Selection-based whitening takes just four moves: select the skin, add a Black & White adjustment layer, switch the blending mode to Screen and grade the color, then paint back the background that went white by mistake. The real craft is in the mask cleanup at the end, and you can do every step in Online PS.
This tutorial works in Online PS (completely free, nothing to install).
With a selection + a Black & White adjustment layer + the Screen blending mode you can brighten skin and clear up dullness
while keeping hair, lip color and other detail intact.
Every step can be undone (Ctrl+Z), so feel free to experiment.
Step 1: Build the skin selection
-
Open your photo (Ctrl+O) and switch to the Channels panel.
-
Find the thumbnail of the Red channel, hold Ctrl and left-click that thumbnail.
Photoshop turns the brightest areas of the channel — usually the skin — into a selection.
If the selection is not precise enough, raise the contrast of the Red channel in Image → Adjustments → Levels and then ctrl‑click again.
Step 2: Add a Black & White adjustment layer
-
Go back to the Layers panel (shortcut F7)
and click the “Create new fill or adjustment layer” icon at the bottom of the panel → Black & White.
- A separate Black & White adjustment layer appears, already connected to your selection (the selection is still active). If the selection is gone, click the “Load selection” button (the circle) on the left of that layer in the Layers panel to load it again.
Step 3: Set the blending mode to Screen and grade the color
-
In the Layers panel, change the blending mode of the Black & White layer to Screen.
Screen makes the dark parts of a layer transparent and keeps only the bright colors, which is exactly what skin whitening needs. -
Double-click the properties of the Black & White layer (the Properties panel) to open the Black & White adjustment panel.
There you will see six sliders — red, yellow, green, cyan, blue and magenta — that set how much of each color channel feeds the conversion.
- First drag the Red (R) and Yellow (Y) sliders to the right (brighter) to lift those two colors.
- Drag the other four — Green (G), Cyan (C), Blue (B) and Magenta (M) — all the way to the left (to black), so they add almost no brightness when screened.
Screen only affects the bright pixels of a layer; black (0%) pixels behave like transparency.
Step 4: Fix the background or other areas that turned white
-
After those adjustments you will notice that backgrounds close in color to the skin — same-tone clothing or walls, in particular — got brightened too.
This is where a Layer Mask comes in, to bring those areas back.
- On the Black & White layer, click the “Add mask” icon at the bottom (a rectangle with a circle in it).
- Make sure the mask is selected (its border is white), pick the Brush tool (B), set the foreground color to black (#000), hardness 0%, and a suitable brush size.
- Paint over the areas you want back in their original color (background, hair, lips and so on); the black mask hides the Screen effect there.
- For fine detail such as hair strands and eyebrows, switch the foreground color to white and paint again to restore the Screen effect locally, or use a soft round brush at low opacity (<10%) for small corrections.
- Finally check the overall result. If the skin looks too white, lower the opacity of the Black & White layer in the Layers panel (70%–85%, for example), or paint lightly with 50% gray on the mask to reduce the effect locally.
- Selection incomplete? After step 1, use Select → Refine Edge (or Ctrl+Alt+R) to smooth the selection.
- Skin still looks yellow? In the Black & White panel, pull the “Yellow” slider to the left a little (reducing yellow brightness), or add a “Color Balance” adjustment layer afterwards for fine-tuning.
- Background is very close in color and hard to restore by hand? Duplicate the original layer first (Ctrl+J), make a Color Range selection (Select → Color Range) to isolate the background, then fill that part of the mask with white.
- Want to process several photos at once? Photoshop supports batch processing (File → Automate → Batch); just record the steps above as an Action and save it.
Congratulations 🎉! You now know the quick selection + Black & White + Screen whitening technique in Photoshop. A few practice runs and your portraits will look brighter and more natural without losing any detail.
References
- Online PS
- Adobe Photoshop official documentation