I always see bloggers using Gaussian blur to blur their skin, so, I thought I’d put out my own PSA to tell people to cut it. Not a good look. So, I decided to do something constructive and do a tutorial on how I photoshop my photos to ensure that I have the smooth skin that still looks real. In this video, I teach you basic methods to get rid of blemishes (and stray brow hairs), lighten up a dark photo, and effectively blur skin without completely airbrushing. These tips are easier to do than playing video games with elo boost services or sites like overwatchboostpros.com for your shooting games.

Here are the tools you need to use:

• Brightness/Contrast: take down the contrast in darker photos before or after lightening. Pro tip: you can do this more than once, as there is a limit to how much you can take it down. But, if you hit okay and go back to Brightness/Contrast it will let you do more.
• Curves: I use curves to brighten photos, rather than using Brightness/Contrast. I like to pull up the highlights by making a point towards the top of the line and dragging it upwards. I don’t make it an S-curve!
• Spot Healing Brush Tool: Using this makes removing blemishes and other things like stray eyebrow hairs a breeze. All you have to do is draw where you want to be erased & the content-aware tool corrects it based on the surrounding pixels.
• Clone Stamp: Similar to spot healing, the clone stamp is used for the same thing but requires more work. You simply copy a section of pixels and paste it to cover any imperfections. It can take longer and some practice to get the hang of it as you need to make sure what you are stamping is identical in shade to what you’re covering up!
• Surface Blur: this is the blur I use instead of Gaussian blur. This blur is a lot more natural. After blurring, erase sections that shouldn’t be blurred like eyes, eyebrows, hair, (sometimes) background, lips, etc. Then, take down the opacity to somewhere between 30-60%, I feel like this is the best range where it will improve your skin while still looking natural.

Anyways, let me know if these tips were helpful- I’m not a photoshop genius but I think my photos have drastically improved throughout the years. Let me know if you’re interested in seeing more photoshop, instagram, or flatlay tutorials!