First of all, Kiska and Flora, you guys rock. The eyelash thing worked like a charm.

Now, how do you apply blush? Let's say no blush is on. I attempted to do it as I would on a person, with a large brush. Obviously that isn't right.

Also, pageant pictures end up with perfect skin, almost peachy clean perfect. Do you know how they do this? Usually I erase everything, apply gaussian blur, etc. I also learned some tricks from Karin Eismanns book. But still, nothing makes that perfect skin.

Any ideas?

I think it really depends on the photo.... but have you tried using the brush in color mode at a low opacity??? It is important to maintain the skin texture; also not "painting" over the tonal differences.... if that makes sense. You could also create a blank layer and paint the blush on- then play around with the different layer blend modes ( like color, overlay, color burn, etc). I hope this helps.... if you would like to send me a lowres of the image, I would be happy to give you a better idea of how to achieve it.

Add a Curves adjustment layer. Raise the Green and blue curves. This will redden everything. Fill the layer mask with black. Now paint in the areas you wish to "blush" with a brush at around 20% opacity. If you use a pen, set opacity to Pen Pressure. You can produce an extremely realistic blush that uses the actual skin as it's foundation.

The same technique is useful for adding lipstick and eye shadow as well.

simplest way i know and which gives you pretty good control, is to make a new raster layer on top of your image and just airbrush in the 'blush'. if necessary, gausian blur it as a final step and then apply whatever blend mode, if needed, looks best.

Craig

Another simple way is to duplicate the layer and set the top layer to "Multiply" add a layer mask to the top layer, fill with black (brings the original view back) and then take a soft brush and paint in (with white) the blush on the mask -- two different ways to control: The first is to lower the oppacity of the brush, the second is to paint with brush at 100% and then lower the oppacity of the layer. Control E to merge down. That's it!
~Nancy~