Smooth Skin and Remove Blemishes Realistically in Photoshop
In this tutorial you’ll create realistic skin smoothing that keeps pores and texture intact. You’ll convert your layer to a Smart Object, apply High Pass and Gaussian Blur, reveal the effect with a mask, and finish by removing remaining blemishes with the Remove Tool. The process is fully editable so you can fine-tune results at any time.
Step-by-step instructions
Duplicate, invert, and convert to Smart Object
Press Ctrl/Cmd+J to duplicate the photo layer.
Press Ctrl/Cmd+I to invert the duplicate.
Open the Layers panel menu (three lines) → Convert to Smart Object.
Change the layer’s blend mode to Vivid Light.
Apply High Pass and Gaussian Blur
Go to Filter → Other → High Pass.
Set Radius to 40 px (adjust to your image); click OK.
Go to Filter → Blur → Gaussian Blur.
Set Radius to 3 px; click OK.
Mask the effect and paint in smooth skin
Alt/Option-click the Add Layer Mask icon to add a black mask (hides the effect).
Select the Brush Tool (B). In the Brush Picker, choose Soft Round; Hardness 0%; Opacity 100%; Flow 100%; Foreground color white.
Use [ and ] to resize the brush and paint over skin areas to reveal smoothing.
Avoid painting over eyes, eyebrows, lips, hair, and sharp edges to keep them crisp.
Create a composite snapshot and zoom in
Create a merged layer on top: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E (Windows) / Cmd+Opt+Shift+E (Mac).
Select the Zoom Tool (Z) and drag over the face to zoom in.
Remove remaining blemishes with the Remove Tool
Select the Remove Tool (J). In the Options bar, ensure Auto is enabled.
Check Remove after each stroke.
Adjust brush size slightly larger than each blemish and paint over remaining spots to clean them.
