How to Airbrush a Photo in Photoshop

Have you ever seen the tabloid photos of celebrities running to the grocery store or picking up the kids from soccer practice. They don't look nearly as stunning as they do when they are on the cover of a magazine do they. Obviously being in a photographers studio for those cover shots doesn't hurt. But neither does having a professional photoshop artist touch up your photos before they are printed. Don't kid yourself. Almost all photos of models and actors that make it to print have been enhanced in some way in photoshop. If you have photoshop and are wondering how you can 'airbrush' your photos to soften your skin, bring out fine details, or hide any blemishes, heres how:

- Open your file in photoshop.

- The first thing you'll want to do is remove any blemishes on your subject. Using the Heal Brush or the clone tool, get rid of any obvious marks. The Heal brush is the easier tool to use, simply select a small brush size and color on your blemish. The Heal tool pulls color from around the blemish to 'blend' it in.

- Next, copy the working layer and apply the Dust and Scratches filter by going to Filter > Noise > Dust & Scratches. Use a small radius and an even smaller threshold (often 0). Your subject should look almost 'creamy' like it's been airbrushed way too much.

- Next apply a Gaussion Blur to the layer that you applied the Dust and Scratches Filter to. This removes any blotching spots or 'banding' in the photo. Again, a small blur (a pixel radius of 2 or 3 should work great).

- Now, add a bit of noise by selecting Filter > Noise > Add Noise. You just want to add a tiny bit of texture to your subject so a small setting, about 1% and Monochromatic should be enough.

Remember all these settings for the filters are just guides. Play with the sliders on your own to achieve your desired effect. File resolution plays a big part in how much or how little you apply each filter. Ok, back to it.