Smooth and reduce details without losing edges. This contemporary effect is great for hiding flaw in portraits.

Step 1

Open a photo you would like to edit. Or, you may use the photo used in this tutorial (from iStockPhoto).

Make sure that the image is in RGB color mode. To switch to RGB color mode, click on RGB Color under the Image> Mode menu.

Step 2

Duplicate the current layer (Layer> Duplicate Layer or Ctrl+J).

Step 3

Select the top layer and apply a Median filter (Filter> Noise> Median). In the Median filter tool, use a Radius that will blur most of the detail without losing the shape of the objects.

Filtering the Effect

The effect is applied, but it's applied to the entire image. Now we need to filter it so that it's not applied on the edges.