What Photoshop's April 2026 Update Actually Changes for Beauty Retouchers

What Photoshop's April 2026 Update Actually Changes for Beauty Retouchers

Last month I was mid-project on a skincare campaign, three layers deep into a mask stack that was held together with what I can only describe as optimism and expired coffee, when my usual workflow just stopped feeling efficient. Not broken, exactly. Just slow. Creaky. The kind of slow that makes you wonder whether you’ve been doing something the hard way for years without realizing it. That’s the headspace I was in when I sat down with Matt Kloskowski’s April 2026 Photoshop update breakdown, and I’m glad I did.

What Adobe Actually Changed in Photoshop This April (And What It Means for Your Retouching Workflow)

What Adobe Actually Changed in Photoshop This April (And What It Means for Your Retouching Workflow)

Last month I had a beauty campaign on my desk, three skin tones across six hero shots, and a creative director who kept asking for “just a little more refinement around the hair.” If you’ve ever tried to cleanly separate fine hair from a gradient background, you already know where this is going. I burned almost two hours on masks that should have taken thirty minutes, and I kept thinking: there has to be a better way to do this now.