Retouching skin and adding texture

The tool is really easy. In the process of editing use Surface Blur filter

1. First you need to remove it all the defective parts.
After that press Ctrl + J to copy the background layer image.

2. Select a Surface Blur filter from menu Filter> Blur. 
This filter keeps the sharp edges of objects. In the dialog box, set the Radius slider at approximately 39 pixels. Slider Threshold defines which tones of the image will be blurred. The main thing in this case is not to select a value higher than the Radius slider (in this case the value is 31.) At this stage the skin of the model looks quite unattractive. Click OK to apply your settings.

3. Decrease the value of Opacity to 50%.
As a result of Surface Blur filter the entire image got blurred, and we need to blur only a face of model. Therefore, all of the pieces that need to remain sharp should be hidden with a black mask.

4. Click the Add Layer Mask icon on the Layers panel, holding down the key.
As a result, the black mask will be created on a new layer. Since the mask is filled with black, the blurred layer will be hidden, and an original image of the background layer will open. The point is to blur the skin only, leaving all the other parts (eyes, hair, clothing, jewelry, etc.) clear. Set the white color as the main one and activate a Brush tool. Now paint all the fragments of skin, you want to smooth out.

5. Make sure you did not miss a single fragment on the face, needed to be blurred.
To do this, hold down the and click the mask thumbnail, which is available to the right of the thumbnail. The screen will display the image of the very mask. Looking at it, paint all of the pieces you’ve missed. It is a very easy task. Do not forget about the neck and shoulders. When all the fragments will be painted, click once again on the mask thumbnail, holding down the <Alt>.

6. Now you need to load the mask of selected area on the opened color image.
Holding down the , click the mask thumbnail. Selected area, made by the mask, will display on the screen. Only those parts of the skin that you want to smooth out will be selected on the image (eyes, nose, lips and other parts with sharp edges are not selected).

7. Having not canceled selection, click the Background layer at the Layers palette.
Use the short cut to copy selected parts of the background layer into a separate layer (look at the Layers panel on the image, where the retouched pieces of skin from the background layer of the image are copied to a separate layer).

8. Make the created layer with copied fragments of retouched skin in the upper Layers panel, drag its thumbnail above all other layers.
In order to get back the texture on the skin, select a High Pass filter from menu Filter> Other. The filter dialog box will appear. Drag Radius slider to the far left position. The picture will become very flat, but do not rush to click the OK button. Slowly drag the Radius slider to the right until the dark and light fragments on the image and the texture of the skin appear. Drag the slider to the right until the glow starts appearing on the edges. I stopped at the position of 6.3 (to the right after this value the edges of objects began to glow). Click the OK button.

9. To superimpose the texture layer on the image perfectly, pick a Soft Light or Overlay blending mode on the Layers panel for the top layer with a gray texture.
In this case, almost all the texture that was almost completely removed from the image by applying a Surface Blur filter, will recover on the skin.

See also: Family Portrait Time