masks. Cover any dark areas that you want to lighten such as dark under-eye circles or any unnecessary shadows. Aim to minimize harsh shadows and reveal more detail.
Darkening, or burning, can be done using the same process. Drag the midpoint down in the Curves dialog until the brightest highlights of your photo are even with the rest of the image. Set the Blending Mode to Luminosity in order to invert the layer mask again. This time, paint on the highlight areas that you want to even out.
During post-process photo retouching, use these two layers to combine and come up with a smooth and natural-looking skin tone with no distractions, shadows, or highlights that are over empowering.
OUtsource it
If you don’t have the time to use Photoshop yourself you can download an app like MIKU. MIKU gives you access to a team of professional designers with years of experience using Photoshop and other photo editing and post production tools. You can download MIKU on iPhone here.
