When you’re editing, there’s no worse feeling than getting through a session or wedding only to return to it and feel like everyone’s skin looks… not natural?! Cue frustration, right? Here are my 3 tips for editing skin to avoid this problem. (I use each of these during every editing session!) It’s helpful to know that I use Lightroom for editing so I’ll be talking about tools directly within Lightroom in this post.
First, it’s important to talk about getting your images as perfect as possible when you are doing the actual photographing. Editing should be the final, creative polish, not the “adjshsflj I hope can fix this” tool. The biggest advice I can share for editing skin is to photograph your subjects with beautiful light for their skin so that they look like themselves.
This is actually super easy if you think of the ground like a giant mirror, reflecting light onto your subjects! The more neutral and bright the ground is, the better it is for your subject’s skin! Examples of bright and neutral ground are sand, gravel and concrete. They make skin look so beautiful in images because they bounce a bright, clean light up onto people’s faces. The darker the ground, the less light bounces up into people’s faces, the less flattering it is on their skin. (Think black parking lots and green grass. Not super flattering in most photos, really.)
Once you’ve really nailed your images in-camera because you photographed the subject really thinking about what type of ground you are placing your subjects on, let’s talk about the first issue many photographers have with skin tone. Editing a little tooooo much of one color onto people’s skin so that they don’t look like themselves! This is super normal, don’t get frustrated with yourself if this happens to you. Our eyes can get used to anything, so if you’re editing image by image and each image is slowlyyyyy getting more orange/green/red/purple, you really won’t notice until you walk away for a little while. Returning to your computer and noticing that is the WORST!
Here’s the simplest fix. Provide your eyeballs with a reference image to match during editing. Perhaps it’s an image where you really nailed the editing already or an image that’s been on your Pinterest dream board forever. Pull up the URL or screenshot and keep it open right next to where you are editing—your eyeballs will use it as a guide to staying on track and won’t let yourself get carried away with a very off-colored session. (Been there, re-editing is such a time suck! Save yourself!)
Using the clone tool is incredibly helpful for blemishes! My policy with retouching skin is to only retouch temporary things that my client doesn’t have control over. (Hellooooo, morning of wedding forehead zit!) To use the spot remover, you click on the tool to use it, then you click the blemish you’d like to remove. Lightroom will automatically grab another spot in the image to fill in the blemish. It’s technically supposed to grab from a similar spot but sometimes it grabs really random things to fill in. No worries though, you can literally drag and click the area it’s pulling from into a new spot that fills in the blemish properly.
Ultimately, I’ve found that when I’m mindful of my location, my editing is incredibly easy. I truly use these 3 tips for editing skin with every session because they are pure gold. Getting that lighting right in camera is such a simple way to ensure that your photos feel luminous and flattering while making sure you’re not spending hours trying to make your session into something else entirely when you edit!
If you’re browsing tips & tricks for photography, be sure to grab my gear guide! I walk you through everything you need to know about different types of cameras, lenses and equipment for every budget!