Reducing 5 O'Clock Shadow And Beard Stubble In Photoshop

Step 2: Use The "Dust & Scratches" Filter To Blur Away The Stubble

Go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, select Noise, and then select Dust & Scratches, which brings up the Dust & Scratches dialog box. We're going to use it to blur away the stubble.

To do that, increase the Radius value until the stubble is no more. Here, I've used a Radius value of 4 pixels:

You're going to end up blurring out the entire photo at this point, but that's okay. Ignore the rest of the photo and focus only on the stubble areas. Once you've smoothed those areas out, click OK.

Here's my image after applying the Dust & Scratches filter:

Step 3: Create A Pattern From The Image

We're going to create a pattern out of the blurred image. We'll be using the pattern with the Healing Brush in a moment, but for now, go up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen and choose Define Pattern.

This will bring up the Pattern Name dialog box. Go ahead and name it whatever you like. I've named mine "stubble":

Click OK once you've entered a name, and the pattern is created.

Step 4: Undo The "Dust & Scratches" Filter

We need to revert the image back to the way it was before we applied the Dust & Scratches filter at this point, so to do that, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac) to undo the filter.