Digital Makeover

Original Photo	Skin Cleaning Done

1. Open your image and duplicate the background.  It may be useful to make sure the History Palette (Windows > History) is open as well so you can compare your work to the original as you work.


2. If there are any glaring blemishes or hot spots you may want to get rid of them with the Clone Tool or Patch Tool or Healing Brush.  It may also be necessary to do some color correction if that is an issue.  With this shot it was necessary to eliminate some of the red on the skin.


3. Open the Channels Palette (Windows > Channels) and look at each channel in turn (red, green and blue).  As you look at each one notice how the red channel is almost totally blemish free while the blue and green channels contain all of the skin blemishes and noise.



Red Channel	Green Channel	Blue Channel



4. With the Red Channel highlighted, Select All (Ctrl-A or Cmd-A) and Copy (Ctrl-C or Cmd-C).


5. Highlight the RGB Channel and then go back to the Layers Palette and Paste (Ctrl-V or Cmd-V).  This puts the monochrome Red Channel on its own layer. Change the Layers Blending Mode to Luminosity and now you have the color back.


6. Return to the Channels Palette, make sure that RGB is highlighted and Ctrl/Cmd click.  This selects the Luminosity values.  Return to the Layers palette, select the new layer you created and click the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette.  This will put the Luminosity selection into the Layer Mask.



Layers Palette



7. Now you can modify your picture by either/or adjusting the Levels (Ctrl-L or CMD-L) and change the Opacity of the layer.

1. Create a new layer above the layers you already have.  Ctr-A or CMD-A to select all of the layers and then Edit > Copy Merged and finally (with your new layer highlighted) Ctrl-V or CMD-V.
2. Now we are going to run a couple of filters on the image - Gaussian Blur and High Pass.  With the newest layer selected, select Blur > Gaussian Blur and mess about with the slider until the skin is nice a smooth.  Make a mental note of the radius in pixels that you like the best.  Now Cancel Gaussian Blur and keep the number in mind.
3. Now select Filter > Other > High Pass ... and enter the number you have faithfully stored in you head from the previous step in the Radius Pixels box.  Click OK.  Looks weird, doesn't it?
4. Go back to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and enter 1/3 of the number you are remembering into the Radius Pixels box and click OK and then invert the image - Ctrl-I or CMD-I or Image > Adjustments > Invert.  Still looks weird ...
5. Now is the time to return our picture to some kind of normal look and we do that with Blending Modes.  Drop down the Blending Modes box and select Overlay and there you go - the picture now looks even better than before!  You can experiment with the Soft Light Blending Mode as well.  It is up to you which one you choose because they both work and both provide a slightly different result.
6. Add a Layer Mask to the layer so that you can apply the smoothing to only those parts of the image that need it.  You can either fill the Layer mask with Black (Edit > Fill > Black) and paint in the effect with white or fill the Layer Mask with White (Edit > Fill > White) and remove the effect where it is not wanted by painting with black.  It is up to you how you do it.  
7. This is where you get to use your Wacom tablet for precise and easy painting.  It is probably best to have the brush dynamics set to size (changing stroke size with pressure) or nothing at all.
8. If you want to see how the Layer Mask looks up close then just Alt-Click or Cmd-Click on it.  To return to the normal vies just select the layer again and activate the layer mask.
9. There are some areas you probably don't want to soften too much - eyes, eyebrows and lashes and lips.
10. Once the effect has been applied you can further refine it by messing with the top layer's opacity and/or fiddling around with Levels.

Here is the finished image ...

I hope you found this digital makeover a fun and useful tutorial.  The next challenge for you and me is to write an Action that will do the tedious parts automatically - stay tuned!