Reducing Beard Stubble through Photoshop

Beard stubble can add to men’s rugged looks, but it can also make their portraits look kind of unhygienic. If you want to reduce those stubbles from your photo, you can do it digitally through quick and easy photo retouching steps in Photoshop. Here’s how:

1. Open the image you want to retouch in Photoshop.

2. Duplicate the background layer (CTRL + J).

3. At the top of your menu or screen, go to Filter > Noise > Dust & Scratches. This should bring the Dust & Scratches dialog box. Set the radius to one which will blur the stubbles. For the photo used in this tutorial, the radius was set to 8 pixels. Click OK. Don’t worry about the blurred image. Just focus on the stubble.

4. Create a pattern from the blurred image by going to Edit > Define Pattern. When the Pattern Name dialog box appears, rename it “stubble”.

5. Undo the Dust & Scratches filter you’ve done earlier. Just press CTRL + Z.

6. Select the Healing Brush tool from your Tools palette and then set it to the “stubble” pattern you’ve created earlier. Check the boxes for Aligned and Sample.

7. Add a new layer and rename it “healing” then press OK.

8. At the top right corner of the Layers palette, reduce the Opacity to 50%.

9. With the Healing Brush tool, paint over the beard stubble. Don’t worry if the hour glass suddenly comes up on your screen. Just give the software time to apply the changes.

10. Now the beard stubbles have been reduced. However, this would also blur a portion of the subject’s face. To resolve this, select the “healing” layer and then click on the Layers Style icon at the bottom of the Layers palette (it’s the icon with the small F).

11. As soon as the Layer Style dialog box is up, select Blending Options. At the bottom of the new dialog box are two sliders under “Blend If”.

12. Move the white slider for Underlying Layer to the left until the stubble becomes more apparent.

13. Holt the ALT key and then drag the white slider back to the right. This would split the slider into two. Drag the other half to the right until the transition areas appear softer.

14. As soon as you’re satisfied with the overall appearance, click OK.

15. Save and rename the photo.

Now you have a photo with reduced stubbles and a portrait which is more presentable and clean.

Photo Credit: ( Stare ) by canjosh