Creating a nice and smooth skin texture, removing eye bags, freckles, blemishes etc is never an easy task! No matter, here I will guide you through a popular idiot-proof technique to achieve all those overwhelming touch-up requests using Photoshop.

Step 1: Select Skin Area

Using the quick selection tool, select the area of skin which you would like to make smooth. Note that as you’d usually use a small F (aperture) value for portraiture shots, the contrast between the object and the background should be distinct. This would enable Photoshop’s quick selection tool to be able to select the object’s skin area accurately.

Step 2: New Layer via Copy

Right click on the selected skin area and select layer via copy. This would create a new layer (in this case: Layer 1) containing a mask of your selected skin area.

Step 3: Apply Surface Blur on New Layer

Using the Surface Blur filter causes the skin imperfections to “blur out” whilst keeping the eyes and facial hair crisp and sharp.
Select Filters > Blur > Surface Blur…
A Surface Blur sub window will appear as seen in the picture above. Set the Radius value in such that the imperfections of the skin are no longer visible.

Step 4: Set Opacity of New Layer

Having applied the Surface Blur filter, you’d tend to feel that the skin texture looks too perfect. In order to preserve some skin originality, reduce the opacity. I’d suggest an opacity value ranging between 50%-80%.

End Result

Off course, prior to further editing of the photo, remember to merge the layers together! x