Photoshop is often the last and most important step to enhancing your portrait photography. There are endless techniques to retouching and it’s best to use these tools—not to change a photo, but simply refine it.
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to enhance the subject’s natural beauty by using the Spot Healing Brush, Paintbrush Tool, Dodge Tool, Liquify, and Layer Mask. It’s important to use these tools to make small adjustments as the goal is to keep things as realistic as possible.
Watch the tutorial video below or follow along with the detailed summary on how to retouch portraits in Photoshop.
Shoot and Work with RAW Photos
To get the most out of retouching or editing any photo, it’s best to set your camera to shoot in a RAW file format. This will allow for more dynamic range and flexibility when it comes to making adjustments. If you over- or underexposed an image, you can quickly fix it in editing.
We’ll begin by opening up a RAW photo to start retouching. When you open it up in Photoshop, you’re brought to an adjustment window (as shown below) where you can begin making your changes. Edit your photo to your preference, and click Open to head into your Photoshop workspace.
Duplicate Layers to Non-Destructively Edit
Before you make any edits, be sure to duplicate your layer for each step. If you ever need to get back to your original file, you’ll have it saved at the bottom of your Layers. I suggest keeping all new layers organized by labeling them clearly with the tool you used.
In order to duplicate a layer, head to your Layers Panel. Right-click on your background layer and select Duplicate Layer. From there, name your layer to what tool you’re about to use. For this one, we’re starting with the Spot Healing Brush.
Skin Retouching
There are various ways to retouch skin in Photoshop, such as dodge and burning, frequency separation, and all the healing brushes. Feel free to play around with these tools to see what works best for your photo. For an easy retouch with nice results, we’ll use a combination of the Spot Healing Brush with the Paintbrush Tool.
Spot Healing Brush
The Spot Healing Brush works by automatically sampling the pixels around the area you’re retouching. This is ideal if you have any spots, blemishes, or small shadows you want to remove.
You can find the Spot Healing Brush in your Toolbar, or press “J” on your keyboard for a quick shortcut. Once selected, you can customize the settings at the top of your Photoshop workspace. For this tutorial, I set my brush Hardness to 52%, mode to Replace, and I can quickly change the size using the brackets [ + ] on my keyboard.
Here, you can spend as much time as you’d like clicking over the spots you want to fix. It works best when you’re in an area with similar surrounding pixels. You can also click-and-drag if you need to take out any lines or shadows. When you’re done, we’ll perfect it further with our next tool.
Paintbrush Tool
Now, we’ll move onto the using the Paintbrush Tool. This is where we’ll smooth out everything we did previously with the Spot Healing Brush. You can access this tool in your Toolbar, or by pressing “B” on your keyboard for a quick shortcut.
Before we get started, duplicate your layer once again. Then, let’s customize your brush to make it ideal for these edits. I set my brush to 4% Opacity and 0% Hardness to give it an even, natural look. Don’t worry about the size as you can always change that with the brackets on your keyboard, just like you did with the Spot Healing Brush.
Now, we can start painting. Make sure you sample the color before you begin by holding down Alt/Option on your keyboard + clicking the area. Now, you can start painting through the face. Be sure to keep resampling as you move through various parts of the skin so the color matches where you’re painting. This will smooth out any uneven tones and shadows.
Once you’re done, you can check your work by turning on and off the duplicated layer you just worked on. If you need to go back and undo anything, you can go back into your History Panel.
Let’s move onto the Dodge Tool. This is where you can lighten up or expose a designated area on your photo. This can also be found in your Toolbar, or press “O” on your keyboard for a quick shortcut.
Along with the Dodge Tool, you can find Burn and Sponge. Use Burn to darken a specific area on your photo, while the Sponge saturates or desaturates an area. Feel free to experiment with each of these to find what works best for your photo.
To get started dodging, duplicate another layer like we did with our previous steps. Here you can customize your Dodge Brush by accessing your settings in the upper-left of your Photoshop workspace. I suggest keeping the Range set to Midtones, Hardness to 0%, and Exposure low at about 20% or below.
You can start dragging your Dodge Brush over the areas you want to lighten. For this photo, I’m going to lighten some of the shadows on her face and brighten her hair to accentuate more detail. These are all subtle edits that will come together to enhance her natural features.
Let’s talk about the Liquify tool. This can be a controversial topic, as it can be used to alter someone’s body shape or face enough to make them look like a completely different person. However, there are many other uses for Liquify that don’t involve that. Here, we’ll be using it to enhance her hair so the highlighted tones are more prevalent.
I highly recommend duplicating a layer again, especially if you mess up so you can always go back to your original.
To start Liquifying, go to your top menu > Filter > Liquify. A new window will pop up where you can both customize and use the tool. For this photo, I’m using the Forward Warp Tool, shortcut “W.” I suggest making your brush large so you can make slight adjustments to bigger areas. I’m staying away from the face and stretching the top of the hair to emphasize the highlights. Work slowly with the Liquify tool as any quick movements can disrupt surrounding areas, making things look artificial.
Layer Mask
The last step in this tutorial is making a Layer Mask. I’m using a Layer Mask here to change the background to add my own style to the photo. You can use it to change any specific part of your image, whether that’s the subject or background.
Let’s start by duplicating your layer one last time. This is important as we’ll be erasing parts of this new layer. For this example, I’ll be creating a Camera Raw Filter. In order to do that, you’ll need to be working with a RAW file. This allows more range for editing. To make this kind of mask, head to your top menu > Filter > Camera Raw Filter.
Now you’ll see a new window pop up like we had in the first step. Make your preferred edits and click OK. For this photo, I increased the Exposure and adjusted the Yellows and Greens in the Color Mixer to add my own editing style.
Once you have your edits done and you’re back into your Photoshop workspace, we’ll be using the Eraser Tool. This can be found in your Toolbar or with the shortcut “E.” I suggest turning your Hardness down to 0%. Use the Eraser Tool and drag over the area you want to erase. For this photo, I’m dragging this over her face, hair, and skin so the adjustments I made only adhere to the background.
Once you’re done, you can turn off all your layers except your top Layer Mask and the one underneath to see a full preview of all the work you’ve done.
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Before retouching. -
After retouching.
As you look at the before and after of this retouch and edit, you can see the slight difference. I only used these tools to accentuate the natural beauty and refine the photo. All of these small steps come together to level up your portrait photography.
For more on portrait photography, take a look at these articles:
Cover image via Eugenio Marongiu.
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