Looking to get rid of those red cheeks and noses of your subjects during cold-weather outdoor portraits? It’s easy to get rid of unwanted facial redness with the new LuminarAI.

1) Neutralize the red tint

The first thing is to neutralize the red tint. What is red’s complementary color? That’s right — green! By adding green to the red hue, we will cancel it out. (Don’t be afraid, I swear Uncle Gary won’t look sick.)

Get rid redness

To do so, go to the Essentials tab and open the Color tool. Then, expand the HSL options and select Hue.

Select the red color and move the slider to the right to neutralize the hue. The whole face will look weird for a moment but keep on observing the effect it has only on the nose and cheeks.

2) Increase the luminance

Next, we need to increase the luminance of the red color to harmonize it with the rest of the face. To proceed, stay in the HSL options, but this time select Luminance.

Redness cheek nose

Slightly increase the Luminance of the red hue by moving the slider to the right.

3) Paint a mask

As you can see, this green effect is currently being applied to the entire face — which is not great … I grant you that. The last step consists of applying the correction only to specific areas of our subject’s face (hence the nose and cheeks).

Paint layer mask Luminar AI

To paint a mask, click on the small mask icon in the upper right corner of the Color panel. I suggest you decrease the radius of the brush for more precise work; you can do this with the slider or by using the bracket keys on your keyboard.

Paint the “anti-redness” effect on the affected areas.

Portrait Luminar AI

Complete the look

Once the redness has been neutralized, you are free to continue editing your image or export it as is. I strongly suggest the AI tools Portrait > Face and Skin tools which will allow you to improve, among others, the eyes and skin texture in no time.

Long live winter!

Take advantage of the cold season without fearing red cheeks and noses ever again! Get out there and be more creative than ever with your photography! Getting fresh air is good for everyone … for the heart as well as the mind ;)

Don’t have LuminarAI yet? Get your copy today and save $10 with the code PHOTOFOCUS!