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.

Photoshop Clone Tool

This Photoshop Clone Tool will explain how to use the clone tool to remove anything from your image.

Not always, but often enough I find I want to remove objects/things in an image - in this case I wanted to remove the shadow underneath the guy on the skateboard - and while I was playing with the clone tool I also decided to change the colour of his trousers! The clone tool is an excellent tool and really easy to use once you know how.

The clone tool can be used in several ways, to clone - make a double of an object, or to remove something by cloning something less obvious… it’s easy to get to grips with which is why I love it so much.

Feel free to request something similar to this tutorial on the Photoshop Clone Tool.

Before

After

Photoshop Clone Tool - The Steps

• First of all, I suggest you download the image I am using - right click on it and save image

• Assuming you’ve got the image open and are ready to go, duplicate your layer. CTRL (win) / Command + J to duplicate.

• Now locate your clone tool - press S on your keyboard, make sure you’re using the clone tool and not the pattern stamp tool. Mine looks like this. Once you’ve got that, just under the File, Edit, Image tool bar you’ll see a brush, change it so that it’s a nice soft round one - I had one which was roughly 45 in size.

• Now, go to your image - in the image above I removed the shadow - it’s pretty easy to do, so that’s our aim. I’ll explain how: what the clone tool does is copy the part of the image you select and patch it over something you don’t want.

• Try this: hold down the ALT button and left click with your mouse on something you want to clone - go to something you want to remove (like the shadow) , let go of ALT and move your mouse over the shadow. Hopefully you’ll start to see the clone tool working by removing the shadow and cloning part of the image you clicked on. If it begins to look funny, select on the image again by pressing ALT + left click of the mouse - release and move your brush over the image. You’ll begin to see when you need to ALT + click on darker parts of the image and then lighter parts. If you struggle with this do it a few times - undo your edits and redo them. It’s easy when you know what you’re doing, a few tries will be all you need.

• That’s the hard bit - it’s easy but putting it into words, reading it & then trying it out is tricky.

• Now selectively change the colour of his jeans. I know you can do this with selective colouring, but I decided to do it differently as layer adjustments/selective colouring don’t always give you the free reign.

• So go -> Select -> Color Range - this box will appear, although the settings won’t be the same as mine - so change everything, but don’t worry that the little image doesn’t look the same. Once you’ve changed the settings so they match mine, move the box so you can see the guys jeans, then left click on the darker part of his jeans. I clicked on his left thigh. If you do it right, the little image in the box should look a lot like mine. Then click OK

• You should now see something similar to this - you can see that the guys jeans have been selected but so has part of the sky. You need to now deselect the sky and select any bits you haven’t got of the guys trousers. To do that select the Elliptical Maquee Tool , then hold down ALT and select parts of the selection you don’t want - if you want to be very picky then you could zoom in to make it easier. Just press Z and click a few times on your image, you’ll be zoomed in. Then go back to removing the selections. As I’m zoomed in, I also decided to be picky and add some more selection to his jeans - instead of holding down ALT, hold down SHIFT and then add more selections to his jeans.

• My selection ended up like this - now duplicate your selection. To do that press CTRL (win) / Command (mac) + J - if you go to your layers palette you’ll see that you have your original layer, your duplicated layer and then your newly duplicated one which will look much more different.

• Now go -> Layer -> New Layer Adjustment -> Hue/Saturation - change the saturation to -100 and lightness to +37 - press OK

• Now press CTRL (win) / Command + E and hopefully the hue /saturation layer will merge into the duplicated jeans layer.

• Phew… and there you have it. No more shadow and lighter jeans! If you have any questions regarding this Photoshop Clone Tool Tutorial then just drop me a line in the below comment box. I’ll happily reply.