Reducing hotspots, part 1

Skin retouching is really all about reducing variation, and you know, it's light,…it's the brightness of light, and also the shadows which kind of bring out these…different variations that we have in skin.…So one thing that we can do is we can try to reduce that, especially in…extreme situations.…Like when I was capturing this portrait I hadn't realized how bright this spot…was here on his forehead and also on his nose.…I want to reduce or diminish this hotspot or this bright area of the picture.…

To do that, we can use this interesting technique which involves copying the…background layer, and then using the Clone Stamp tool on a blending mode.…Well, let's take a look at how we can do this.…Let's copy the Background layer first by pressing Command+J on the Mac, Ctrl+J on Windows.…Then we'll name this new layer retouch.…Next, select the Clone Stamp tool. You can press the S key to select that tool…or you can click on it in the Tools panel.…Then in the options bar you notice we have some options for blending.…