Instead the main challenge that you will face is using the tools available to you to touch up portraits in a way that brings out the beauty in them without making them appear fake or unnatural. That requires a lot more experience, but the following tips are a good place to start:
- Compare the edited photo to the original
When you first start out you should compare the edited portrait to the original frequently, but in time you’ll find that you’re able to more readily identify when you’ve made a mistake without having to compare it.
- Improve the white balance
For more control you should adjust the temperature of the portrait until you feel that it is properly balanced. It may help to adjust the exposure beforehand, especially if you feel your photo is too bright or too dark.
- Accentuate the iris - carefully
In some cases it may help to darken the edges of the iris to make it look more natural.
- Remove some blemishes, wrinkles and spots – but not too many
For example if your portrait is of a 70 year old man and they have absolutely no wrinkles, spots, or blemishes – wouldn’t you think it was odd?
![]() |
Photo by Jaku Arias on Unsplash |
- Sharpen certain features slightly to bring out details
Typically some of the more common options are the eyes, brows, lips, and some parts of the hair. Be careful that you only sharpen each a little bit however, otherwise they will not look very natural – especially when set against the rest of the portrait.
In most photo editors you’ll have a wide range of tools that you can use to edit portraits, and some may even have specific features to help you whiten teeth, remove red-eye, refine the hair, and more. For example if you use Movavi Photo Editor you could even apply various types of digital makeup as outlined at https://www.movavi.com/support/how-to/makeup-photo-editor.html
At the end of the day the tips listed above cover some of the most effective ways to edit photos, while at the same time making sure that they look natural. The more you edit portraits and get some experience under your belt, the more easily you’ll be able to gauge what types of alterations would be best for them.