Retouching portraits often requires complex software and a steep learning curve, but Lightroom can simplify the process significantly. Mastering skin retouching within Lightroom helps streamline your workflow and produces natural, flattering results without additional costs or complexities.
Coming to you from Gerald Needham, this practical video demonstrates a professional yet straightforward approach to retouching skin using only Lightroom. Needham emphasizes preparing the image thoroughly before beginning any retouching, suggesting edits that balance whites, blacks, and contrast using Lightroom's tone curve for smoother skin tones. Understanding the subtle differences between Lightroom’s tonal adjustments and the tone curve is critical for achieving evenly balanced portraits. Needham also shares valuable insights into avoiding common issues like unwanted artifacts or banding by locking down exposure, contrast, and color settings early in the editing process. His clear explanations equip you with a reliable method for consistently attractive skin tones before retouching even begins.
Once the foundational edits are complete, Needham moves directly into detailed skin retouching, highlighting the value of Lightroom's AI-driven generative removal tool. Rather than manually correcting blemishes, he shows how effectively the new generative AI tool simplifies spot and blemish removal while maintaining natural skin texture. Needham further breaks down how to use Lightroom’s advanced masking tools to isolate and enhance facial features accurately. He clearly demonstrates the importance of refining masks to avoid overspill onto areas like eyelashes, eyebrows, and lips—common pitfalls that can compromise the naturalness of a portrait. His careful approach ensures your retouching maintains authentic detail while improving skin smoothness, illustrating exactly how texture, clarity, and dehaze sliders can dramatically influence skin appearance.
Further enhancing the portrait, Needham walks you through the strategic masking of specific facial areas—like pores, wrinkles, and acne-prone zones—allowing targeted adjustments that blend seamlessly with untouched areas. By carefully matching texture and clarity settings, he ensures these selective edits produce smooth yet realistic skin without noticeable transitions. Needham also shows methods for enhancing eyes, lips, and eyebrows using specific masks, demonstrating subtle tweaks that substantially elevate the overall portrait quality. His thoughtful explanations clarify exactly why slight exposure shifts, color adjustments, and sharpening make a significant difference in the viewer's perception of the image’s quality. Lastly, Needham explains the value of adding grain to your image as a final, subtle touch that integrates retouched areas naturally with the original photograph.
If you're new to the work and interested in refining your skin retouching skills without complicating your workflow, this detailed guide offers practical methods that significantly improve your portraits using only Lightroom. Needham’s approach combines clarity, precision, and subtlety, making professional-quality results accessible without the steep learning curve associated with more complex software like Photoshop. Whether you're new to Lightroom or looking to elevate your current retouching skills, these insights equip you with valuable techniques. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Needham.
At 8:50 he mentions using a preset to make all of these adjustments. This makes me wonder, can Lightroom batch all these masks across different photos accurately enough to do this? Obviously we've all batched out subject masking through mini sessions and it works great but if you do gen fill on things like moles and acne, does applying a batch or preset allow all those brush strokes to apply with more or less blemishes? I've never tried this and curious how it works.