online photo tutorials

This tutorial aims to answer the question, “how can I remove acne in PhotoShop?”. Many techniques use destructive methods like smoothing the skin, but this simple and quick technique only requires the healing brush. Let’s get started. Image credit to sxc.hu member “wazari”.

Step One

Open the image you are working on and select the healing brush tool, Hotkey “J”.

Removing Acne with PhotoShop, step one

Step Two

Hold down “Alt” and click on a clear area of skin, avoiding edges. If you have placed the Healing Brush over clear skin during this step, avoiding edges, it will appear a solid color.

Holding ALT, select a clear area of skin. Avoid edges.

Step Three

Let go of the “ALT” key and move the healing brush over a spot of acne or a scar. Click and let go if the brush completely covers the acne, or click and drag if the brush is too small. You can increase or decrease the brush size using the “[" and "]” or ’square bracket’ keys. Also note that this is the same technique you use for things like scar removal or freckle removal in Photoshop: simply sample an area of clear skin, then brush over the area with the problem.

Let go of "ALT". Click and drag over the acne.

Step Four

Instead of holding ALT and re-sampling a clean area of skin after every brush stroke, you can go straight on to brushing over another area of damaged skin. However, if you selected an edge or a unique feature of the face the first time you sampled from the image, the pattern will be repeated frequently. It is advisable to occasionally re-sample by holding ALT and selecting a different area of clear skin.

Continue to cover up areas of acne, occasionally resampling.

Step Five

That’s it! You’re done. Go over the areas you just fixed to make sure you didn’t make any mistakes. If you did, simply re-sample by holding alt and brushing once again. Feel free to post any questions in the comments.

This post is tagged acne, acne removal, photoshop tutorials