superb skin airbrush technique

Photoshop Tutorials

Superb Skin Airbrush TechniqueAirbrush skin like a pro. In this Photoshop retouchingtutorial, you’ll learn how to retouch skin like theprofessionals. Find out how to make skin look healthywithout looking plastic or blurred.

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skin-airbrushing.psd

Airbrushing Skin Photoshop TutorialStep 1

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Open the photo into Photoshop. For this tutorial, try to use a high resolution image where youcan see the skin texture.

Step 2Create a duplicate layer and put it into a group. To do this, press Ctrl+J to duplicate the layerthen Ctrl+G to place the new layer into a group. Name the group "Airbrush" and the layer "Blur".To retouch the skin, there will be two layers in the Airbrush group. The first layer we’ve created(the Blur layer) will be used to blur the skin. After that, we’ll add another layer to restore thenatural skin texture.

Step 3Have the Blur layer selected. To blur this layer, use the Surface Blur filter. This filter blurs like the



Gaussian Blur filter except it can retain edge detail. We’ll need to blur the layer so that the skin issmoothed and somewhat blurry without having the edges

Here’s what my image looks looks like after the Surface Blur filter. Your image should looksimilar with details such as the eye intact. If the eye becomes blurry, your settings are too strong.Undo and redo the Surface Blur filter with a lower setting.

Step 4Create a new layer and move it above the Blur layer. Name this layer "Texture" and change theblend mode to Hard Light. This layer, as the name states, will be used to add a slight texture tothe skin and also adjust the skin tonality.



The texture created in this layer will contribute to the final results very minimally - the differencecan only be easily seen zoomed in on high resolution images and varies from image to image.Even though the result is very minimal, it ensures that no area of the skin looks too smooth orplastic.

Below is an example of this. On the left, the image looks like a solid color, also known as plasticskin. The image on the right has a slight noise pattern to make the skin look more realistic.

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Written by admin on February 24th, 2008 with 72 comments.Read more articles on Photo Retouching and Photoshop Tutorials.

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Photoshop Tutorials

Superb Skin Airbrush TechniqueStep 5Make sure that you have the "Texture" layer selected. With that layer selected, press Shift+F5 orchoose Edit > Fill. In the Fill tool, set the settings according to the image below. This will fill yourlayer with a 50% gray color.

Step 6Open the Add Noise filter from the Filter > Noise menu. Enter in the settings shown in the imagebelow. This will add some noise to the image that will prevent skin from looking plastic. It maylook a little too sharp, but in the next step, we’ll fix this with a Gaussian Blur filter.

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Step 7Choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Blur the layer by 1 pixel.

Step 8Now we’ll temporarily tint the color of this layer. First, select the Eye Dropper tool from thetoolbar. Sample an area on the skin that appears to be the average skin color. You don’t have tobe very precise because we will tune the color later in the tutorial. In the Color palette, click onthe flyout menu below the close window button and select HSB sliders. We’ll need to see theHSB values for the next step.



Step 9Open the Hue/Saturation tool by pressing Ctrl+U or choosing Image > Adjustments >Hue/Saturation. Check the Colorize option and adjust the hue, saturation, and lightness valuesto match the HSB values from the color we sampled in the previous step. For the brightness, setthis to

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Photoshop Tutorials

Superb Skin Airbrush TechniqueStep 10Select the Airbrush group in the Layers palette and add go to Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All.This will create a layer mask filled with the color black that will hide the group. With this layermask, we’ll paint the areas were we want the skin to appear. Otherwise, this skin airbrushingeffect will appear on the entire image.

Step 11First, press D on your keyboard to set the foreground and background colors to the default blackand white. Select the Brush tool and apply the settings below.

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Zoom in to 100% and paint over the skin. The parts that you paint will appear smoother with adifferent skin tone. Don’t worry if the skin tone doesn’t look correct. This is because we didn’tpick the correct color when we used the Hue/Saturation to tint the "Texture" layer. It’s too difficultto do that without a preview, so we’ll fix that later.

When painting, you’ll need to change the brush size and hardness frequently. It would be tediousto always access the brush option menu to do this so take this as an opportunity to use hot keys.Use the following hot keys to help you with modifying the brush size and hardness:

Decrease brush size: [Increase brush size: ]Decrease brush softness by 25%: Shift + [Increase brush softness by 25%: Shift + ]

When you’re done, your layer mask should have the skin areas in white and the skin should looksmooth.



Step 12Now we’re going to fix back the color and tone of the skin as we mentioned earlier in the tutorial.Select the "Texture" layer and press Ctrl+U to access the Hue/Saturation tool. Alter the settingsto get a natural looking skin tone.

The Hue setting is usually correct. I increased it by 10 to add more yellow to it to make theappearance of the red areas less visible.The Saturation setting usually needs to be reduced greatly. Adjust this until the skin tonelooks natural but not too pale.The Lightness setting requires slight modification. A slight change in the lightness willcreate big difference in how the skin blends in with the image. As you adjust the setting,you will see how sensitive this setting is. Even though it requires high precision, it is easyto tell when it is the correct setting. If it is off, it will look really off. If it is at the correctsetting, it will look a lot more natural.

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Photoshop Tutorials

Superb Skin Airbrush TechniqueStep 13Finally, we’re going to restore the skin details. Choose Image > Apply Image. Use the settingsbelow.

The reason why we’re applying data from the Red channel is because it contains the least skinimperfections. The image below shows the difference in the channels. The red channel hidesmany of the skin imperfections that are visible in the green and blue channel.

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Final ResultsHere’s the final results after applying this airbrushing technique. In the image below, you can seehow smooth the skin looks. Because the image below has been downsized to fit into thistutorial, it may look slightly plastic. However, when zoomed in, the texture is clearly visible.

This is a crop of an area zoomed in 100%. The tiny skin bumps are still visible. Even near thebottom right of the image, it still looks natural because of the "Texture" layer that we added.Without that layer, that area would appear as a solid color with no noise.



And as usual, here are the before and after images.



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