How to Quickly Smooth Skin in Photoshop

There are many different ways to smooth the skin in Photoshop, from a simple texture slider in the Camera Raw filter to more advanced techniques such as the Frequency Separation. But sometimes, when you just do not have time and need to make a quick skin enhancement there is a new and simple way to make it by using the Neural Filters available in the latest Photoshop version, because we can make a quick (and decent) skin smoothing in a very simple way. Please keep in mind that the technique I will show you here is only intended for a quick and basic skin smoothing enhancement with not too much control over certain details, but you will be able to make a quick skin smoothing in less than 2 minutes once you learn this simple, yet powerful, method.

But if you wish to make a more advanced edition of your subject skin, there is a Skin Smoother Photoshop Action available right here at WeGraphics: Download

Step 1

Open your image in Photoshop.

Step 2

Go to Filter > Neural Filters. Download the "Skin Smoothing" filter (if you didn't do it already) and activate it.

Step 3

Drag the Smoothness slider to about 30.
Note: you may need to adjust this setting a bit depending on your image.

Step 4

Now drag the Blur slider to about 45. Again, this value will depend on the image you are working on, but 45 is a good starting point.

Step 5

Select "Duplicate Layer Masked" from the Output dropdown menu and click OK in he Neural Filters window.

Step 6

Lastly, decrease the layer Opacity to about 75% to achieve a more natural look.

Some Final Notes:

As you may see, to quickly smooth the skin of your subject in Photoshop this is a very easy method, it works on images that needs from small to complicated adjustments, and as we choosed the output to be a new layer with a layer mask on it, you can easily paint over the mask to show or hide the areas you want as well to increase or decrease the duplicated layer opacity to achieve a more natural look while keeping your original image intact.