Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less

If you want to know how to use Lightroom portrait editing to produce natural-looking portrait photos in no time, you’ve come to the right place. Because in today’s tutorial I will demonstrate my Lightroom portrait editing workflow.

Lightroom Portrait Editing

Retouching portraits is an important subdivision of photo editing. Typically a complex and time-consuming process, it requires an intimate knowledge of Photoshop with some unique techniques specific to the field.

Here is an outline of my people editing workflow.

Lightroom Portrait Editing in 4 Steps

Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 1

We went to San Francisco to shoot 360 Videos and decided to take a few pictures at the same time.

When I composited this shot, I strategically placed the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

The main issue with this shot is the difference in illumination between the background and the foreground. Prior to retouching, my daughter’s face is underexposed with dark shadows emphasizing various skin imperfections and casting dark shadows under her eyes.

Step 1: Improving Composition

I always start my editing in an attempt to improve composition.

I used the Crop Overlay tool to make composition tighter. And at the same time, I changed the aspect ratio from the original 3:2 to a more vertical 4:3.

Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 2
Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 3

Step 2: Lightroom Rapid Editing for Portraits

This is standard Lightroom Rapid Editing, which I previously outlined in great detail and, therefore, will not spend too much time explaining here.

Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 4
  • I brought down the exposure to recover the details in the background: 04. Exposure –
  • I recovered the shadows by applying the 8. Open Shadows ++ adjustment
  • Finally, I added stronger vignetting by using the adjustment preset, 33. Vignetting +++.
Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 5
Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 6

I was finished with the second step.

Step 3: Fixing Skin Imperfections

To clean up any skin imperfections, I used the Spot Removal Tool.

I selected the Spot Removal Tool and set the opacity to 75%.

Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 7

Next, I adjusted the brush size by using the keyboard shortcuts [ and ]. Then, I started stamping over the imperfections.

It only took me a couple of minutes and 20 to 30 stamps to clean up the face.

Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 8

I then had to deal with the dark and unpleasant shadows under my daughter’s eyes. Shadows are caused when the natural light source (the sun) is too high, which is a common problem in nearly every portrait that is taken outdoors in bright conditions.

I used the Spot Removal tool once again but, this time, I increased the brush size and reduced the opacity to 50%. Then, I simply used the brush to paint under the eyes. 

Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 9

All I needed was two strokes—one for each eye.

Lightroom did an amazing job of sampling the skin from the face and then masking the shadows.

Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 10

This was the final result of fixing skin imperfections.

Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 11

By keeping the opacity low (50%), I made sure that I preserved enough details to keep the portrait natural.

And this is how the portrait looked after step 3.

Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 12

Step 4: Smoothing Skin in Lightroom​

Next, I took care of generally smoothing out the skin by using the Adjustment Brush Tool.

After activating the Brush Tool, I selected the Skin Smooth + option from the Effect menu.

Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 13

By pressing the [ and ] keyboard shortcuts, I increased the size of the brush and started painting over the skin with long strokes.

Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 14

I was careful to not paint over the eyes, lips, and nostrils, ensuring that all the details remained intact.

By pressing the keyboard shortcut key O you can preview the areas affected by the brush tool.

Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 15

And that was it.

Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 16
Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less 17

Below you can see the Before & After transformation. 

In total, It took me 10 minutes at most.

Lightroom Portrait Editing | Conclusion

Lightroom is a powerful portrait editing tool that can help you create beautiful, natural-looking portraits.

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by Viktor Elizarov
I am a travel photographer and educator from Montreal, Canada, and a founder of PhotoTraces. I travel around the world and share my experiences here. Feel free to check my Travel Portfolio and download Free Lightroom Presets.

2 thoughts on “Lightroom Portrait Editing in 10 Minutes or Less”

  1. Good, quick tutorial with very useful tips. Do you recommend dialing down Clarity as a way to smooth skin? Or is it better to always use the Adjustment Brush?

    Reply
    • Carl,
      many of my People presets use negative values for Clarity. But at the same time you can not go too far with the global setting because you start loosing details where you need them. I always use combination of global and local skin smoothing methods, first I apply mild global negative Clarity and then selective smoothing with the brush.

      Reply

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