Airbrushing Skin Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1
Open the photo into Photoshop. For this tutorial, try to use a high resolution image where you
can see the skin texture.

Step 2
Create a duplicate layer and put it into a group. To do this, press Ctrl+J to duplicate the layer
then 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
weve created (the Blur layer) will be used to blur the skin. After that, well add another layer
to restore the natural skin texture.

Step 3
Have 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. Well need to blur the layer so
that the skin is smoothed and somewhat blurry without having the edges

Heres what my image looks looks like after the Surface Blur filter. Your image should look
similar 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 4
Create a new layer and move it above the Blur layer. Name this layer Texture and change
the blend mode to Hard Light. This layer, as the name states, will be used to add a slight
texture to the skin and also adjust the skin tonality.

The texture created in this layer will contribute to the final results very minimally the
difference can 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 or plastic.
Below is an example of this. On the left, the image looks like a solid color, also known as
plastic skin. The image on the right has a slight noise pattern to make the skin look more
realistic.

Step 5
Make sure that you have the Texture layer selected. With that layer selected, press Shift+F5
or choose Edit > Fill. In the Fill tool, set the settings according to the image below. This will
fill your layer with a 50% gray color.

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

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

Step 8
Now well temporarily tint the color of this layer. First, select the Eye Dropper tool from the
toolbar. Sample an area on the skin that appears to be the average skin color. You dont have
to be very precise because we will tune the color later in the tutorial. In the Color palette,
click on the flyout menu below the close window button and select HSB sliders. Well need
to see the HSB values for the next step.











Step 9
Open 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 values
to match the HSB values from the color we sampled in the previous step. For the brightness,
set this to






Step 10
Select 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
layer mask, well paint the areas were we want the skin to appear. Otherwise, this skin
airbrushing effect will appear on the entire image.





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


Zoom in to 100% and paint over the skin. The parts that you paint will appear smoother with
a different skin tone. Dont worry if the skin tone doesnt look correct. This is because we
didnt pick the correct color when we used the Hue/Saturation to tint the Texture layer. Its
too difficult to do that without a preview, so well fix that later.
When painting, youll need to change the brush size and hardness frequently. It would be
tedious to 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 youre done, your layer mask should have the skin areas in white and the skin should
look smooth.

Step 12
Now were 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 settings to 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 the appearance of the red areas less visible.
The Saturation setting usually needs to be reduced greatly. Adjust this until the skin
tone looks natural but not too pale.
The Lightness setting requires slight modification. A slight change in the lightness
will create 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 easy to tell when it is the correct setting. If it is off, it will look really
off. If it is at the correct setting, it will look a lot more natural.

Step 13
Finally, were going to restore the skin details. Choose Image > Apply Image. Use the
settings below.



The reason why were applying data from the Red channel is because it contains the least
skin imperfections. The image below shows the difference in the channels. The red channel
hides many of the skin imperfections that are visible in the green and blue channel.

Final Results
Heres the final results after applying this airbrushing technique. In the image below, you can
see how smooth the skin looks. Because the image below has been downsized to fit into this
tutorial, 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 the
bottom 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.