Smoothing Skin

This is a great trick especially for those summer pictures when your skin is shiny from the heat and sun!

• Open your picture in Photoshop
• Duplicate your Background layer by right clicking and selecting "Duplicate Layer"
• Switch to the quick mask mode by clicking on the "Edit in Quick Mask Mode" button in the tool bar. It's towards the very bottom - a square with a circle in the middle.
• Select your brush tool and change it to 35 with a soft edge
• Press "D" to reset colors
• Now using your paint brush, paint the face or parts of the face you want smooth. This is going to be your selected area (if you paint a part of the picture you do not want painted hit "X" and just erase that part. Hit "X" again when done to reset your colors and begin again.)
  
• When you have the areas you want painted hit "Q" to exit the quick mask mode.
• You should have a selection around the face. Now go Select -> Inverse then Select -> Feather. Enter 10 px
• Filter -> Blur -> Surface Blur and try to find a number that looks good on your picture. I wouldn't go any higher than 11 though
• Then you are all finished!

Before and After - There should only be a slight change but notice in the last one my skin looks much smoother