How to use Adobe Photoshop to Smoothen Skin

Step 17

Once you have set a source area, you can start eliminating the blemishes from the picture. Do this by moving the cursor over the areas that need corrected. If some areas have a different aspect, you can change the source area by following the steps above.

Figure 17.

Step 18

After you have eliminated all the blemishes, you can proceed to the next step: smoothing the skin’s overall aspect. It is recommended to create a separate layer to work on. Click the Create New Layer option (you will find it in the Layers Palette) and name it “Smooth Skin”. By giving each layer a different name, you will differentiate between them and you will always know on what layer you are working on at that moment.

Figure 18.

Step 19

Merge all visible layers on the active one (do so by holding down the Ctrl + Alt + Shift + E key combination). By merging all layers, you will have also included in the image you will be working on the layer you used when you have eliminated the blemishes. So you will be working on the edited version and not the initial picture.

Figure 19.

Step 20

In order to proceed to smoothing the skin, you have to use a Median filter (you can also use the Gaussian Blur filter. But using the Median is more recommended because the edges are better taken care of. Using the Gaussian Blur filter will fog all the skin’s edges, making the final picture look less sharp).

Figure 20.

Step 21

Select the “Median” filter by selecting it from the Filter gallery > Noise > Median. After you have selected it, set a value of 50% to “opacity” and a “radius” of around 10 pixels.

Figure 21.

Step 22

You can see that the skin begins to look way smoother then before, but there still are some blurred areas around the eyes, lips, hair, eyebrows and eyelashes, as well as the edges of the nose. These margins must be sharp (you only want to smooth the skin and not to blur the image away). Using a mask will allow you to ignore those margins.

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