How to Smooth Skin & Fix Skin Tones in Lightroom
Learn how to smooth skin and fix skin tones in Lightroom with our step-by-step guide, ensuring flawless and natural-looking portraits.
Lightroom | Software | By Judyth Satyn
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This guide will give you the easiest ways to smooth skin and fix skin tones in Lightroom.
I’ve been using Adobe Lightroom for many years and often need to fix skin tones.
Lightroom’s Develop module tools will help fix skin tones to make them look smooth and natural in photos.
Let’s dive into the tutorial.
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Fix Skin Tones and Smooth Skin in Lightroom
If you are a photographer, whether a wedding, hobbyist, or portrait photographer, it’s essential that you know how to achieve natural-looking skin tones.
Not everyone was born with a photographer’s eye for color. However, when a skin tone is off, nearly everyone will sense something wrong with the photo.
If you’ve returned from a photo shoot only to find that the subject’s skin has an unnatural tone, you can use Lightroom’s Develop module to fix it.
Lightroom offers multiple ways to smooth skin, remove blemishes, and adjust skin tones.
- Related: How to Remove Blemishes in Photoshop
Lightroom’s Skin Editing Tools
Each of Lightroom’s editing tools is purpose-built to suit different editing tasks.
The Tone Curve is the best tool for a quick color fix, but using it correctly can be a little tricky for the beginner (check out this guide if you want to learn more).
The HSL/Color Panel is used to adjust the hue, saturation, and luminance of individual colors.
The Clone tool and Healing tool can be used to remove pimples and skin blemishes.
The Texture slider is used to smooth skin and reduce the appearance of wrinkles.
Meanwhile, Lightroom presets can be used to create a consistent look across an entire album or collection.
Before fixing skin tones using Lightroom, it is worth checking the photo’s White Balance. This will tell you which hues must be targeted to achieve perfect skin.
As a rule, portrait photos with beautiful skin will have a higher percentage of red. The next highest percentage will be green, and the lowest will be blue.
If your photo has a higher percentage of blue than red, you can change the blue hue to red using the Hue slider in the HSL panel.
Alternatively, you can use the Tone Curves panel to target and decrease the blue tone in the photo.
Below, we will run through each editing tool to give you an overview of how to use each.
Edit Skin Tones Using the Tone Curve
To start, we open the image we wish to edit in Lightroom’s Develop module.
Select an image from the library and click Develop in the top right corner of the canvas workspace.
You will find the Tone Curve tool in the Develop panel on the right-hand side of your workspace.
Open the Tone Curve panel by clicking its triangle icon.
The Tone Curve panel will pop down, and a graph with five circle icons above it will appear.
To adjust the image’s tones and contrasts, you must first click one of the colored circle icons.
Click the first icon, a grey circle with a wave, to edit the photo’s shading and highlights.
When this icon is selected, directly under the curve graph, a bar with three toggles will appear.
Beneath this bar, you will find four sliders: Highlights, Lights, Darks, and Shadows.
You can move the sliders or you can drag the curve to edit the photo’s contrast and shading.
Alternatively, you can click between the toggles to edit the image’s highlights, lights, darks, or shadows.
Below is an image of a girl. I have selected this image for a project because the girl’s expression is exactly what I need.
However, I want to edit her skin tone so that it glows more radiantly.
To do this, I use the Tone Curve and increase the values of the Lights and Darks.
As you can see below, it has the desired effect, illuminating the skin so it glows.
To add contrast, I decreased the Shadows value.
I slide the sliders instead of dragging the curve, as it gives me more editing control.
You can adjust the skin tones of your image using the slider or the curve, whichever is easier for you.
You will notice that the curve moves as you drag a slider, and vice versa; when you drag the curve, the sliders move.
Select the red, green, or blue circle to adjust a specific tonal region.
When red is selected, the image’s red tones will be adjusted.
Drag the curve upwards to increase the red tones or down to decrease them (there is no option to use sliders when editing the color tones).
Small adjustments can be all you need to create the desired effect, so it’s usually best to start by moving the curve only slightly.
In the image below, the red tone circle icon has been selected, and the curve dragged down slightly.
This reduces the red tones in the girl’s skin, making her skin look ever so slightly green.
A green hue is not the look I’m aiming for, so I’m going to delete this edit.
To undo unwanted previous edits, you can use the keyboard shortcut. Hold Command (for Macs) or Ctrl (for Windows), and hit Z.
In the image below, the blue hue is selected, and the curve is dragged upwards. This increases the blue tones of the girl’s skin.
Using and experimenting with the Tone Curve tool to adjust tones and shading will help you become more familiar with how it works.
If you wish to see how the image looked before edits were applied, you can click on the eye icon in the top left corner of the Tone Curve panel.
Edit Skin Tones Using the HSL Panel
The next tool we will look at is the HSL/Color tool.
HSL stands for Hue, Saturation, and Luminance.
When the image is open in Develop mode, click the triangle icon beside HSL/Color on the right-hand side of your workspace.
The HSL panel will open. Here, you will find four adjustment panels: Hue, Saturation, Luminance, and All.
Click the Hue, Saturation, Luminance, or All button to open this editing option.
Below Hue was clicked, and the Hue adjustment panel opened.
As you can see, each color has a slider: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Aqua, Blue, Purple and Magenta.
Move the slider’s toggle to the right to increase the color’s Tone or Luminance or to the left to decrease it.
In the image below, the Luminance sliders were used to illuminate the girl’s skin.
The orange, yellow, and purple color slider values were increased to lighten the girl’s skin and obtain a vibrant skin tone.
The red color slider was decreased to darken the girl’s lip tone.
Next, the Saturation panel was opened by clicking the Saturation button at the top of the panel.
The saturation values of red, orange, and yellow were increased.
Altering the Hue slider will change the Hue of the color selected.
In the image below, the Yellow hue is altered by moving the yellow hue slider.
Adust each slider separately as you see fit to fix skin tones in your portrait photo.
You can also use the Target Adjustment Tool when using the HSL panel.
To do this, head to the main menu bar and select Tools.
When the drop-down menu opens, select Target Adjustment. Then, select whether you wish to adjust Hue, Saturation, or Luminance.
Edit Skin Flaws and Blemishes Using the Clone and Healing Tool
At the top of the Develop panel, just below the Histogram, are five icons.
Click the third icon, a band-aid icon, to access the Healing tool and Clone tool.
Once clicked, a panel will open; you can select the Eraser, Healing, or Clone tool here.
To select a tool, click on its icon.
Before using a tool, adjust the size of its brush.
You’ll want it to be the right size for the task. If it’s too small, it won’t adequately edit the entire area; if it’s too big, it might clone too much of the background onto the model’s face.
Adjust the feathering and opacity of the brush to suit your editing job.
To obtain a better view of tiny pimples or blemishes, you can zoom in on the photo.
To do this, hold Command (for Macs) or Ctrl (for Windows), then click the + key. To zoom out, hit the — key.
When we zoom in on the girl’s face, we can see there are quite a few tiny imperfections.
The Clone and Healing brush tools can be used interchangeably to achieve smooth, flawless skin.
An icon will appear on the canvas workspace, indicating which area has been edited and by which tool.
If you’re unhappy with the edits and wish to undo them, you can click the Reset button.
After editing, click the Close button at the bottom of the Healing Brush panel.
The Healing Brush panel will close, and you will be able to view the subject’s flawless skin.
You don’t want to overdo it or remove the character from the person’s face.
That said, if you learn how to remove acne or pimples from a teenager’s portrait, you will become their new best friend.
Smooth Skin Using the Texture Slider
The Texture slider is used to change the size of texture in an image. This can be done without altering the finer details.
This makes it the perfect tool for smoothing away and softening wrinkles.
To access the Texture slider, click on the triangle icon beside Basic.
This will open the Basic panel.
Scroll down, and you will find the Texture slider under Presence.
Move the slider’s toggle to the left to decrease texture (or soften wrinkles) and to the right to increase texture.
To demonstrate how the Texture slider works, we have used an image of an older man set against a textured wall.
When the Texture slider is moved to the left, the wrinkles of the man are successfully smoothed.
This works well for the wrinkles, but unfortunately, it also smooths the entire image, including the textured wall and the man’s beard.
To use this tool more effectively, you can use it in tandem with Lightroom’s mask tool.
This way, you can smooth only the selected areas of the photo.
The Texture slider can also be used to increase the depth of wrinkles.
Below, we have an image of a woman whom we want to look older and more weathered.
To achieve the desired look, we increase the depth of the wrinkles by sliding the Texture slider’s toggle to the right.
Increasing your client’s wrinkles is definitely not something we advise unless they specifically request it.
Most clients will run a mile from a photographer who makes them look older and more worn!
Increasing wrinkles in photos is usually used for artistic purposes.
On the other end of the scale, be mindful not to remove all of the model’s wrinkles. Removing all of a client’s wrinkles will seem unrealistic and make them look a little peculiar.
But by softening wrinkles in a natural way, you will reap the rewards of happy and repeat customers.
Edit Skin Tones Using Presets
Lightroom presets were created to make it easy to edit thousands of photos.
Presets are the perfect solution if you are editing an entire album and want consistent results.
On the left-hand side of the Develop workspace, you will find the presets panel.
Click the triangle beside the Presets button, and the Lightroom preset library will open.
Lightroom has an abundant selection of portrait presets to choose from.
You can preview a preset by hovering your cursor over the preset in the preset library.
Click the preset to apply it to the image.
When the preset is applied, you will notice the sliders change in the Develop panel.
Below, the Lightroom Lighten Skin Preset PL06 was added. The changes made to the settings are visible in the Basic panel to the right of the image.
After adding a preset, you can tweak the results to suit your taste.
If you prefer to use your own preset, you can import it into Lightroom to use.
Read more about how to use Lightroom presets here.
Common Reasons Skin Tones Need to Be Fixed
Travel photographers are likelier to capture a photo that needs skin tones edited than a studio photographer.
This is because when you can snatch a candid photo, you might not have the time to set the correct camera settings or alter the white balance.
Incorrect camera settings can result in the skin tones having inconsistent hue variations and thus looking unnatural.
Another reason a photographer might want to touch up skin tones after a photo shoot is to smooth pimples, wrinkles, scars, or skin blemishes.
An expert editor usually uses a combination of Lightroom tools to smooth skin and fix tones, quickly discerning what each photo needs.
If you aren’t a pro yet, don’t worry. Practice, practice, practice will eventually get you there.
If you liked this guide, you might also like – How to Edit Portraits in Lightroom (Pro Tips).
Happy editing.
FAQ
How do I smooth skin tone in Lightroom?
To smooth skin tone in Lightroom, you can use a skin smoothing preset.
To do this, open the photo in Lightroom’s Develop module and select a portrait preset from Lightroom’s preset folder.
Lightroom offers a selection of portrait presets. Alternatively, you can upload a smooth skin preset.
How do I fix my skin in Lightroom?
Open your photo in Lightroom’s Develop module to fix your skin in Lightroom.
Click on the triangle beside the Tone Curve tool to open it.
You can activate one of the skin tones by clicking the red, green, or blue tones icon.
Then, drag the Tone Curves curve up or down to alter this tone.
Is there a smoothing tool in Lightroom?
The Lightroom Texture slider can be used as a smoothing tool.
When the Texture slider is moved to the left, it will smooth the skin (or texture).
Sliding the Texture slider to the right will increase texture.
How do I smooth blemishes in Lightroom?
To smooth blemishes in Lightroom, use the Healing brush tool.
Open the photo in Lightroom’s Develop mode and select the Healing tool.
Adjust the brush size and paint over the blemish to smooth it away.
Can you retouch skin in Lightroom?
Lightroom was designed to edit and retouch photos.
You can use one of Lightroom’s many editing tools to retouch skin.
The HSL, Tone Curve, Healing Brush, Presets, and Color Grading tools can all be used to retouch skin.
Adobe MAX 2024 Update
The Adobe MAX Update 2024 further enhances Lightroom Mobile’s powerful editing and workflow management toolkit.
The 2024 MAX update adds the new Quick Actions feature and significantly improves the Generative Remove function.
Quick Actions automatically creates masks to best suit an image’s subject matter. It also suggests ways to optimize your workflow further and reduce time spent editing on the go.
Generative Remove is the second standout feature of Adobe MAX Update 2024 for Lightroom.
It’s simpler than ever to identify an unwanted distraction, circle it, and Generate Remove cleanly remove the item and correctly render the vacant space.
Judyth is an experienced studio photographer and glass artist. When she isn’t Photoshopping comedians into the bellies of sharks, you can find her cooking delicious treats for her guests.
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