Quick 'perfect skin' retouch technique
 | Step 1Start by opening your chosen image in Photoshop - this technique works a lot better with really sharp, high quality images. Note that you can actually skip steps 2-5 if your subject has relatively clear skin to start with. |
 | Step 2We’ll start by removing the most obvious blemishes (pimples, spots, heavy wrinkles, facial hair and so on). Depending on which version of Photoshop you’re using you’ll have a variety of tools at your disposal, from the most basic Rubber Stamp (clone) tool to the new Healing and Patch brushes. I’ve started with the Spot Healing Brush as this allows ‘one click’ fixes for smaller blemishes. |
 | Step 3Work your way around the image (zoomed in) and remove the most obvious blemishes (here I’m using the Healing Brush to remove ‘eyebrow stubble’). Don’t worry too much about getting it perfect; we just want rid of the worst blemishes. Don’t worry if you’ve never used Photoshop’s cloning tools - we’ll cover blemish removal in more depth next time. There’s some tips on the use of the Rubber Stamp tool here. |
 | Step 4Use the Healing Brush to remove any particularly prominent wrinkles. |
 | Step 5Here’s my example when I’ve finished the ‘patching’ process. Note that I’ve used the Rubber Stamp tool to smooth away the dark patches under the eyes and have removed some - but not all - the wrinkles. |
 | Step 6Duplicate the background layer (press Control-J or drag the layer thumbnail onto the 'new layer' icon - as shown here). |
 | Step 7With the upper layer active choose Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. |
 | Step 8Choose a blur radius large enough to completely remove all texture from the skin - this will depend on the size of the image, but expect it to be in the 30-70 pixel range. |
 | Step 9Temporarily hide the new blurred layer by clicking on the little ‘eye’ icon next to its thumbnail in the Layers palette. |
 | Step 10Press Q to enter quick mask mode and choose a large, soft paintbrush. As shown here, paint all the areas you want to remain sharp with black paint (it will appear as red in quick mask mode). You can do this pretty roughly - we’ll fine tune later. |
 | Step 11Press Q again to exit quick mask - the mask you generated in step 10 will now be turned into a selection. Make the upper layer visible again and click on the ‘add mask’ icon at the bottom of the Layers palette (as shown here). |
 | Step 12You should see something like this; the skin area is totally smooth, the rest as it was when you started. You’ll notice that the edges don’t meet up properly, so we need to get to work fine-tuning the mask on the upper layer. |
 | Step 13Click on the layer mask icon on the upper layer and use the paintbrush tool to clean up the edges of the mask. Use black paint to reveal more of the underlying layer (the original) and white paint to reveal more of the blurred skin layer. Work around the image and get it as clean as you can. You need to take care - and use a smaller brush - around the eyebrows and eyelashes. |
 | Step 14Unless you want a totally plastic skin tone (which is, of course, how some magazines treat their celebrities and models) this is about as far as you need to go - the ‘problem’ areas (around the eyebrows and eyelashes) will soon disappear. |
 | Step 15To get a more realistic skin texture we need to reduce the opacity of the blurred (upper) layer to somewhere between 40 and 65% - how far you go is up to you. We’ve chosen 55%, which allows some of the skin pores to show through without losing the nice smooth look. Note that you may need at this point to go back to the underlying layer and remove any blemishes you missed at the start of the process. Finally flatten the image and apply any tone/colour corrections you wish. |
 | Step 16We could stop here, but I want to show you a few additional tricks you might want to try, starting with adding a ‘texture layer’, something you’ll need if you make the skin very smooth (in other words if you don’t reduce the opacity very much). Start by choose Layer>New Layer. When the New Layer dialog appears choose ‘Overlay’ mode and tick the ‘Fill with Overlay-neutral color’ option. Then click on OK. |
 | Step 17With the new layer active choose Filter>Noise>Add Noise and when the dialog appears choose an amount of around 10-15% and select the Gaussian and Monochromatic options. You should see the noise appear as an overlay on your image. |
 | Step 18For a slightly less ‘grainy’ effect run a gentle Gaussian blur (1 or 2 pixels) on the ‘noise layer’. |
 | Step 19Finally reduce the opacity of the noise layer until you’re happy with the effect (the amount needed will depend totally on how ‘smooth’ you left the skin in step 15). |
 | Step 20TIP: you can change the colour of the skin (to remove rosy cheeks, for example) by creating a new empty layer, changing its blend mode to ‘Color’ and its opacity to around 50%, then painting with a soft brush with the skin tone you want to use. |
 | Step 21TIP: Using the same method you can easily add ‘make up’ to the face. Here the overall tone has been warmed up and subtle colour added to the eyes and lips. |
 | Step 22There’s no limit to how far you take your digital makeover; it’s common in magazine and advertising to use Photoshop’s Liquify filter to subtly change the shape of the face, increasing eye and mouth size, slimming the cheeks, adding a hint of a smile and so on. It’s worth having a play, but of course you’ve moved from the realms of ‘touching up’ a portrait to ‘total fantasy’... great practice for your Photoshop skills though! |
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A really useful article
Steve P
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Very informative and easy to follow too. My wife reckons she does not need this done anyway!! Spends a fortune on creams and the like.
Steve
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I read this, so that I can apply it to other people. I myself am perfect!
Jen xx
Jen xx
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I was looking for professional retouching methods and I found them here. Thank you.
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Good tutorial. Some graphic explanation how magazine photos are manipulated.
To be open - most people would like to get rid of some minor defect in their looks but who really wants to look like a magazine picture? My wrinkles are acquired with a lot of hard work and if anybody does not like my looks - well, they can look somewhere else
This manipulation stuff used in glossy magazines is a double-edged tool. It puts a lot of pressure especially on young women.
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Girl guding UK are in the throws of a campaign on the whole airbrushed photos issue - they want magazines to be forced to say which images have been airbrushed. That said i'm going to have a go at this. I have a lovely picture of my 2 year old but need to edit out the snotty nose!