Portrait photography captures more than a face — it tells a story. But even the best-shot portraits can benefit from some thoughtful editing. With the right tools, you can refine your images while keeping your subject’s natural essence intact. The key is balance: enhance, don’t replace. You’ve gone too far if your subject’s mother can’t recognize them! While these concepts apply to most editing software, I’ll demonstrate using Skylum’s new portrait editing tool, Aperty. Aperty makes it easier by combining intuitive adjustments with high-end batch processing, letting you apply professional-level edits to a single photo or an entire set with stunning consistency.
Here are five editing tricks that every photographer should master to bring out the best in their images.
1. Start with perfect skin prep
The foundation of any stunning portrait is a polished, natural-looking complexion. Perfect skin prep in post-processing includes smoothing skin, removing blemishes, and lightening dark circles under the eyes to create a fresh and vibrant look. Skin smoothing helps reduce uneven textures and large pores, while blemish removal eliminates distractions like acne or scars. Don’t forget the eyes—subtle adjustments to lighten dark circles can make your subject look well-rested and radiant. While doing this, it’s essential to keep their natural beauty intact. Preserve unique features like freckles or beauty marks to celebrate individuality and ensure the result looks authentic, not artificial.
Aperty makes this an easy task with its precise tools for targeting specific areas like skin, blemishes, and under-eye shadows, allowing you to achieve professional results effortlessly.
What this does:
- Reduces skin imperfections for a smooth, polished look.
- Removes distractions like acne or scars to keep the focus on your subject.
- Brightens and refreshes the under-eye area for a youthful appearance.
Key Tip: Always aim for subtlety—over-editing can look artificial. Let the subject’s individuality shine through by keeping natural features untouched.
Compare the before-and-after images. See how these subtle adjustments can transform the portrait while keeping it natural and true to the subject.
2. Enhance the eyes
The eyes are a portrait’s soul. Enhancing them can bring depth, emotion, and personality to your image. Small adjustments, from brightening the iris to sharpening details, can make a world of difference. Aperty enables you to change the color of the eye to any shade, but choosing the subject’s natural color makes it truly stand out. This approach ensures the eyes look vibrant and authentic, adding impact without losing individuality.
What this does:
- Draws attention to the subject’s gaze, creating a focal point.
- Adds depth and vibrancy to the eyes without overdoing it.
- Preserve the subject’s natural features for an authentic look.
Key Tip: Subtlety is key—avoid excessive brightening or sharpness to keep the eyes looking natural and expressive.
Look at how this small enhancement can transform the eyes, creating a striking yet genuine portrait.
3. Whiten teeth and brighten smiles
A radiant smile can completely transform the energy of a portrait. Teeth whitening and smile adjustments are quick but powerful tools for creating a welcoming, polished look. However, ensure you don’t overdo it—over-whitening can make teeth look unnatural and distract from the subject’s authenticity. Subtle enhancements will keep the smile vibrant yet realistic.
What this does:
- Removes discoloration or shadows caused by lighting.
- Adds warmth and vibrancy to the subject’s expression.
- Creates a more polished, professional final image.
Key Tip: Keep it natural—stick to a realistic shade to avoid an overly bright, artificial appearance.
See the difference in the before and after—how a naturally brightened smile can elevate the entire portrait without overpowering the subject’s charm.
4. Add subtle contouring
Light and shadow are your best tools for sculpting a face in post-processing. Adding contour can accentuate the subject’s natural features, like cheekbones or jawlines, and create depth for a more dynamic portrait. It can also help address lens distortion that subtly reshapes the face, ensuring proportions look natural and balanced. If a makeup artist isn’t on set, you can adjust elements like eyebrows, lips, or makeup to refine the overall look without overdoing it.
Much like photography, applying makeup is an art form. Although having a makeup artist on set is ideal, budget constraints may not always allow it. This is where Aperty can become your virtual makeup artist. From contouring to enhancing facial features, Aperty offers powerful tools to make these adjustments. Understand that there’s a learning curve to mastering these edits—experiment with different techniques or even collaborate with a makeup artist to get their advice as you refine your skills.
Check out the before-and-after photos to see how subtle contouring enhances natural beauty and gives the portrait a polished and professional look.
5. Adjust lighting creatively
Lighting can make or break a portrait, and post-processing offers endless opportunities to refine it. Use creative lighting adjustments to emphasize your subject, such as adding subtle vignettes, boosting highlights, or enhancing rim lighting for more drama. Adjusting the light can transform the mood of your portrait, giving it more depth and professional polish.
Aperty’s advanced masking tools take this to the next level by allowing you to apply light independently to the subject and background. This level of precision opens up new avenues for creativity, enabling you to easily craft dramatic contrasts, soft glow, or subtle gradients. Additionally, you can create shadows that mimic a Gobo (go-between) effect—adding artistic patterns of light and shadow, such as window blinds or foliage, to give your portrait a cinematic and storytelling quality.
Notice how precise lighting and shadow effects elevate the portrait, adding drama and drawing focus where it matters most.
Before and after: The final reveal
Every subtle edit comes together in the final reveal to tell a story. From skin smoothing and blemish removal to eye enhancements, smile brightening, and creative lighting adjustments, each step refines the portrait while staying true to the subject’s natural beauty. Like we said in the beginning, most editing software can make these changes, but Aperty takes it further with its intuitive interface and advanced tools, allowing you to work smarter and faster.
Imagine saving these changes as an Aperty preset and applying them to a series of images from the same photo session. High-end portrait editing becomes faster, easier, and more creative than ever, delivering consistent, professional results across your entire collection. While the examples here feature images from a studio portrait session, Aperty works equally well for outdoor, natural light portraits, giving you the same seamless editing experience regardless of the setting.
Bonus Tip: Add creativity to studio portraits
Studio portraits on a gray background provide the perfect canvas for creative enhancements. One of the most effective tricks is to use a simple layer blend mode—such as Overlay, Screen, or Soft Light—to replace or transform the background. This can add texture, color, or a completely new setting, giving your portrait a fresh, dynamic look. For even better results, consider the sandwich method, a secret technique that combines adjustment layers, masks, and blending to create seamless transitions between your subject and the new background. But shh… that’s a story for another Luminar Neo tutorial!
Ready to transform your portraits, whether shot in the studio or outdoors? Download a trial of Aperty today and discover how it can take your editing workflow to the next level!
