This tutorial aims at teaching basic photo retouching in Photoshop. For the purpose of this tutorial I’ll use a picture of myself as I don’t mind pointing out my flaws!

Please note that I’m also working on a Mac, so some controls may be different, but I’ll do my best to note the PC version. I also work using a pen tablet, you can pick one up for around £30, I use a Wacom Bamboo and it works a treat! However you don’t need one to complete this tutorial.

Izzy Wizzy Lets Get Busy!

Open up your image…

First thing to change is levels. The lighting is not too bad in this, but personally I would alter it, just to make the colours “pop”.

The easiest way to do this is cmd+L (or Image>Adjustments>Levels).

Levels can be altered by pressing cmd/ctrl + L

Move the arrows around until you get a nice even tone overall. For now you don’t want too much contrast or you’ll lose some of detail. Hit OK.

• We now need to duplicated the background layer. Layer>Duplicate Layer, rename it “Skin” and hit OK.

Layer > Duplicate Layer, then rename it to 'Skin'

• Working on the skin layer, select the smudge tool and use a soft edge brush at about 60% opacity. We are now going to smudge out the blemishes, this will make the skin appear mannequin like, but don’t worry, we’ll sort that out next. Work with the shadows, you want to make the skin smooth.

The areas I’ve circled are ones I’d concentrate on, such as lines, cracked lips and the hair. With the hair, smudge it out as you don’t want too many strands on the face.

It’s important you zoom right in (200-300%) when doing this as not to miss bits, be accurate and take your time. Like I said, the finished product at this stage should look quite fake and “done”

• Now we are going to blend the two layers, so some blemishes show through, making it look natural but polished.

Easiest way to do this is Right Click on the “skin” layer and select blending options, keeping the blend mode on normal, bring the opacity down to suit the image.

I’ve set mine to about 54%. Hit OK and then Right Click the “skin” layer, select merge visible and hit OK.

• Zoom the image out and check that you have a natural, yet even skin tone. Any bits you aren’t happy with, repeat the previous process, only focusing on those areas.

You can also get rid of blemishes by using the healing brush (plaster icon) and clone tool (stamp icon). Using a combination of the two you can remove bruises and pimples.

• You can change the opacity and size of each tool the same what you can change a regular brush.
• Once you’ve picked a good size, press down alt and left click an area of skin you want to copy that’s nice and then left click over the blemish, gradually building it up and swapping between the two tools.
• To make it look a bit smother, used a soft edged brush, alt left click to select the right skin tone and paint over with a 10% opacity until you’re happy.

I’ve made the armpit and face look a lot smoother.

• Continue to go back and look at your image, correcting and blending until you’re happy! And that’s it, you’re done!

In the next tutorial, I’ll show you how to enhance the image even more! Tools covered will be:

• Shapern
• Blur
• Dodge & Burn
• Liquify

Ciao!

JemaA x