PS Tutorial: Easy Portrait Skin Brightening

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This one sits on the advanced side: spot-heal first, copy the Blue channel and run High Pass, use Calculations to boost contrast into a selection, then lift it with Curves and lay a soft glow over the top. Online PS supports the whole workflow.

Open Online PS

  1. Open Online PS (zaixianps.cc) and press Ctrl+O to open the image you want to work on.
  2. In the Layers panel, select the Background layer and press Ctrl+J to duplicate it, giving Layer 1 (all the work below happens on this layer).

① Rough clean-up (spots)

  1. Choose the Spot Healing Brush tool from the left toolbar (J).
    • Hard-edged brush
    • Mode: Normal
    • Type: Content-Aware
  2. Click and brush back and forth over the areas that need it to remove obvious large spots or acne marks.
Smaller blemishes can be strengthened locally later with a mask.

② Copy the Blue channel and run High Pass

  1. Back in the Layers panel, press Ctrl+J again to duplicate Layer 1 (giving Layer 1 copy).
  2. Switch to the Channels panel (Ctrl+2) and you'll see four channels: RGB, Red, Green and Blue.
  3. Drag the Blue channel onto the duplicate icon at the bottom (or right-click → “Duplicate Channel”) to get a Blue copy.
  1. Select the Blue copy and open Filter → Other → High Pass.
    • Radius: 10.7 (fine-tune for the image size)
    • OK.
This step amplifies the detail in the Blue channel, which later produces a more precise blemish selection.

③ Boost contrast with Calculations (producing the Alpha3 channel)

  1. Go to Image → Calculations.
  2. Set:
    • Blending mode: Hard Light
    • Leave everything else at default
    • Target layer: the Blue copy (select it directly)
    • Tick “Duplicate to new layer” (or overwrite)
  3. Click OK and run Calculations twice more (three times in total) to get a channel named Alpha3.
Each pass raises the contrast and sharpens the edges of the blemishes; the Alpha3 channel you end up with is the blemish mask we need.

④ Load the selection and hide it (so you can see)

  1. In the Channels panel, hold Ctrl and click the Alpha3 thumbnail to load it as a selection.
  2. Switch back to the Layers panel and make sure the RGB layer (the original) is selected.
  3. Use Select → Inverse (Shift+Ctrl+I) — now the non-blemish areas are selected.
  4. Press Ctrl+H to hide the selection outline so you can judge the actual image.

⑤ Curve adjustments, local brightening

  1. At the bottom of the Layers panel click “Create new fill or adjustment layer” → Curves.
  2. In the Curves properties, lift the midtones slightly (a gentle S‑curve) so overall brightness comes up.
  3. Select the mask of Curves 1, set the foreground colour to black (D), open the Brush tool (B) and paint black where the shadows must stay (e.g. the roots of the hair) so those areas aren't brightened.
  4. Then set the foreground to white and brush lightly where you want extra brightness (cheeks, forehead).

⑥ Duplicate the layer again and add a glow

  1. In the Layers panel select Layer 1 and press Ctrl+J twice to get Layer 1 copy and Layer 1 copy 2.
  2. Hold Shift and drag both copies to the very top (above all the adjustment layers).

① Surface Blur on “Layer 1 copy”

  1. In the Layers panel select only Layer 1 copy (turn off the visibility of “Layer 1 copy 2”).
  2. Open Filter → Blur → Surface Blur,
    • Radius: 5‑10 (depending on image size)
    • Threshold: 0
    • OK.
  3. In the Layers panel set Opacity to 65 % for a soft glow.

② Apply Image and High Pass on “Layer 1 copy 2”

  1. Turn Layer 1 copy 2 back on and open Image → Apply Image.
    • Layer: Layer 1 (the original)
    • Blending: Normal
    • Opacity: 100%
    • Mask: unticked — just click OK.
  2. Then open Filter → Other → High Pass,
    • Radius: 0.3 (detail enhancement)
    • OK.
  3. Back in the Layers panel, change the blend mode of Layer 1 copy 2 from Normal to Linear Light.
Linear Light stacks the detail-enhanced layer onto the original, producing natural highlights and a finer skin tone.

Tips & common questions

  • Radius: the higher the image resolution, the larger the radius can be — and the other way round.
  • How far to brighten: if the skin starts to look plasticky, reduce the overall lift in the Curves panel, or paint the shadows back locally on the mask with a black brush.
  • Naming layers: add a note to each duplicated layer (e.g. Layer1_copy, Layer1_copy2) so you can trace your steps later.
  • Saving: when you're done, Ctrl+Shift+S to export a .psd (keeps layers) or a .png/.jpg for final output.

References

  • Online PS
  • Adobe Photoshop official documentation
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