How to Quickly Smooth Skin and Remove Blemishes in Adobe Photoshop CC

Touching up photos is a common task when taking professional photos. Often times small blemishes are removed to give a better final appearance. This task is accomplished quite easily in Adobe Photoshop. Today we are going to learn how to smooth skin and remove blemishes in Adobe Photoshop CC.

How to Remove Blemishes and Smooth Skin in Adobe Photoshop CC.

1. First, import your required image.
2. Select the skin by choosing the Quick Selection Tool and drag it over the skin to select it. You can remove selecting actions by pressing and holding Alt or Opt.
3. Go to Select and choose Refine Edge.
4. Check ‘Smart Radius’ and increase it to 6.5.
5. Brush over the section where the hair overlaps the skin. Once done, choose Output To ‘New Layer with Layer Mask’.
6. Click the box next to your original photo to make it visible.
7. Go to Filter, Blue, and select Surface Blur. You will need to adjust these depending on the quality of your photo. The right combination will smooth out the skin and hide blemishes..

Recommended settings:

1. This is what we use for most of our photos:
   • Radius:         16 pixels
   • Threshold:         12 levels
2. You can stop here if you think it’s enough, otherwise continue and restore the areas of the face that need no help. These include the eyes, eyebrows, etc.
3. Click the Layer Mask and open your Brush Tool. Choose these settings:
   • Size:             25%
   • Hardness:        0%
   • Opacity:        100%
   • Flow:             100%
4. Brush over the areas where you want to reveal the original or untouched photo. You can change the size of the brush by pressing the right or left bracket key.
5. If there are blemishes or pores that are still visible, you can blur that portion.
6. Make the face layer active, open the Blue Tool and choose 100% strength.
7. Select the right brush size and brush over the areas that you want to smooth out.
8. Now, if you have spots remaining then open the Spot Healing Brush Tool and make sure the Content Aware button is selected.
9. Adjust the size of the tool and move over the areas you want to smooth out. Once you’re done, go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise.
10. Finally, choose Gaussian and Monochromatic. You can also increase grain by moving the slider but that’s typically not needed.
11. Done. Export the image and enjoy!

Now you can easily brush over and correct any image that you want.

If you have any questions, let me know in the comment section below!