Photoshop Airbrushing Tutorial

This Photoshop Airbrushing Tutorial will explain how to airbrush skin and remove blemishes.

Airbrushing is a tricky thing, it can be very beautiful when done properly - the idea is to airbrush without making the skin look fake, admittedly my preview isn’t the most natural one, it’s a little over-airbrushed. When reading through this tutorial think "less is more" - it makes your photograph/skin look more beautiful.

There are two parts to this tutorial, removing the blemishes and then airbrushing - both can be useful on all sorts of images.

Feel free to request something similar to this Photoshop Airbrushing Tutorial.

Before

After

Photoshop Airbrushing - The Steps

• For this tutorial, I’ll be using the picture of myself above. As you can probably see, the image I’m using of myself has a ton of freckles. If you’re using a different picture that doesn’t have any blemishes/spots, or anything like that, skip right ahead to the 2nd Paragraph below. However if you’re going to be using the same picture as I am, or a picture that has any blemishes/spots or even freckles, follow the paragraph below.

• 1st: Note, if you have a ton of freckles on your the persons face in your image, don’t go crazy trying to erase every single freckle, just erase the obvious ones. Now, select the Healing Brush tool, by simply clicking J , then right click and select the Healing Brush Tool. Click here for a screenshot. Now, go to a piece of clear skin next to the blemish/spot, hold the ALT key and left click with your mouse, by doing this, it will load the healing brush within that area, now move your mouse over the blemish/spot. Left click & the blemish/spot shouldn’t be there anymore. Repeat this step for the other blemishes on your image.

• 2nd: You shouldn’t have any obvious blemishes/spots or freckles on your image now. Duplicate the layer (Layer -> Duplicate Layer). Now we need to add Dust & Scratches, simply by going Filter -> Noise -> Dust & Scratches… Set the Radius to 7 & Threshold to 0. Click here for a screenshot. Click OK.

• 3rd: Your image is probably looking a bit awkward at the moment, but don’t worry, carry on with the steps. Next go to Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur…Set the radius to 2, click OK. It should now be looking really blurry.

• 4th: . Now we need to turn your duplicated layer into a mask, Simply by going Layer -> Layer mask -> Hide all.

• 5th: Select a small round soft white brush, firstly we’ll start off with your brush size as 30 and your Opacity 90%. Brush over the larger area’s of the skin, like the cheeks & forehead. Make sure you change the brush size and opacity for different areas of her face such as her nose, chin & other places, so when you brush over the smaller parts of her face, lower the Opacity to about 50%, or even lower, depending on how you want it to look. Make sure you never brush around on or around the eyes, lips, ears, hair, clothes… or anything like that. Only ever brush on the skin. Now merge all your layers….

• Now for the finishing touch. Go filter -> Sharpen -> Sharpen. And then go to Filter -> Sharpen -> Sharpen Edges.

• And that’s it. If you have any questions regarding this Photoshop Airbrushing Tutorial then just drop me a line here. I’ll happily reply.