Best Practices For Automated Portrait Retouching

Today, I’m going to show you how automated portrait retouching inside of Luminar Neo could be the tools you’ve been looking for to help you bring your shots to life. Leaving them with a professional finish achieved in no time at all. The best part about it all is that you don’t need to watch endless tutorials to start getting good results, your retouching tasks can all be done with just one click. So, let’s take a look.

What is Automation

So let’s break down what automation actually is and how it works. As mentioned earlier, the traditional manual approach to editing involves drawing paths around your subject or specific facial features, and this can take a great deal of time and effort. Beginners often struggle with these finicky tools, and one small mistake can undo a lot of careful work.

This then leads to complicated methods for achieving certain retouching tasks, often requiring a lot of research just to understand how to do them correctly. Now imagine working through an entire folder of photos. Soon enough, you are spending far too much time in front of your computer instead of being out there with your camera.

Thankfully, technology has progressed significantly, and much of this process can now be automated with the power of AI. Luminar Neo is a perfect companion here, as it not only separates your subject from the background but also intelligently targets specific facial features for enhancement. This automation does all of the heavy lifting for you, allowing you to focus on simple slider adjustments based on what your individual shot needs.

There is no need for courses or in-depth tutorials either. The tools are intuitive enough that you can achieve a polished portrait edit in no time at all.

With that said, beginners can still fall into a few common traps when using automated portrait tools. So next, let’s look at some best practices to help you get the most out of them.

Where to Begin

It can be tempting to jump straight into the portrait tools and start perfecting your subject, but doing so would get you off to a very bad start.

Here’s how I approach a portrait edit.

Basic Photo Editing
I always begin with a few essential tools such as contrast adjustments or the tone curve to balance the image and introduce some depth. I also make sure the exposure is set correctly. Here is a crucial point to consider. Portrait photographers, myself included, will often shoot slightly underexposed to preserve detail and texture in the subject’s skin.

If the background needs a boost in exposure but doing so would negatively affect the skin tones, this is where masking comes into play. You can simply select the background mask either through Layer Properties or via the masking options inside individual tools. This process is completely automated, so it can be done with a single click. Leaving you to simply and safely work on the background, with your subject safe from any alterations.

Portrait Editing
Once the base adjustments are in place, it is time to move on to portrait editing. We will go into much more detail on this later in the article, but for now it is important to focus on balance. Your subject should clearly stand out and feel separated from the background.

No matter how visually appealing your background is, the subject is always the most important element in the frame. Everything else should support them, not compete for attention.

Colour Grading
The final stage of my edit is colour grading, where masking once again becomes essential. You may want to enhance certain tones in the background, but doing this globally can easily damage skin tones.

Green hues in particular require care, as boosting them across the entire image will rarely be flattering for a subject. Automated masking allows you to target these adjustments precisely, helping you bring out the best in your image while maintaining natural-looking skin tones and a professional finish.

Portrait Editing with Luminar Neo

Start With Removing

A simple place to start is by taking away what we don’t need in the shot, and universally this is going to be blemishes. Portrait photographers will always look to remove these first as they can be distracting, and flawless skin is industry standard anyhow. To do this requires only one click. Simply jump into the Skin tools and select Skin Defects Removal. Inside here, you can also remove shine, something that can be extremely distracting. You can also smooth the skin to remove any unevenness.

The last thing to remove is dark circles under the eyes. This can make our subject look tired and withdrawn, so head into the Face tools, then Eyes, where you will find Dark Circle Removal.

By removing what we don’t want first, it leaves us with the perfect place to start working on what to enhance in our shot. But to maintain best practices for portrait editing with automated tools, there are some things to be mindful of.

What to Preserve

I know when I first got my hands on Luminar Neo’s editing tools, I was excited to see what they could achieve. But I also knew that I needed to be careful not to get too carried away. We need to maintain a natural look for our subject, and that starts with preserving details.

The textures of the skin are a fine balance between achieving a natural look and one that is overprocessed, leaving a plastic-like appearance. While we want to smooth the skin, we only want to push it as far as what still looks natural. As soon as you start to see too little definition, the face no longer matching the body, or your subject suddenly looking far too young, you may need to pull it back slightly.

The same applies to wrinkles. Again, we can minimise them slightly, but eradicating them altogether will result in an unnatural appearance and can ruin the quality of the shot. All of this takes practice, so keep working on your editing skills and you will soon find that the best results come from enhancing the overall look while maintaining natural textures.

Brightening

One process I wanted to talk about separately is brightening. It is worth reiterating that the subject should be clearly distinguishable from the rest of the image and immediately eye-catching. One way to achieve this is through brightening, which again comes with best practices if you want a professional result.

In Luminar Neo, we can brighten the face, eyes, and teeth. As before, this is something you do not want to overdo, as it can quickly become distracting and lower the quality of the image. These tools should absolutely be used, but always with balance in mind.

I have a neat little trick I use to make sure that balance is just right, which I will explain in the following section.

Stepping Away

One of the tricks I love using to ensure that I’m not overdoing it is simply stepping away. This works especially well if you are unsure about your work. The problem we can run into is working too closely on an image, where we fail to see the forest for the trees.

So don’t rush to share your images as soon as you finish editing them. Instead, step away for an hour, or even come back the next day, and see if anything immediately stands out to you. It could be that the image looks fantastic, or you might notice that the face is slightly too bright and no longer feels in tune with the rest of the image.

This is particularly important when working with automated tools, as it can be very easy to rush through an edit due to how much they speed up your process. So give this method a try during your next editing session and see what you notice.

The Bottom Line

Automated tools are helping photographers speed up workflows and get back out shooting rather than spending hours sat behind the computer. Luminar Neo, therefore, is a perfect addition to a portrait photographer’s workflow helping you with all of the heavy lifting. Path drawing, masking and retouching is all done for you and can be applied with just one click. There’s no need for courses, or scouring YouTube for tutorials, simply take advantage of Luminar’s retouching and get back out there with your camera. 

Just remember that with automation and sped-up workflows comes the risk of overdoing it with your edits. It can be all too easy to lose the natural appearance of your subject and risk plastic-looking skin textures that ruin the quality of your work. Follow the best practices mentioned in this article, and if needed, take a step away from your work and come back to it later to assess your work.

So enjoy the automation of Luminar Neo for your next project and see just how much time you can save while at the same time getting a professional-look.