Remove Blemishes - Photoshop Retouching Course | Lesson 1

so let's say you're driving on the road on a hot sunny afternoon there's a lot of sunlight on the road and as a result it's reflecting back a hell lot of sunlight back to your eyes making it challenging to see this makes driving really dangerous so what do you do to protect yourself to see the road ahead you wear sunglasses this helps you see the road ahead making driving possible not that challenging similarly in Photoshop take a look at this video yes you can see the blemishes but to be able to see all the blemishes to do a perfect blemish removal we need to add a filter now take a look at it with the filter added you can see all the blemishes carefully thus making it easy for you to remove the blemishes so how do you do that in Photoshop back in the magical world of Photoshop and you can download the practice files to follow along all you have to do is to create a black and white adjustment layer click on the adjustment layer icon and then choose black and white now let's turn it off for a moment let us study the blemishes the blemishes or acne is usually more reddish so if we can find a setting where we can make the Reds darker or make the Reds stand out in some way this would make it absolutely easy for us to spot the blemishes right so here's what we do let's turn on the black and white adjustment layer and just take the Reds down just like that and right now you can see all the blemishes pretty clearly to make it even clearer you can take the yellows up and the Reds more down you can make these adjustments and there you go just a tip don't show it to the model or the subject and be a little Brave when you're trying it on your face in this video we will learn four ways to remove blemishes in Photoshop you might ask why for so that you can be the master and you can decide which method to use when each of these methods have their own pros and cons and we're going to discuss it in detail now it's easy to learn how to remove blemishes by the end of this video you'll be a champion but we'll also learn when not to remove blemishes and what kind of blemishes to remove and what kind to not remove and to It's the end we will learn what is the best way for you so without any further Ado let's get started before we begin I have a little gift for you it's not a lot but it might help you so remember the blemish scanning we learned before I turned that into an action which you can download using the links in the description so all you have to do is to load the action how do you load the action first of all Coro window and then actions make sure it is checked if it's not check it the actions panel will show up click on the double hamburger icon right there and go to load actions locate the action load it right here once you load it it will show up as pick blemish check select the action and just play it and there you go you have your blemish check layer created automatically now it might not always work perfectly with all of the images so you might have to go back to the settings by double click clicking on the thumbnail of the adjustment L and adjust the Reds and the yellows to get exactly what you want but for the most part this gives you a great starting point starting with the first technique I already was feeling guilty for exaggerating everybody's blemishes so I want to do it with my face first so I feel less guilty about it so let's go to our actions and play blemish scan I need to be a little Brave right here let's play it and there you go you can see the blemishes the first technique is using the spot healing brush tool it is super fast and it's great for small tiny blemishes so select the background lay on top of that let's create a new lay by clicking on this button right there you want to make sure that the blemish removal layer is underneath the blemish check layer always let's select click and hold right here let's select the spot healing brush tool and you also want to make sure that sample all layers is checked otherwise this is a blank layer there is nothing to sample from you want it to sample from right here so let's zoom in a little bit and just start painting look how fast it is there we go instantaneously everything is gone now I wouldn't remove this mole right here because it's permanent it makes me me we're going to discuss this later in the video but for right now let us remove all of these I'm not going to remove some birth marks and there you go now I didn't take the time to do everything but just even doing this here's the before and here is the after a lot is gone now you might ask unish what about the remove tool it does the same thing right yes it does the same thing it is a newer tool but from what I have found out at least in this version of photosop version 25 sometimes remove tool does better sometimes the spot healing brush tool does better so right here you can also work with the remove tool but the remove tool takes a little more time so you have to do your own experiment to decide which one works better for you the remove tool or the spot healing brush tool but only in terms of quality when removing blemishes because in terms of speed at least at at the moment the spot healing brush tool is way faster than the remove tool to demonstrate that here's a super high resolution image we have selected the spot healing brush tool let's paint this area you saw how long that took don't worry about the quality right now if you choose the remove tool let's paint the same area again it it's still processing it's not very very slow but when you're removing a lot of tiny blemishes it all just adds up so once you're done removing bemes simply turn off the blemish checkl as you would take off your sunglasses after driving you don't want to wear that in the basement anyway so here's the before and here is the after so as for the positives the spot healing brush tool is super duper fast no doubt about that but as for the negatives the quality isn't that good let me share with you an example so you're literally trading speed for Quality so right here if I were to remove this large blemish have a look it messed up let's turn off blemish check it just doesn't look right other tools will do a better job so that is why spot healing brush tool becomes a great tool for removing small tiny blemishes one last thing to keep in mind is that when you're working with the spot healing brush tool you have content aware and normal selected at the top in the options bar moving on to the next technique where we use the healing brush tool now the healing brush tool is a more advanced version of the spot healing brush tool now before we work through it first of all let's play the blemish scan now let's create a layer on top of the background lay you can name it blemish removal I'm feeling a bit lazy so I'm not going to do that now let us choose the healing brush tool right here now you just don't paint if you try to do that an error will show up it will ask you to sample an area so in spot healing brush tool you could just paint it would automatically decide which areas to sample from and do everything automatically the quality isn't that good the texture didn't come through through if you paint a larger area you'll notice sometimes it smudges little areas sometimes it doesn't and have a look here there is no texture there should have been some texture so with the spot healing brush tool the computer is doing the thinking and believe it or not computers also can be dumb sometimes with the healing brush tool you take control you do the thinking so to fix this blemish right here you know that these areas would be a great place to sample from now before you do anything you want to make sure that the blend mode at the top is set to normal and all of these settings exactly the way they are most importantly set the sample to current and below so it's sampling the current and Below layers so all you need to do is to hold the ALT key or the option key click on an area that you need to reference from or sample from so in this case this is the area and then just paint right here and all of the texture shows up it's all perfect and there you go it's all fixed similarly with this spish which area would be a great reference ask that question for example let's sample from right here by holding the ALT key or the option key click to take a sample and just paint right here there you go the result is amazing now what is the problem with this method you'll see for this area let's sample from this area paint right here that looks nice for this let's sample from this area pull the ALT key or the option key again click sample click sample pick paint sample paint you see that every time you paint you have to sample it slows down the process but it's more accurate so again you're trading higher quality for lesser speed before moving to the next method in all of these methods up until now you get to have a non-destructive blemish removal lay so for example here's the before here's the after right and if you just see this layer if you hold the ALT key of the option key click on the eye make it solo you you will notice that this layer only has areas that are replacing the blemishes that's it so if you replace the blemish accidentally and you want to remove it you can just select that layer click on the Eraser tool and simply erase that that's it but that is not possible having this layer with just the replacements is not possible with the next method coming to my favorite method and that is using the patch to because it creates the highest quality results first of all make a copy of the background layer because you do have to do that right here by pressing control or command J let's name this blemish removal now before starting your blemish removal Journey on a hot sunny day don't forget to put on your sunglasses there you go let's select the blemish removal L and this time select the patch tool before you do anything you want to make sure source is selected and Patch normal diffusion at 5 now just zoom in all you have to do is to select the area select the blemish area and drag it to a place which is similar without the blemish so I know this will be the texture right here just drop it and it's gone and it's the highest quality press control or command D to deselect similarly let's try this area remember doing this area with the spot healing brush tool and we messed up again let's do it for comparison select the spot healing brush tool let's do this area it's still messed it up if you try the remove tool right here let's do that it again messed it up if you want absolute accurate results select the patch tool make a selection of this area and then drag it and drop it to an area of similar texture there you go this is perfect but it creates a bright spot here no problem select that area again move it to a different place and it's perfectly gone now let me share with you one more trick now this is only possible for areas with similar textures so right here let's say there there are a lot of blemishes you can do multiple selections so a selection here hold the shift key a selection there a selection here a selection there right multiple selections and then you can drag them at once so just like this there you go all gone at the same time press control or command D now this one messed up so let's do that area again and that's just another trick so I took the time to do the whole thing so here's the overall before and after let's turn off the blemish check lay and again before after all of that is fine but now you might ask how do we remove blemishes from complex areas like this there's hair right here and the blemish is behind the hair so how do you do that if you try the patch tool it's not going to align it's going to mess this area up so for these complicated areas I recommend dodging and burning now it's a way more advanced thing which we will cover later in the video and if you are impatient you can watch this video on dodging and burning but just to give you a preview create a new layer on top change its blend mode to soft light take the brush tool select the soft round brush this one right here and then decrease the flow to about 2% now just paint with white and black to dodge and burn now this area is dark right so just start painting that area with white this stuff is addictive so just with a few strokes and a little bit of time here is the before and here is the after let's turn off the blemish check lay so you can see before after now there are ways to fix the color as well because the color will be a little different because the blemish color is a bit different but that is for a future lesson but again if you really want to know here a preview create a new layer change the blend mode to color take the brush increase the flow to about 20% this time and take a sample hold the ALT key of the option key click to take a sample of the good color areas and just paint over that area to paint with the same skin color again this is an advanced stuff for a future lesson but it's good to know now let's talk about a very very important thing when not to remove blemishes and which blemishes to remove and which ones not to remove the best thing to do is to have a conversation with the model or the subject besides that here are the general rules you wouldn't want to remove anything that is a birthmark or anything that is permanent anything that makes the person who he or she is so in this case here we have the legend Rowan Atkinson Mr Bean right here now he has a birth mark right over there if we were to remove it with let's say the healing brush tool it wouldn't be him it wouldn't be the great Mr Bean right even the cartoon has has that birth mark so you don't want to remove something that is permanent something that is a birth mark or something that makes the person who he or she is again if the model or the subject says they want that removed or the project requires and the model says they really want that removed you can consider it but apart from that it's just a general rule secondly you don't want to remove blemishes that are not actually blemishes but are good that add to the aesthetic of the portrait and something that makes the portrait more beautiful you want them so in this case the portrait has beautiful Freckles but there are a couple of distractions that you can consider removing again just consider first of all let's create the blemish scanning layer now in here just zoom out and see what is distracting you what is taking your attention away from the overall face so in this case one or two freckles let's make a copy of the background lay right here this is a bit taking my attention away that's all it's removed and apart from that this one right here this one at the top and that is pretty much it that's all I wanted to do let's turn off the blemish checkl it's not a huge difference but now the distractions are gone now if you see something for example I see this one it was taking my attention away slightly so you can fix that as well again it's not a fix it's an artistic choice now removing blemishes can be timec consuming it's a repetitive process and if you don't have the time to do that if you are a professional photographer or a commercial retoucher you can also consider using plugins but I do not recommend it for beginners if you're watching this video I'm assuming some of you are beginners so I don't recommend it I only recommend it if you make an income from your work from your photography or commercial retouching so to work with plugins first of all make a copy of the background lip and then go to filter retouch for me this is the plugin you have to get the plug-in for it to show up right here and if you are interested you can try the plugin absolutely for free by clicking the link in the description here is the link as well and I also have some discount codes listed as well if you are interested and only and only you make an income from your work so these are the series of plugins so let's try heal this is the one for removing blemishes it automatically detects all the blemishes and it's gone you can control the sensitivity as to how many blemishes you want to remove at the top you can also choose to make mask right here and hit apply and there you go all the blemishes gone so here's the before here is the after it does a marvelous job here's the before and here is the after now it did miss out this little area but it gives you a very good starting point to work with let us choose the healing brush tool let's sample from right here and fix this area it's not big of a deal so what is the best method the best method in my opinion is the combination of all and it depends upon what your requirements are what do you want to do with your image and how much time you have and what kind of quality you want so if you want to do it fast you can use the spot healing brush tool but keep in mind it has a mind of its own and some areas it can smudge so if you want to give it a little more time and decide areas to sample and reference from you can use the healing brush tool hold the ALT key of the option key click to take a sample and then paint on the blemish now if you want to give even more time for the highest quality you can use the patch to you can also use different fonts in different areas for example for tiny areas lots of blemishes tiny ones you can use the spot healing brush tool for big areas you can use the patch tool and so on and so forth so that's a comprehensive guide about removing blemishes in Photoshop so let me know if you like this series and if you do I will continue this is just the first one and you will find the rest of the lessons when they are uploaded by clicking the link in the description I'll also pin a comment about it as well please do keep in mind it is an absolutely free series you don't have to pay anything just click and start watching all I ask as a favor is that if you feel and if you know there is someone that can be helped with videos like this just share it thank you I would like to take this time to thank all of these nice and amazing people for supporting this channel on patreon and helping keep pix and perfect free for everybody forever thank you so much for watching I'll see you in my next one until then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating we're up [Music] here and get it right every time cuz these days we're p in crime and I like it like that

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 7,779

Keywords: remove blemishes, skin retouching, portrait retouching, adobe, photoshop tutorial, retouching course, spot healing brush, remove tool, patch tool, dodge and burn, skin softening, piximperfect, unmesh dinda

Id: B3sKrvntLeo

Length: 18min 56sec (1136 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 31 2023