Hey guys, I just figured out a trick in Photoshop and I thought I'd share. As we all know the blur tool's absolutely useless, and the smudge brush can be slow. I found that you can use the Healing Brush to simulate a sort of waterpaint-like blur that seems to work quite well for blending purposes. Here's a quick step by…
Swizzle: For that you might actually be better off using the Healing Tool for its intended purpose! That way it'll retain the surface texture to some extent, which is what's so nice about it.
The spot healing tool can kind of work the same way as this, but you're just as likely to get an unpredictable result. Mind you, I use all these tools for their intended purposes, I'm just sharing an alternate use I found for one :) have you tried it?