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How to: Realistic Airbrush

Photos capture moments in time, but for picture day at school or sharing photos with friends, skin problems show up harshly. Airbrushed photos look more seamless and smooth. Mastering the art of airbrush is a high-paying job for celebrity artwork and magazine design. Airbrushing personal photos helps remove wrinkles, blemishes, scars, and discoloration that can otherwise mar pictures. Online airbrushing tools exist, but may not be free. An image editing program provides paintbrush tools and blending options that make the airbrush processing easier and more lifelike.

Instructions

    • 1

      Open the photo in an image editing program such as Adobe Photoshop, GIMP or Paint Shop Pro. Alternatively, Fotofix.com is an online airbrushing tool.

    • 2

      Click the color palette and choose a shade closest to your natural skin tone. Use the eyedropper tool to select a color from your skin to use for airbrushing.

    • 3

      Select your paintbrush tool and use a soft, round brush at size 45 for a 450-by-450-pixel photo. Use a larger paintbrush size for bigger pictures. Add darker shading as you near shadows and hairline by opening the color palette and choosing slightly darker skin tones from your original selection.

    • 4

      Set the opacity of the brush to 10%. The opacity tool is right next to the brush flow on the brush options bar at the top. Then, lightly brush over blemishes, scars, and discolorations until smooth.

    • 5

      Smooth any strange discolorations from the paint brush with the smudge tool. Choose a soft round brush in size 60 (or larger depending on your picture size) and set the strength to 50 percent. Go over the discolorations and bumpy spots until smooth.

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