HOW TO: smoother skin in your photographs

Nobody's perfect... so, thank God for Adobe Photoshop! This tutorial is a quick guide into achieving a smoother looking skin in your photographs.

We will turn this, into THIS.

1. Open your file and duplicate the layer with the photo.

2. Select the duplicated layer. Then go to Filter > Blur > Smart Blur

3. After that, set the Radius between 26-28. threshold to 25. Set to Normal mode.

Your photo will appear very blurry by now.

4. Go to Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All

By this stage, your photo will appear like the original copy. What we are really trying to do here is to paint over the blurry layer to the original photo.

5. Select the Brush Tool. In this, I chose 80, soft edge. (TIP: The size of the brush would really depend on your photo. You may also want to use a smaller brush on tight areas). Set the Opacity between 30-50. And make sure that your foreground is white.

6. Move your brush across the face or on the areas you want to smoothen. Avoid the eyebrows, eyes and lips as it would appear unnatural.

And also try cloning some of the blemishes. (To know more about this, read:

How to Remove Unwanted Objects in Photographs: A Photoshop Tutorial)

And so, here it is:

That is it... easy as 1-2-3. Now go and try it yourself!

Happy weekend everyone!