Learn how to… Smooth skin in Luminar

Your guide Ian Evenden says… “Making a portrait flattering but still keeping it natural, is one of the great challenges of image editing. Here, we use Luminar’s AI tools to make it easier”

- Ian Evenden

We’re aware of the adage about not throwing stones if you live in a glass house, but sometimes, especially if preparing an image that’s going to get scrutinised, you need to improve a portrait’s skin tone.

Many image editing apps will aid you in this, from the context-aware healing tools in Photoshop to the old-school sample-based cloning brushes that simply paint over imperfections from an area of skin you’ve chosen. Recently, though, Luminar included some new smart tools that tackle the issue of skin smoothing without any faffing around making manual selections or choosing sample points.

A free trial of Luminar can be found at http://skylum.com/luminar (drop down the Luminar menu at the top) where you’ll also find a full beginner’s guide. Original image by Kayla Lyons.

Step-by-step Edit your portrait

1 Open an image

Luminar lets you access your images in two ways. It can watch a folder, chosen at setup, and display every image in it and its subfolders. You then choose which to edit from a sea of thumbnails. Alternatively, you can open a single image, which is what we’re doing here, using the ‘+’ button at the top left or File > Edit Single Image.

2 AI Face Enhancer

In the Portrait section of Luminar Looks – accessed with the Looks button at the top of the interface – you’ll find tools to help improve (or at least alter) a portrait. First is the AI Face Enhancer. It pulls in the cheeks of our model, narrowing her face while smoothing and slightly lightening her skin. To see before and after views of a Look’s effect, press the Eye button, top middle.