Today Aaron takes on the Brush Tool Challenge: retouching a portrait from start to finish with ONLY the brush tool in Photoshop. Watch as he attempts blemish removal, dodging & burning, and color toning using this one tool.
Download the Sample Image here to follow along:
We LOVE the natural, unedited look of this stock photo! It’s a quality image that had (very intentional) room to be retouched so we chose it for this challenge. Find it on unsplash.com
Inspired by NikkieTutorials’ super cool FULL FACE USING ONLY series, specifically:
Leave a comment below if you enjoyed the challenge!
Photo from Unsplash ( taken by Joshua Rawson-Harris.
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I would like to see now the same edit but with all the tools that you normal use.
Youre the best! 😀 #haha fantastic
You are great Aaron, you can be proud of this tutorial! I also do love the brush 🙂
That's how I did everything 20 years ago when I had my hacked version of PS and the where no videos to explain how to use it. It was all trial and error. Wish I still had some of my work from then, sure it would be good for a laugh.
Please make small videos …ur video is too long
cool
Hi Aaron, I have a weird issue with photoshop CC. When in the brush tool, the outline is so faint and almost transparent that I cannot see it during a process like dodge and burn, when I go over the highlight area. I lose track of the brush location. I've seen some of your videos where the width of the brushs' outline is larger, more visible and at times black.Also there are times I see your brush has some sort of animation (bubble effect) when you increase and decrease the size of the brush or when you paint. I've played around with cursors under preferences but to no avail. Please help.
1:12 "Asterid?"
you are amazing! ty so much
That's crazy awesome!!! Thank you for your lessons, Aaron!
You are the man!!!
You totally should have ended with an aged Aaron. Great job. Always love learning from your techniques.
dude, watching this video was awesome! i need to incorporate this in my editing now. this was an amazing challenge.
👍👍
Herculean effort Aaron. Wow! This video made me appreciate the tools I do know how to use in PS. However, this video shows the thinking behind what the automated commands perform. You are by far and away the best at PS. What you can do with a brush many of us could not do with other tools. Well done.
I started out doing editing that way when I got my hands on Photoshop in 1995.
More of this!! Really cool!
Hi, love your videos. I now own a windows laptop but want to buy an Apple. Which laptop is rhe minimum i should buy to be good for foto editing (colors) ?
Thanks.
Jan Willem Kooi
Nice challenge, Aaron. But, why do you put 10% smoothing in pencil ?
PS : I love your tuto and sense of humour ! 🙂
i deff learned one thing. i will start zooming in real close to work on pixels!! ive always used D&B but looking at it by pixel is a totally good way to clean up precise!!
Aaron, I have seen you do wonders with Photoshop, but this is a disaster. Go back to what you do best. Teach the basics right.. Please !
I might be wrong but he looks like Robert Downey Jr.
Hey Aaron, any reason to choose black and white method of D&B over fill with grey and then darken and lighten over it?
Pure fun watching and learning so much. Thanks Phamily
Much appreciate your video, the best trick
Uh Oh the photo looked amazing before but you just made me realize how much more can be put in an amazing picture and make it even more amazing. Cheers Aaron!
I swear you and Peter McKinnon are kindred spirits!
I'd love to see Affinity Photo videos as well. I'm not longer paying every month
Hey, you are missing an "r" in your title in portrait. Nice video, I love to learn from you.
we should all start learning photoshop this way…Hat off
I never knew that I could Phlrean so much in so little time.
So cool,i wanna do one of these challenge on my chanel too <3
I have a question for you. In LR, you can open multiple images as layers in photoshop, but how can we do this from camera raw? Aaron or anyone?
Some ideas:
Retouching – Low Opacity, Low Flow, Soft Edged brush set to Lighter Color or Darker Color, then dial in the opacity of this layer to suit. This way you can use a much larger brush and protect the areas you prefer to keep.
Local Color Corrections – Adjustment Layer using brush tool to paint on the mask to reveal the effect.
I imagine you probably could have used the layer blend if modes to speed the process as well.
Crazy challenge. Don't Try This at Home.
Great idea 🙂
Excellent video. I have been exploring the idea of using a brush to increase sharpness (contrast) in small key areas of a photo (like eyes). Any ideas?
You made me to know more about to retouch photos.
What a great episode, fantastic energy.
No Layers Challenge: GO!
Great work Aaron!
Freakin' Amazing Aaron!! I've been watching you and PHLEARN for years now. Ever since I've been watching you, I've been using the brush too more and more and MORE.
LOL…this tutorial really inspired me to learn to love the brush even more. I have you to thank for my love of the brush and pen tool!!
Question: What causes he light spot in the skin you get along side the inner edge of the eyes on females? Is that caused by how makeup is applied and the eyelash rubbing against the skin? Should I smooth out that highlight or leave it?
Very interesting, thx for sharing 🙂
Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with us!!!
You must be a genius.
I see his smoothing was set to 10 % I can't get mine to do anything , it's like it's grayed out. How can I change that
Undo button????
Please make a MAKE-UP tutorial..!