Lightroom CC: Portrait Retouching

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Editing portraits is something I used to do either using Lightroom and Photoshop or just Photoshop. I think a lot of photographers can relate to that. But Lightroom CC has made it so much easier to work on portraits. In fact, it really does 90% of what you need for professional portrait work. You no longer have to go into Photoshop and stack up layers to clean someone's face or do other stuff you previously couldn't do in Lightroom.

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With that said, there are a couple of things worth mentioning about the images you want to edit. No matter what software you chose for the editing, there are still a couple of things you need to get right the moment you hit the shutter release. Lighting and composition are the most important. I'm not even going to talk about accurate focusing. No amount of artificial sharpening will cover that. But anyway, make sure your highlights and shadows are correct strait out of the camera. It's not that Lightroom can't handle them, but it's not something you should have to deal with in post processing. Any self respecting photographer should be able to nail the composition and lighting for a portrait. It's basic stuff.

The first step in editing a portrait is usually cleaning the subject's face. We all have more or less imperfections on our skin, so you and your client probably want them out of the photo. Lightroom CC makes it easy to deal with acne, birthmarks or any other unwanted elements with the healing brush and the clone tool. They're each designed for different purposes, so learning the difference between them will help. Lightroom also makes it very easy to make local adjustments. Most portrait photographers want to put a little more light on some parts of the face, usually the eyes or ne side of the face and it's now a lot easier.

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Here are two great examples from Darlene Hildebrandt and Anthony Morganti that show exactly how good a tool Lightroom CC is for portrait work.

Learn more about using Lightroom CC from these recommended books: