Perfect Skin tones In photoshop

Have a picture where you absolutely have to remove a hideous blemish or just even out oily/ shiny skintone? No problem! Follow these easy tips.

1. The easiest way to remove them is the Cloning Stamp. Click on the tool’s icon, hold the Alt key or option for mac and click on a skin area near the spot you want to remove. Let the Alt (option) key go and now click on the spot. It’ll be covered by the skin area you just picked . I suggest using a brush size similar to the size of the spot you want to remove, and also lowering the opacity value to 60% or so to get more realistic results.
2. reflections
   Close-ups sometimes show light reflections, especially on the forehead and nose. Removing them is as easy as removing spots: grab the Cloning Stamp and work the same as for step 1, making sure that this time the brushes mode is set to “Darken” instead of normal.
3. Smoothing the skin
   After removing blotches and reflections, it’s time for smoothing . Press Ctrl+J to duplicate the background layer and with the new layer active, go to Filter > Noise > Median. After thar reduce the layer’s opacity to around 50%. This will blur the image a good bit and make the skin look even smoother.

4. The last thing
   The Median filter does a good job on skin but blurs out important subjects such as the eyes and hair that we want to be sharp so the image doesnt look cartoony. Add a layer mask to the background layer copy and with a black brush, start painting all over the areas you want to sharpen again.Or...Merge all visible layers and then use the history brush tool.

   See Its really not that bad...it just takes some time and dedication. The more you do it the better you'll get at it. It takes some experimentation as well..not all pictures are the same...for some you may spend minutes, others hours. Just stick with it....heres my before and after of Devon Aoki with light work to knock down some of her freckles and shine. Please View Full Size

   Before
   After
   
   

The Healing brush tool

The healing brush tool is a brush that retouches the image using sampled pixels or patterns.You will find this in your pallet of accessories...it looks like a bandaid "GET IT?" It lets you select an area to sample and then click where you would like to apply the selected area....then blends the two. Example...lets say you want to get rid of a mole on your face...You grab the healing brush tool...Sample an area you wanna replace the mole with, preferably a fresh spot of skin..Sample that area and then click on the mole and voila...MOLE GONE! There are several modes when using the healing brush tool..but usually you will want to stick to normal unless your not getting the results you want. The Patch tool lets you select an area youd like to retouch and then drag it to the area you would like to replace it with. I made this Alien picture from but of course a nude picture of a woman. I took the healing brush and sampled a blank spot of skin and replaced her nipples and her other female parts...ahem...and then did the same with her face. If you cant get the right blending try sampling a darker/lighter spot...or switching the mode from Normal to Replace. Its a really fun tool and allows you to do so many things. With the healing brush tool you can do these things and more...

1. Remove blemishes
2. Remove clothes
3. Remove Wrinkles
4. Even Skintone
5. MILLIONS OF POSSIBILITIES!!!

So Grab your healing brush tool and start removing stuff! You can remove clouds from the sky, remove a bird on the branch..it doesnt matter! Oh by the way it also allows you to add stuff...say you have a picture of a small bird flying away in the sky...If you sample that bird and then click on a blank part of sky you have another Bird!!!! REPEAT AS NECESSARY! Please View my image to get an understanding of what the healing brush does...And note..The picture before photoshopping was of a real human woman with real human nipples that are gone. **Just had to mention that*** And never mind the green and Lens flares...thats something we will get into at a later time...enjoy your Healing brush for now!