Lightroom has become almost as capable as Photoshop – and this includes skin retouching. Knowing how to remove blemishes and soften skin in Lightroom can accelerate your workflow tremendously. It is quick and simple, yet the result looks just as professional and realistic as adjustments made in Photoshop.
From removing blemishes to softening skin, let’s take a look at how to make some simple facial touch-ups in Lightroom.
Video Tutorial
How To Remove Blemishes In Lightroom
Step 1: In The Develop Tab, Click The Spot Remover Icon
With the image you’d like to edit open in Lightroom Classic’s Develop tab, you’ll see a bar with several icons above the Basic edits. Click the Spot Remover icon, which looks like a Band-Aid.
Note: If your image turns black and white, it is because the visualize spots option is checked in the bottom toolbar. Make sure to uncheck Visualize Spots when removing blemishes since then you can see your subject.
Step 2: Select Either The Heal Or Clone Spot Removal Brush And Adjust The Brush Settings
You’ll see the different spot removal settings at the top of the right panel.
Next to Brush, you’ll see the options Clone and Heal. The Clone setting directly reproduces pixels from a surrounding area to replace the area you brush over, while the Heal setting will blend the colors and textures of the area surrounding the spot you’re healing.
For now, let’s select Heal, the most widely applied brush setting for removing blemishes. Before starting to brush over blemishes, you’ll want to set the brush settings so they best fit your situation. I’d suggest keeping Feathering moderately high to ensure the healed area blends well with the surrounding area.
Step 3: Click The Blemish You’d Like To Remove
Once you’ve set the settings, simply click the blemish you’d like to heal. You’ll see the circle appear on the blemish and another circle nearby that pulls sample texture and color to help heal the blemish. You can click and drag the example circle to make the healed spot more accurate.
To fix spots that aren’t round, you can just click and drag the brush, and it will brush over the area. To easily delete a spot adjustment you can hold Alt (Win) or Option (Mac) and click the spot. You’ll notice your cursor changes to a pair of scissors. To delete multiple spots at once, hold Alt (Win) or Option (Mac) while dragging over the spots.
How To Remove Blemishes In Lightroom CC
In Lightroom CC, you’ll find the Healing Brush on the right-hand icon bar. You can set the Mode to Heal or Clone at the top and then adjust the brush settings below. Adjust them as you’d like, and check the box next to Visualize Spots if this effect helps you identify and cover the spots.
From there, the healing brush will work the same as in Lightroom Classic: just click the spots to heal them and adjust the settings as needed.
How To Soften Skin In Lightroom
Step 1: Click The Mask Icon And Select The Brush Option
Another skin touch-up you can easily make in Lightroom is softening skin. For this, we will use the adjustment brush, which you can find in the Masking Panel. Click the Mask icon in the bar above the Basic tab.
This will bring you to the Masking panel, where you can add a new mask from the available options. Select the Brush option.
Step 2: Click The Drop-Down Menu Next To Effect To Select The Soften Skin Preset
From here, we will take advantage of the brush effect presets that come with Lightroom. These are a somewhat new edition that allows you to make brush strokes in your image that have a specific effect on them. To find these presets, click the drop-down menu next to Effect. Here, you’ll see a menu of the different brush presets available with Lightroom. The ones we’ll focus on are Soften Skin and Soften Skin (Lite).
These two effects automatically set reduced texture or clarity adjustments that make the brush soften the area you mask.
Step 3: Create Your Mask To Use The Soften Skin Preset
For the brush settings, you’ll want to set the size large enough to easily paint over your subject’s skin, without going over any details like their eyes or teeth. Flow can be set between 50 and 75 for the most natural appearance, Density set to 100, and Feather can be set to 100 as we won’t need any feathering to use this brush. It also might help to check Auto-Mask, which helps keep your mask in an area of similar color or exposure for better accuracy.
After masking the skin on the subject’s face, you will notice how smooth the skin looks once the effect is applied.
Step 4: Reduce The Intensity Of The Preset (Optional)
If you think the skin-softening effect is too intense or too subtle, you can always adjust the affected sliders, which are Texture and Clarity. In the brush adjustments area, you can click and drag the toggles on the two effects. Dragging the toggle to the left will increase the softening effect while dragging them to the right will make the skin appear less smoothed and more textured.
How To Soften Skin In Lightroom CC
The steps to soften skin are the same in Lightroom CC. To access the Masking Panel, click the Mask icon on the right-hand toolbar. To add a mask, select the Brush option.
Effects can be found by heading to the drop-down menu next to Mask 1 adjustments beneath the brush settings. Click to see all the available brush effects, and scroll to find Smooth Skin.
You only have one Smooth Skin effect option here, but you can still adjust the intensity of the effect using the Texture and Clarity sliders. These can be found among the Mask Adjustments below the brush settings — you’ll notice the Smooth Skin preset has already adjusted them, so feel free to make any further adjustments by dragging the toggle left or right.
Now that you know how to smooth skin in Lightroom, it’s useful to know a few more advanced tools that are only available within Photoshop. To learn more, see this next guide on how to retouch skin in Photoshop
Happy Editing!
