How to Smooth Skin in Lightroom Classic & CC: Step-by-Step Guide

Are your clients claiming perfectly smooth skin in their portraits, and you’re looking for a simple tool that is affordable and easy to use to meet their needs? Congratulations! We’ve a special treat for all portrait photographers, including you, because after reading this article, you can easily understand how to smooth skin in Lightroom Classic & CC. This article will be more fruitful for photographers who are linked to the fashion industry because there is a close relationship between the fashion industry and smooth skin. Moreover, removing pimples and other marks by using the smoothing skin feature of Lightroom will help you to make your work unique, which leads to a strong portfolio even if you’re not connected to the fashion industry.

I’ve discussed certain features of Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC in Lightroom vs Lightroom Classic, so after taking a deep look at them, we can clearly understand why we always prefer Lightroom. Moreover, Lightroom is just not preferred in skin smoothing; it has always been on the priority list whether we want to create collages or remove unwanted objects within a photograph. But as we’re discussing how to smooth skin in Lightroom, it’s compulsory to analyse why we chose Lightroom instead of other photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop. Let’s highlight some important aspects that force us to select Lightroom for skin smoothing:

We can’t deny the reality that smoothing skin in Lightroom has never been quicker, but don’t worry, after reading these simple steps, you can smooth the skin ten times faster than other old methods. Still, you need to make sure that you’re smoothing skin in the latest version of Lightroom Classic. Let’s discuss in detail:

The first step is to import the image within the Lightroom Catalog and make certain adjustments in the exposure and white balance to improve skin smoothening. You can do these adjustments of image on Lightroom Mod APK before importing it into Lightroom Classic.

After importing the image,, click on a circular icon located at the right corner of the toolbar. That’s basically your mask because when you hover over it, you’ll see the text “Mask.” After clicking on it, a pop-up will appear with an additional panel.

Right down at the bottom of the additional panel of pop-up, you’ll detect your subject, click on it, and you’ll observe a nice clean mask of your subject. After hitting on the mask of your subject, a new pop-up will appear with different options, including Face Skin, Body Skin, Eyebrows, Lips, Teeth, and Hair. You need to click just on the face skin and create a mask. You can choose some other options according to your desire, but if you want to smooth face skin in Lightroom, then check face skin. But you must remember the blessing of AI in this step because this is an AI masking that’s absolutely an amazing revolutionary within Lightroom Classic.

If you want to smooth skin, go ahead and use one of the presets of Lightroom Classic instead of fiddling around with the manual adjustments of different filters. To do so, click on “Custom” on the right side of “Effect.” 

After clicking on “Custom,” you’ll see a drop-down menu, so go ahead and select the option “Soften Skin.” Now, all is done, and you’ve successfully created a professional-looking effect through a very easy method.

If your image has larger spots and blemishes, you can use the “Healing Brush Tool” to smooth skin in Lightroom manually instead of using ready-made presets.

Here are four simple steps for Lightroom lovers who are looking for how to smooth skin in Lightroom mobile:

If you have an image of your client, relative, or friend with blemishes and spots on the face or any part of the skin, open it in the Lightroom editing area. Then, zoom in the image using your finger to see the fine details of imperfections in the skin that need to be smoothed.

Note: After applying each filter and performing certain adjustments, you need to click the tick ✓ located at the top to save all changes.

After making an image selection, navigate to the toolbar at the bottom and click on the Selective Edit icon located on the left-hand side. This Brush will enable you to select the part of your skin that you want to make smooth, and only those areas will be affected by the smothering tool. Then, you’re offered various options, but you need to click on the + icon> select Brush, and do certain settings of it.

Then you’ve to select the skin through the Brush that you want to smooth, and the chosen area will be shown like red paint. This red area will work like a mask to highlight the brushed part of the subject. I prefer to avoid eyes, nose, and lips from smoothings to stay sharp because it maintains the original beauty of portrait.

After starting to brush you’ll notice a small diamond shape that allows you to turn back and make certain changes in your edits. In the active mode diamond will glow in blue colour and give the signals that edit is ready for many adjustments. After completion of masking and to stop red overlay you need to turn off that blue diamond. Moreover, if you feel that some parts of skin have accidentally brushed over then hit the eraser icon available at the left side of the screen and remove the unwanted area.

After painting the desired area, go to the bottom navigation and click on “Effects.” Then, adjust the scale of Texture and Clarity to less than -50.

Then hit “Detail,” as highlighted in the image below, and adjust noise and sharpness. Two sliders, including Noise and Sharpness, will appear. Increase the level of noise to 50+ and reduce sharpness to -50, finally save your changes.

After applying smoothing effects through the edit tool, if you notice spots and blemishes on the skin, you can remove them manually by using a healing brush. Select the healing Brush, paint over the affected area, and apply the effects.