Tutorial on reducing wrinkles in portrait photos using PS

Comparison between original image and final rendering

1. First, open a picture you want to modify. Analyzing this image, we can see that the parts that form wrinkles in the image are all deeper and darker lines. Reducing wrinkles actually means brightening some dark places.

2. Based on our analysis of wrinkles above, click the blur tool in the toolbar, select a soft-angled brush, and then select lighten in the drop-down menu in the mode column above to brighten, because lighten affects the image in the picture Darker parts. Don't forget to set the pressure value of the brush. It can be set according to the specific conditions of your picture, generally no more than 50%.

3. Now you can start to remove wrinkles. Before starting the operation, it is best to operate on the copied layer. If you are not satisfied, it will be easy to restore. Adjust the brush size and pressure according to the thickness and depth of the wrinkles as you go. There are two points to note. One is to enlarge the image so that you can clearly see the dark parts that form wrinkles in the image and blur it accurately with less loss of details. Second, try to apply from the end of the wrinkles along the direction of the wrinkles, which will be more natural.

4. After you apply it, the wrinkles in the picture are reduced. At this time, you will find that the blurred areas are a little brighter (because we are just making the dark areas brighter). So, we finally use Darken Tool, darken these areas a little bit. Select the burn tool, take a larger brush, and be sure to select the highlights item in the range drop-down menu. This will only affect the bright parts of the image. The following values ​​are set according to your image. Generally Just use a very low value, and just swipe it a few times on areas that feel bright. Don't deepen it too much, otherwise the wrinkles will be aggravated.

5. After blurring the forehead, corners of the eyes, corners of the mouth and other parts, the work is basically completed, and the wrinkles on the character's face are much lighter than before without modification. The two small pictures below compare the brush using the lightening mode and the unused smear effect. It can be seen that the lighten mode retains more skin details.

6. Now let’s go back to using the stamp tool to remove wrinkles.
After selecting the stamp tool, you also need to select the lighten item in the drop-down menu of the options bar. The opacity value behind it is also basically around 50%. (As shown in the picture below) The purpose of lighten in the stamp tool is to copy the bright areas in the image to cover the dark parts. Because we still want to remove the deep parts that form wrinkles, we choose this. Due to lighting or makeup, the color of different areas of the human face often changes greatly. Therefore, when using the stamp tool to modify, you must constantly sample and apply carefully to make the image more natural. Sometimes you want to make the image of a certain part darker, but after sampling the dark area, the brush does not work. In this case, you need to change the above mode to darken (the red line in the picture), that is, copy from the dark area. , the opposite of lighten mode.

7. The difference between using the Stamp Tool and the Blur Tool after modification is: the Stamp Tool removes wrinkles, while the Blur Tool reduces wrinkles. Therefore, you should choose these two tools according to the situation of the picture and the purpose of your modification. You can also combine the two tools when necessary. The right part of the picture below is the result of modification mainly using the stamp tool. The person in the picture does look much younger. But don’t forget a few details when it comes to smoothing out wrinkles! Because people become younger, the color of their hair and eyebrows needs to be darker, and the skin of the entire face needs to be slightly smoother so that it looks more coordinated.