STEP BY STEP ENHANCE A PORTRAIT THE EASY WAY

Remove imperfections, soften skin and sharpen the eyes with simple retouching skills

01 PATCH OVER BLEMISHES

Open a portrait in Affinity. Duplicate the bottom layer with Cmd/ctrl+j (we’ll edit this layer to preserve our original), grab the Patch tool from the toolbar. Zoom in, then use the tool to drag selections over blemishes. Next, click on a clean area nearby to fix the blemish.

02 SMOOTH EYE BAGS

Grab the Clone tool and hit ‘2’ to set the opacity to 20% (this way we can gently soften bits). Go to the tool options and set layer blend mode to Lighten. Hold Alt and click to sample a clear patch of skin below the bag, then paint to clone and soften the darker skin.

03 SOFTEN THE SKIN

Once done patching and cloning, duplicate the layer with Cmd/ctrl+j, then go to Filter>sharpen>high Pass. Set Radius to about 9 and hit Apply. Set the layer blend mode to Overlay, then go to Layer>invert. This creates a subtle softening effect.

04 PAINT A MASK

We need to confine the softening to the skin. Hold Alt and click the Layer Mask icon in Layers panel to add a black mask that hides the layer. Highlight the mask in the Layers panel. Grab the Brush tool, set your colour to white, then paint to reveal the effect over the skin.

05 SHARPEN FINE DETAILS

Copy the second-from-bottom layer, drag it to the top, and go to Filters>sharpen>high Pass, setting a radius of 1.7. Hit Apply and change the blend mode to Overlay, giving a sharpening effect. As before, add a mask to confine the tweaks to eyes, lashes, lips and fine detail.

06 BOOST THE EYES

Click the Adjustments icon and choose Curves. Plot a shallow S-shaped curve to add punch. Next, make another Curves layer and plot a stronger S-shape. Add a mask and paint to reveal the stronger contrast over the eyes.