How to Reduce Wrinkles and Fix Acne in Lightroom

How to Reduce Wrinkles and Fix Acne in Lightroom

A common question we hear during our webinars and at our help desk is how to fix acne blemishes WITHOUT taking the image to Photoshop.  

Many Lightroom users do not realize Lightroom has a handy tool for fixing acne blemishes, scratches, food particles, etc.  It's called the Spot Removal Tool.

The Spot Removal Tool continues to improve with each Lightroom release and can now handle most of your healing and cloning needs.

The spot removal tool is used to remove unwanted objects or blemishes via one of two modes: Clone Mode or Heal Mode.

• The Clone Mode is best for hiding unwanted objects by covering them with a copy of another area in the image.
• The Heal Mode is best for fixing blemishes and scratches because it blends the healed area more with the pixels around it.

How to Fix Acne Blemishes and Reduce Wrinkles

The Spot Removal Tool is used similarly in Clone and Heal Modes, but the results may differ slightly.  Experiment with both and see which one best suits your image and problem.

1.  Select the area to fix with your mouse (after clicking the spot removal icon).
2.  Lightroom will automatically locate a different area in your image it thinks the problem area should look like and replace the pixels in the problem area with the pixels from the target area.
3.  If you are unhappy with the results from the target area that Lightroom chose, click the circle and move it to a different spot that might work better for your particular image.  You can also click the "/" (forward slash) key - keyboard shortcut, and Lightroom will automatically try to find a better spot.

The spot removal tool in Lightroom can use any selection shape.  Just click and drag the mouse around the area you want to fix, then choose a target area that blends well with the problem area.

In addition to acne blemishes and wrinkles, the spot removal tool also works GREAT for scratches, small particles, etc., so you shouldn't need to take images to Photoshop for any of this type of editing. 

Tips for Fixing Wrinkles

The most significant difference between fixing wrinkles versus fixing acne in Lightroom is that we can't ENTIRELY eliminate wrinkles without the image looking over-edited and unnatural.

So when using the clone or heal tool for wrinkle reduction, I usually reduce the opacity so that the new pixels blend well with the old pixels and the area around them.  I will often lower the opacity to around 50 to help the new pixels blend better with the area I want to fix.  Keep in mind that the opacity can be reduced for both the Clone and Heal tools.

Using the Masks Brush to help Reduce Wrinkles

In addition to using the Spot Healing tool to reduce wrinkles, I also use the brush in the Masks tools to reduce wrinkles.  Wrinkles "show" because of the shadows created from tiny folds of the skin.  Therefore, wrinkles can be minimized in an image by brightening those shadowed areas.

My favorite way to do this is using a preset in the Perfect Portrait Brush Collection.  These brush presets are only available to use in Lightroom Classic (Lightroom Mobile doesn't have this capability yet).

Let me show you how I do this:

1.  First, click the Masks icon in the Tools Panel (the Tools Panel is located between the Histogram Panel and the Basic Panel.

2.  Next, choose the Brush tool.  If this is the first mask on your image, you will see the Brush among the options that open below the Masks icon.  If you have other masks already on your image, click the "+" at the top of the Masking Panel that opens and click on the "Brush" option.

3.  Finally, load the brush with the preset "Portrait—Skin Wrinkle Reducer" from the Perfect Portrait Brush Collection.  Zoom in on your image and make the brush small - about the size of the wrinkle line you want to reduce.  Then brush along the wrinkle, and the appearance will be reduced.

Fixing Blemishes and Wrinkles in Lightroom - Video Tutorial

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