Airbrushing
Learn how to airbrush using photoshop. Airbrushing is great to way to to remove any blemishes, wrinkles and whatnot quickly, professional photographers use it alot when retouching photos. For this tutorial I'm going to use a picture of Lindsay Lohan to airbrush, she looks nice already but once airbrushed you will see the difference achievable with any photo.
1. Open up your picture (or follow along using the lindsay picture) and change it's brightness and contrast a little by going to Image > Adjustments > Brightness and Contrast. I decreased the brightness by -4 and increased the contrast by +4. Duplicate the image layer
(you can do this by right clicking on your current layer and choosing 'Duplicate Layer' or pressing crtl + j.
Whilst on your duplicated layer, go to Filter > Noise > Dust and Scratches and use the settings below
3. Now go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and use the settings below, this helps smoothen out the picture.
4. Now go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and use the settings below to 'bring' back some of the skin's texture.
5. Once you have done that you have to create a vector mask on the duplicated layer. This is done by clicking on the duplicated layer and then clicking a small icon of a circle with a square. (see picture below). This will create a vector mask.
6. So now that we have a blank vector mask up, you should see a blank rectangle next to the layer.
7. Click on the blank vector mask you have created and then click the paint bucket tool or press G to activate it and fill the vector mask with black.
8. Choose a soft edged brush like the one below in the picture, but increase it's Hardness and reduce the Master Diameter of the brush to around 15px. Make sure you are using the colour white as the brushes foreground colour.
9. Now begin to apply the brush on to the skin of the picture. Don't use the brush on the complicated parts of the picture such as the eyes or on the lips. Use a small brush for detailed areas if needed.
10. Once you have finished, you should have something like this...
11. You can take it a step further and sharpening the picture. Well that's about it, happy airbrushing :)