How in photoshop do you make a person's skin perfect? (like in magazines?)?

Question

I obviously use the heal tool, but there are still all different skin variations in color and stuff...I sometimes use blur tool to get rid of that. Any suggestions, like what do you use? I also whiten the whites of the eyes and teeth.

Answer 1

I can't write down the technique I use, it's too complex to describe in words.

If you REALLY want to do a great job with this, You NEED to buy Katrin Eisman's book (or DVD I believe) called Photoshop Restoration & Retouching. It has the best technique(s) for glamor retouching among many other great tutorials.

If you want a really quick way out, there is a plugin called Portraiture. A lot of digital retouchers use it to aid them while masking. It does cost some money...

Hope this helps

Answer 2

Sounds like you have a decent understanding of the various tools in PS.

A trick I have heard and used:

Duplicate your layer then use "Surface Blur" as opposed to the regular blurring option.  That does a good job with skin.  Then use a layer mask to paint away the stuff you don't want altered.

Here's one I found on my own:

Go into hue saturation and target the reds and lighten them a bit.  You get a pretty good result.  I have not tried it on dark skin tones, but I would imageine that it still works.  I have actually only done it in Camera Raw and used HSL sliders, but targeting reds in hue saturation should be the same thing.