Skin Blemish Removal in Photoshop

Skin Blemish Removal in Photoshop Elements: Good For Beauty or Medical Problematic Images

Page update 2021: This tutorial was made a few years ago now. It has been left on ATP as it still may help people wanting to learn this technique. For more up to date Photoshop tutorials, check out our Photoshop Tips page.

Sometimes you shoot images of people with mild skin complaints that are not permanent which you (or they) would like to remove. I get requests like this from many of the brides that I shoot each year.

To do this digital enhancement, you don’t need expensive software such as Photoshop CS3. For "one offs" you can even download a trial copy of its smaller, more user friendly cousin Photoshop Elements. This will at least get the job done "within 30 days". I bet you buy it afterwards though, great program!

How easy is it?

Actually removing the blemishes and getting the image looking good can appear, as a beginner, to be quite daunting. This short tutorial takes you through the process of:

Please excuse the sound on the video. Having had just moved country, I had to use my laptop for this Photoshop video tutorial and it somehow picked up some interference. Not too bad though! Also, it is now quite dated but still relevant to those with this, or later, version of Photoshop Elements.

Below is an image sent in by a reader of All Things Photography of her friend’s young daughter who has a mild case of Eczema. You can see the before and after shots below and the video below that...

Skin Blemish Removal in Photoshop Elements

I’m not too worried about exposure and other things at this point, it is the coloration and blemishes that we want to take care of so please watch the video to see how it is done.