Tattoos can be great in portraits because they can really bring out your character's personality. At least that's what they do in most occasions. But every now and then you're going to photograph someone with a really nasty tattoo that would just make the photo look better if it wasn't there. Now that might not be such a big problem with small tattoos, but we're talking about large skin areas that are covered in ink and in your face. Yes, we can get rid of those and make it look like they were never there.
(Success Tip #1: Take portraits of people anywhere and turn them into profits)
It's a three stage process. First of all, you're going to need to do the rough cleaning. For that I recommend using the spot healing brush. Just make sure it's on normal mode and the selected type is content-aware. You don't have to use the ALT key to select a source when using content-aware type. Using this tool will give a pretty nasty looking result, but remember it's still in the early phase. After you're done painting everything with this brush, it's time to give the skin back its color.
For that, you're simply going to have to sample an area of clean skin and paint over the old tattoo. It's not as easy as it sounds, I know, but with a little patience you'll get the job done.
By now the image will already start to look good and the sign of a tattoo will no longer be there. You're still going to have a major problem with the skin though, and that is the absence of texture. This is the third and final phase of the tattoo removal process, re-adding texture.
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I'll leave you with Photoshop expert Aaron Nace from Phlearn for the detailed explanation. Enjoy!
Learn more useful Photoshop skills from these recommended books:
- The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC / Lightroom 6 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers
- The Adobe Photoshop CC Book for Digital Photographers
- Adobe Photoshop CC Classroom in a Book