removing blemishes (acne)

[ghoskins]

hi all! so I took some pictures of some friends and he has a lot of acne, especially on the forehead. he asked if I could remove it. what is the best way to do this? I attached a picture if you want to play around and tell me the steps you took. TIA!!

[Byron Gale]

ghoskins,

Generally speaking, the Healing Brush might be a good starting point. Alternatively, you could use the Clone Stamp in Darken or Lighten mode, depending on the sample source point and the area being covered.

Unfortunately, the attached image is just too small to get a good view of the problem. You can post larger images at www.pixentral.com (http://www.pixentral.com) and post the link here, if you wish.

Byron

[ghoskins]

ok, thanks. here is a link to the picture, larger.



http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=104Fjlrc4Evr0wkRB1XbiU0kxqZJO

[Hankw]

goskins:

Here is a quick touch-up using the healing brush and then a small gausian blur @ about 2.2.

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1pcSwa3y9c1oIIaFJpUh8JwIgUlYOU1_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1pcSwa3y9c1oIIaFJpUh8JwIgUlYOU1)

[ghoskins]

Hi Hankw

like the problem I had at first, is there anyway to make it larger? I can't really see it close without extreme pixelation. Thanks for your help!!


EDIT: I think I know how to use the healing brush, but what steps did you take to do the blur? i know where it is located, but did you just use the lasso selection tool and just select the forehead area after using the healing tool?

[Hummie]

I have a video tutorial (http://www.hummiesworld.com/Course5.html)on using the healing brush vs. the cloning tool and the differences between the two of them. It's for fixing cracks in a photo.....but it works the same on blemishes. It's in the Subscriber area though..maybe some day I"ll find time to make a written tutorial.

[Hankw]

ghoskins:
First use your healing/Clone as Byron suggested If you can see any differences at all, Then....

!. Duplicate Background. Ctrl + J on dup.layer go to
2. Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur Drag slider to right untill you see slight blur over corrected spots. Very slight blur is usually needed here. Your photo is blurry now.
3. Create new layer and put it under your blurry layer.
4. Make blurry layer active and connect it with blank layer below it....Ctrl > G
5. Go to your new blank layer and paint on this layer with a soft edged brush. Make sure your FG/BG are Black/White, if not press D.

6. Set opacity at about 50%, + or-, its up to you. and change blend mode to lighten and paint over the spots.

Actually you can skip the Healing/clone tool and go right to the blur part. I like to use the tools first because most of the time they work fairly well, if they leave any traces you can clean them up with the layers and blur.

[ghoskins]

thanks for the detailed steps. I will give it a try!