Reducing 5 O'Clock Shadow And Beard Stubble In Photoshop

Step 10: Use The "Blend If" Sliders So The "Healing" Layer Only Affects The Dark Stubble

Right now, my "healing" layer is affecting not only the man's stubble, it's also affecting a lot of his skin, causing things to look a bit blurry. What I really want is for the healing layer to affect only the stubble and leave his skin alone. How can I do that? Well, his stubble is very dark, while his skin is much lighter, which means I should be able to use Photoshop's Blend If sliders to limit the "healing" layer to only the darkest parts of his face, which is the stubble. Let's try it.

With the "healing" layer selected, I'm going click on the Layer Styles icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

Then I'll choose Blending Options from the top of the list:

This will bring up the Layer Style dialog box, set to the Blending Options. The Blend If sliders are found at the very bottom of the center column, directly below the "Advanced Blending" options:

Drag the bottom white slider towards the left. As you drag further and further, you'll see the original skin texture begin to re-appear in the image. Continue dragging towards the left until the point where the stubble itself begins to show:

Now we need to soften the transition area between where the original skin texture is showing and where the "healing" layer begins. To do that, hold down Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) and begin dragging the white slider back towards the right. As soon as you start dragging, the slider will split in two and you'll be dragging just the right half. Continue dragging to the right a little to create a nice smooth transition area. When you see too much of the original skin texture beginning to look blurry again, you've gone too far:

When you're happy with how the image looks, click OK to exit out of the Layer Style dialog box, and you're done!

Here's my original image once again:

And here's my final result with some of the skin texture brought back:

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