Photoshop Portrait Tutorials for Beginners

By Tata Rossi 10 days ago, Photo Editing Tips

If you want to make a natural skin, remove stray hair from your model’s face and body or create dramatic, grunge or glitch effects in Photoshop FREE, I recommend you learning these techniques having watched YouTube Photoshop portrait tutorials. I’ve gathered 50 awesome Photoshop tutorials and other photo editing freebies for male, female portraits, and the images of kids and elderly people below.

When you are a beginner in Photoshop, even simple tasks can seem overwhelming, to say nothing about deep portrait photo retouching. Let’s all agree, that unlike video tutorials, Photoshop text tutorials are difficult to follow. Let’s review the best Photoshop effects tutorials for beginners below.

You can always address portrait photo retouching services to remove stray hair, correct make-up or fix clothes, so don’t be upset if something went wrong with it.

Free Photoshop Portrait Tutorials for Skin Retouching

Skin retouching means smoothing out uneven areas and removing skin imperfections. This process includes eliminating small pimples, folds, and wrinkles. It is also important to even out the color tone of the skin and make it matte. Using these Photoshop Portrait tutorials, you can perform all these manipulations and improve light and shadow to make the picture more expressive.

1. Beauty Retouching Tutorial – Dodge and Burn

What Will I Learn:

  • Dodge and burn curve set up (00:46)
  • Dodge and burn groups (01:05)
  • The visual aid group (01:08)

2. Professional Portrait Skin Retouching in Photoshop

1/2

    What I Will Study:

    • How to make a skin texture editing
    • How to correct skin color naturally not to look fake.

    3. How to Get a Tan in Photoshop

    What I Will Study:

    • To achieve the perfect tan in your photos,
    • To color highlights and shadows separately.
    • You will find a secret of creating an adjustment layer (1:18)
    • Aaron shows how to affect shadows (3:57)

    4. Skin Airbrush Technique

    This tutorial will help you figure out how to use Photoshop & programs like Photoshop for beginners. It contains helpful information on how to airbrush without adding a fake plastic look to your photos.

    5. Plastic Effect

    If you are interested in creating futuristic female portraits, this tutorial is a great option for you. View more about photoshopping portraits to help you improve your portrait editing in Photoshop and Lightroom.

    6. Professional Skin Retouching in Photoshop

    What Will I Learn:

    • Blur some parts of skin (01:45)
    • Using Lasso tool (03:16)
    • Using Clone Stamp tool (07:04)
    • Dodging and burning (11:10)

    Teeth Whitening Basic Photoshop Tutorials

    Looking at the models on the pages of glossy magazines, you can’t but notice their flawless white teeth without yellowish tint. The last person who actually saw it was a specialist who edited a photo before its publication. Retoucher, using such a powerful tool as Photoshop, performs teeth whitening much better than any dentist.

    1. Photoshop CC Tutorial: Brightening and Whitening

    What Will I Learn:

    • Working with Soft edge brush (02:20)
    • Reducing the opacity of the teeth whitening layer (03:58)

    2. How to Remove Braces

    What I Will Study:

    • Why spot healing brush tool helps in this issue
    • Clone stamp tool – how to use

    3. Teeth Color Correction Adobe Photoshop Basics

    What Will I Learn:

    • Using Lasso tool (01:37)
    • Using lightness slider (02:06)
    • Using Hue saturation (02:37)

    4. Easy Ways of Whitening Teeth

    What Will I Learn:

    • How to use hue saturation and color balance for perfect white teeth

    Photoshop Portrait Tutorials for Hair Retouching

    Hair retouching is also important in beauty and fashion photography, as every detail must be perfect. If you didn’t have a stylist on the set and you are not satisfied with the hair color or style, follow this Photoshop Portrait tutorials to fix the defect.

    1. How to Change Hairstyle

    What Will I Learn:

    • Layer masks (01:35)
    • Converting layers into A smart object (01:42)
    • Using channels (04:40)

    Altering somebody’s hairstyle is one of those easy Photoshop tricks every photographer should know how to do.

    2. How to Change Hair Color

    What I Will Study:

    • Using "Selective Color" Adjustment Layer
    • Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer
    • Curves Adjustment layer

    3. Hair Retouching - Easy Photoshop Tutorial

    What Will I Learn:

    • Use color range tool (00:51)
    • Use Lasso tool to remove all areas that were not under selection (01:38)
    • Work with layer masks (02:33)
    • Deal with clipping mask (03:58)

    Messy hair often results in a bad image. Find a way to fix that problem with this Photoshop for beginners YouTube tutorial.

    4. Adding Shine, Color and Volume

    This is another one of efficient hair tutorials YouTube. It will teach you to deal with one of the most problematic areas to enhance - hair: add volume, color, and style to it naturally.

    Photoshop Portrait Tutorials about Making Color Effects

    Color correction is a change of colors, tones, and saturation of an image. It is used either to improve the picture or as a creative technique. There are dozens of tools in Photoshop that can help you with this task.

    1. How to Edit Dramatic Portraits in Photoshop

    What Will I Learn:

    • Checking crop (02:06)
    • Sharping (06:54)
    • Using High pass filter (07:18)
    • Lightening eyes (13:20)

    2. How to Edit Like Brandon Woelfel

    What Will I Learn:

    • Bringing up shadows (00:56)
    • Bringing contrast down (01:50)
    • Working with Hue saturation (02:33)

    3. Shadow Recovery

    What I Will Study:

    • Shadow/light highlights
    • Putting a layer mask
    • Applying gradient
    • How to correct the backlit photos
    • How to recover shadow detail
    • Glamour style composition

    4. Photoshop Tutorial for Intermediate Level

    What Will I Study:

    • To change backdrop (03:45)
    • Select and crop hair (06:13)
    • Smooth edges (07:20)
    • Turning colors into HDR (11:53)

    Add a glamorous edge to your female portraits with the help of this hands-on tutorial.

    5. Old-School Halftone Effect

    Want to learn how to achieve an old-school halftone effect, using Photoshop tutorials for beginners CS5? Then this video tutorial is perfect for you.

    6. Retouch a Moody and Cinematic Portrait with Photoshop

    What Will I Learn:

    • Getting rid of blemishes (02:31)
    • Add brightness and deepness to eyes (07:37)
    • Burn and dodge (10:19)

    Make-up Photoshop Tutorials YouTube

    Beauty-style retouching is quite popular. Many people want to know how to correct skin imperfections, enhance makeup, and adjust the overall light and shadow pattern in a photo.

    1. 3 Hours of Make-up Retouching in 3 Minutes

    What Will I Learn:

    • Lip retouching (00:22)
    • Darkening/ adding hair (00:45)
    • Fixing skin blemishes (01:00)

    2. How to Add Make-up

    What I Will Study:

    • Enhance eye-shadows (0:29)
    • Correct highlights (1:53)
    • Fix blemishes (0:58)

    If you’ve been watching Photoshop tutorials YouTube trying to find the perfect guide on how to add or enhance makeup, this is the one for you.

    3. How to Fix Lipstick

    What I Will Study:

    • Drawing shapes of lips (0:30)
    • Blurring edges of selection (3:28)
    • Using blend mode

    Free Photoshop Tutorials – Eyes Retouching

    Eyes are an important element in any portrait. Photographers know that bright eyes gazing deep into the camera are mesmerizing, while a dull, lifeless look conveys tension and anxiety. Therefore, when retouching a portrait, you should spend as much time on the eyes as on the skin or hair.

    1. How to Color, Brighten and Sharpen Eyes in Photoshop

    This channel always offers best free Photoshop tutorials. By watching this one you will find out how to:

    • Alter the natural colors of an eye
    • Enhance its color depth and properly dodge
    • Make them striking.

    2. How to Brighten Eyes

    3. How to Change Eye Color

    What Will I Learn:

    • Selecting the eye (00:57)
    • Refining the selection (04:32)
    • Layer mask on group (06:34)

    4. Best Free Photoshop Tutorials for Eye Retouching

    Find out how change eye color in Photoshop in 10 simple steps. You will learn about the best app to change eye color in pictures.

    Photo Manipulations in Photoshop for Beginners

    Express your creativity with interesting photo manipulation. These tutorials are great for beginners and will help you hone your Adobe Photoshop skills and learn some new techniques.

    1. Double Exposure Effect

    Learn how to achieve Double Exposure effect of overlapping photos, that you often see on the covers of music albums, in modern magazines and in advertising.

    2. How to Add a Background Texture to a Portrait

    What Will I Study:

    • Working with layer mask (03:25)
    • Using white brush to reveal the hidden layer (04:02)

    Look though this easy guide about how to use overlays on Photoshop to receive professional and realistic results after deep photo retouching.

    3. Creative Manipulation

    What Will I Learn:

    • Combine several backdrops (01:03)
    • Adding details (03:48)
    • Make horizon line straight (04:02)
    • Crop figure of a person (04:20)

    This is one of the best free Photoshop tutorials photo manipulation out there. Learn how to create fantasy scenes with the help of editing.

    4. Fantasy Blurry Background Portrait Effect - Photoshop Tutorial

    What Will I Study:

    • Separate a model from the background (quick selection tool) (00:43)
    • Save selection (04:24)
    • Determine the photo part from which fading will take place (06:07)

    5. Face Slide Effect

    What Will I Learn:

    • Use quick selection tool (00:35)
    • Duplicate layers (01:27)
    • Layer via cut (02:17)

    Create a trendy face slide effect by following this hands-on Photoshop guide.

    6. Smoke Effect Tutorial

    What Will I Study:

    • 00:44 – working with high-quality smoke brushes
    • 02:05 – choosing right brushes for smoke effect

    Use this high-quality tutorial if you need to create realistic-looking smoke for your male portraits.

    7. How to Create ART with the Pen Tool

    What Will I Learn:

    • Selecting sophisticated objects like face with hair (02:20)
    • Using gradients (02:43)
    • Deal with multiple layers (03:50)

    If you like trying new things - turn your male portraits into a masterpiece with the help of this video. But keep in mind, that this is not one of those beginner photography tutorials, this one requires advanced skills in Photoshop.

    8. Galaxy Portrait

    What Will I Study:

    • Use quick selection tool (00:26)
    • Desaturate image (01:27)
    • Work with filter gallery (01:42)

    There’s no need to wonder how to learn Photoshop step by step anymore. This video tutorial will teach you how to create popular galaxy portraits in a step-by-step walkthrough.

    9. Painterly Splatter Effect

    What Will I Learn:

    • Selecting background (00:41)
    • Using artistic tab (02:10)
    • Changing blend mode (04:37)

    This text guide will help you learn unique techniques to make your female portraits stand out, with the help of paint splatter effect.

    10. How to Create Caricature

    What Will I Study:

    • How to work with layers,
    • What is Liquify filter,
    • Which brushes you need for caricatures.

    You will be provided with basic skin smoothing techniques and dodge and burning options.

    11. Painted Portrait Effect

    What Will I Learn:

    • Skin smoothing (01:43)
    • Creating blocks for the face (02:40)

    Even if you don’t know how to use Adobe Photoshop yet, you will still be able to follow this 3-step tutorial to turn your photo into a painting.

    12. Background Editing Free Photoshop Lesson for Beginners

    What Will I Study:

    • Using Lasso tool (02:09)
    • Using surface blur (03:47)

    13. How to Blur the Background and Get a Dreamy Portrait

    What Will I Learn:

    • Use Clone stamp tool (01:53)
    • Select sophisticated figure (04:03)

    The video contains both tips for organic background blurring and professional skin retouching.

    Headshot Photoshop Portrait Tutorials

    Headshot photo is the type of portrait that is most often taken in the studio, without bright makeup. The main accent is on a person's face. Most often, these pictures are used by people for work purposes and sometimes - for a portfolio.

    1. Skin Retouching for Beginners

    What Will I Study:

    • Edit a photo taken with harsh,
    • Add direct midday lighting by adding shadows,
    • Correct head shape, hair retouching etc.
    • How to use Liquify tool, Eyedropper Tool, and Clone Stamp Tool.

    2. Using Frequency Separation for Skin Retouching

    What Will I Learn:

    • Take care of redness and light it up
    • Use spot healing brush (4:03)
    • Use healing brush (5:14)
    • Use clone stamp tool (7:05)
    • Apply patch tool (9:33)

    3. Creating Facial Hair

    What Will I Study:

    • Create custom brush
    • Use marquee tool
    • Use right adjustments to have realistic view

    You may have to create realistic-looking facial hair in Photoshop for youк male portraits someday and this video will teach you exactly how to do that.

    4. How to Change a Person's Skin from Dark to Light

    You may think that altering a person’s skin color and still making sure that the portrait looks natural is an extremely difficult task, but this tutorial will prove that you are wrong.

    5. How to Remove Holes Caused by Acne Scars in Photoshop

    What Will I Learn:

    • Splitting an RGB image into low and high frequencies (00:30)
    • Using blur (00:54)
    • Setting the Layer Mode to Linear Light (02:00)
    • Using Patch tool (02:24)

    6. Professional Male Skin

    What Will I Study:

    • Dealing with frequency separation (01:32)
    • Fixing skin blemishes including using Lasso tool for selection (04:57)
    • Adding shadows to eyes (09:56)
    • Using brush at low opacity (11:48)

    This tutorial, that focuses on non-destructive editing, will walk you through the whole process of retouching male portraits and teach you helpful tips along the way.

    Free Photoshop Portrait Tutorials for Children Portraits

    Children photography is not as simple as it may seem at first. There are many nuances to take into consideration. It is important to think over the color scheme and scene in advance. If possible, choose clothes in one color gamut, not to spend much time editing each item.

    This way, you can also get a realistic result. You also need to pay attention to skin tone since children often have various spots and redness on it. With these Portrait Photoshop tutorials, you will learn how to correct these imperfections.

    1. Awesome Photoshop Tutorial for Skin

    What Will I Learn:

    • Targeting problem skin areas (01:18)
    • Working with blue and green channels (01:56)
    • Selection from channel (03:06)

    2. Easy Cool Photoshop Tutorial for Correcting Children’s Teeth

    What Will I Study:

    • Creating selection of the opposite tooth and moving it to a new layer (00:16)
    • Adding a layer mask (00:27)
    • Using magic wound tool (00:36)

    3. Photoshop Color Effect for Kid Photos

    What Will I Learn:

    • Adding corner vintage (00:33)
    • Adding warm tones to background with adjustment brush (01:11)
    • Brighten face (02:14)

    4. Photoshop Tutorial about How to Edit Outdoor Portrait

    What Will I Study:

    • Using selection tool (01:05)
    • Adjusting edges (02:12)
    • Blurring a background (04:51)
    • Raising contrast (05:35)
    • Using gradients (05:50)

    5. Making Creative Manipulation

    What Will I Learn:

    • Selecting sophisticated objects like baby figure (00:48)
    • Add a selected object to a new background (02:04)

    Learn how to make the child`s photography way more exciting with this photo manipulation tutorial.

    Free Photoshop Portrait Tutorials for Portraits of Senior People

    Retouching portraits of old people should be approached a little differently than images of young people. You can't just adjust the skin color and even out the texture, because faces of older people have wrinkles that should be left intact. However, you need to make them less defined because if you erase them, you will distort facial features.

    1. Easy Photoshop Tricks with Skin Retouching

    What Will I Study:

    • Use spot healing brush or regular healing brush (01:34)
    • Duplicate layers (04:18)

    Whether you want to completely get rid of wrinkles or just make them less prominent – check out this excellent guide, which really stands out among other Photoshop tutorials.

    2. Fast Retouching Senior Man

    Take a look at some wrinkle eliminating techniques in black and white photography.

    3. Beginner Photography Tutorial: Dramatic Eye-Catching Portraits

    What Will I Learn:

    • To duplicate background layer (00:24)
    • Adjust radius and threshold (01:28)

    Learn how to achieve intense atmosphere in portraits and make them more vivid with this video.

    4. Eyes Editing - Basic Photography Tutorial

    One of the most requested Adobe Photoshop CC tutorials ever is removing eye wrinkles. This video will show you how to do this, without making the skin look weird and unnatural.

    5. How to Make Someone OLDER

    What Will I Study:

    • Select vertical orientation under position 50% (04:22)
    • Use Fade history brush (11:17)

    You may have to turn someone into an older version of themselves for some fun Photoshop projects.

    Free Photo Editing Tools for Ps

    Surely, not always a photographer is able to find a necessary amount of time to devote it to mastering skills in retouching or learning photo manipulation techniques. For such busy specialists, we have gathered a collection of free portrait presets. So, are you ready to complete portrait retouching in a minute?

    Looking for a free program like Photoshop? Check out these photo editing apps and softwares that will edit your photos fast and professionally as this Adobe’s software.

    Action 1 - For Portraits
    Lightroom Entire Presets Full Collection Lightroom Entire Presets Full Collection

    What Do They Do?

    • Brighten eyes
    • Whiten teeth
    • Smoothing skin
    • Add highlights
    • Slightly darken a photo
    • Highlight face features

    Action 2 - B&W Portrait
    Free Black and White Presets Free Black and White Presets

    What Do They Do?

    • Decolorize a picture
    • Turn colors into HDR samples
    • Add a vintage effect
    • Warm colors (fall effect)
    • Retouch baby`s skin (smooth tone)

    Action 3 - HDR
    Photoshop HDR Actions Photoshop HDR Actions

    What Do They Do?

    • Make professional contrast and shadows correction
    • Highlight details on clothes
    • Add volume to hair

    Action 4 - Vintage
    Lightroom Matte Presets Lightroom Matte Presets

    What Do They Do?

    • Add matte effect
    • Turn colors in HDR
    • Add ivory effect

    Free Photo Editing Tools for Lr

    If you want to finish photo retouching with high-quality color correction, it is better to do it in Adobe Lightroom. You can upload ready-made presets, which you can apply to your pictures in one click.

    Preset 1 - For Portraits
    Lightroom Wedding Presets Lightroom Wedding Presets

    What Do They Do?

    • Add soft balance by warming colors and lowing contrast
    • Add matte effect
    • Saturate colors

    Preset 2 - Black and White
    Photoshop Vintage Actions Photoshop Vintage Actions

    What Do They Do?

    • Add soft monochrome coloring for both light and dark pictures
    • Boost warm skin tones
    • Add fil black and white effect ( monochrome HDR effect)

    Preset 3 - Warm
    Photoshop HDR Actions Photoshop HDR Actions

    What Do They Do?

    • Brighten colors (the effect as if a picture is flooded with summer sunlight)
    • Add orange shadows
    • Change dark coloring for contrast warm one
    • Add cold tones
    • Add warmer shade to skin with leaving white tones

    Preset 4 - Cool Effect
    Photoshop Cinematic Actions Photoshop Cinematic Actions

    What Do They Do?

    • Add a blue tint and darken all shades of other colors
    • Make the skin darker/ colder
    • Correct the excess of white
    • Change tonal shades in dark photography

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