How to edit portraits with Luminar AI just like the pro retouchers do [sponsor]

Luminar AI is an artificially intelligent photo-editing program for creatives of all levels. With Luminar for Mac, you don’t need to be a pro retoucher to easily make your selfies, portraits, or group photographs stand out. This app provides many handy tools for portrait retouching.

Portrait retouching with Luminar AI

To mention but a few, the Body AI tool makes it a cinch to increase or decrease a subject’s body volume in realistic ways. You can add a twinkling light or change the color of an iris with the Iris AI tool. Or use the Face AI and Skin AI tools for face detailing, removing blemishes and shine, etc.

All these and other adjustments for portrait retouching that are available in Luminar AI also work on your group photos. So whether you’re editing a single-person portrait or vacation/party shots, Luminar AI has all the tools you need to edit your portrait photographs like a pro.

Tips for how to edit portraits with Luminar AI

To get started with portrait retouching, fire up the Luminar AI app on your Mac and open an image from a folder on your drive. After AI analyzes your image, you may see a bunch of template suggestions. We recommend clicking the “Template” tab and starting with the built-in Portrait template before moving to the editing panel to refine adjustments.

Next, click the “Edit” tab. Now hit “Composition AI” at the top of the Essentials tools, then look for “Portrait”.

Edit portraits in Luminar for Mac and Windows - before and after

Face AI  removes skin imperfections, makes your lips brighter or more saturated, whitens the teeth, removes dark circles, etc. With sliders, you can easily enhance the fullness of the brows, adjust lip saturation, redness, and lightness, or subtly slim the face to follow the subject’s natural anatomy. Face AI can also adjust a subject’s lighting to create an effect similar to studio lighting. It goes beyond just the face area, all skin visible on the image is boosted.

Next is Slim Face AI. As the name suggests, this tool lets you shape the face. It’s smart enough to recognize different tilts of the head and works even if the hair is covering parts of the subject’s face. You may also want to check out the Skin AI tool to further refine the subject’s skin while still maintaining the details and pores in the face.

Now go creative and change the color of the eyes with the Iris AI tool. Play with a few sliders to do things like add some depth with iris flare, or apply a little twinkling light to the iris—just like the pro retouchers do. And thanks to the Body AI tool, your edits are not limited to just the face.

Body AI makes it easy to adjust the subject’s body by removing or adding up the volume. The output of this module is very realistic and the tool also works with different body positions.

Saving and exporting your edits

Once you’re satisfied with your edits, you can save them as a custom template that can later be applied to either a single image or a bunch of photos in a batch.

Edit portraits in Luminar for Mac and Windows - before and after

As the last step, click the “Export” tab up top to access the options for exporting and sharing your work. Next, choose the option “Save to Disk” on the right. Select a location for the exported image and click the “Save” button to have the full-resolution file saved to the disk.

The video below is a good example of portrait workflows in Luminar.

Other Luminar AI features

And that’s how you edit portraits in Luminar like the pro retouchers do. This is just scratching the surface of what this comprehensive image editor has to offer. For instance, you can use the AI-powered templets in Luminar to correct common capture problems as well as apply consistent enhancements across multiple images at once.

And with dedicated architecture tools, Luminar AI allows everyone to edit their landscapes, cityscapes, and architecture photos with ridiculous ease. Best of all, all those AI-powered tools can be used by creatives of al levels without having to deal with complex layers and palettes.

For further information about Luminar AI, read the manual and the official FAQ.

Pricing and availability

Luminar AI is available as a standalone app, a plugin for Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop, as well as an extension for Apple’s preinstalled Photos app. Luminar AI is available to download from the Mac App Store or through the Skylum website.

For further information, ​visit the official Luminar AI website.