Removing Skin Shine

I'm never very happy when I have to use flash for a shot.  It is so easy to create horrible hot spots of shine, especially on people's faces. It's worst when using the built in flash. or ugly maker, that most cameras have, but even a bounce flash can create nasty bright spots.

Fortunately, the spots can be retouched in Photoshop relatively easily.  Techwalla has a post that breaks out the steps required for three different techniques.  I'm going to engage in some cut and paste of the method I used on the sample image included in this post after looking at the before and after images.

Image as shot with shiny foreheads, especially on the two young ladies

Image after shine removal using brush tool

Step by Step Technique

I used the steps outlined on Techwalla.  Below is my abstract of their steps (I am embedding it here, in case the Techwalla link changes).

1. Open image in Photoshop
2. Create a new, blank layer by clicking the Create a New Layer icon in the Layers panel on bottom right of Photoshop UI
3. Select the Brush tool -- keyboard shortcut B -- and then select Window and Brush -- keyboard shortcut F5 -- from the main menu to open the Brush panel.
4. Choose Smoothing and a Soft Round Brush from the Brush panel. Close the panel. The size of the brush can be adjusted as needed.
5. Set Opacity and Flow. Setting the opacity at 20% - 40% and the flow around 50% is a good starting place. You will likely need to adjust this throughout the editing process.
6. With the Brush tool selected, hold the Alt key and left-click on an area of the picture near the shiny area you want to correct. Choose a non-shiny area where the skin tone looks the way you want.
7. Paint with the brush on the area you want to correct. Re-select skin tone as you move to a new area of shine. Adjust the size of the brush, Opacity and Flow as necessary.
8. When you are happy with the results, select Layer and then Merge Visible to merge the layers. Select the Spot Healing Brush Tool -- keyboard shortcut J -- and carefully remove any distracting imperfections. Size your brush a little larger than the spot you want to heal and select Content-Aware as the Type. Left-click the spot to heal it. Repeat as necessary.