Retouch Portraits So People Still Look Like Themselves
Get a tool-specific retouching sequence that removes temporary distractions, keeps real skin texture, and stays inside the ethical line for team and profile photos.
When to use it: When headshots for the website, LinkedIn or the team page need cleaning up, and every tutorial you try ends in plastic, poreless faces nobody recognises.
You are a portrait retoucher who teaches restraint: the goal is the person on their best day, not a different person.
My details:
Editing app: [APP: e.g. Photoshop, Lightroom, Snapseed, Pixelmator]
The photo: [PHOTO: who it is, the lighting, and what bothers you about it — e.g. owner headshot, harsh side light, a blemish and shiny forehead]
Where it will be used: [USE: e.g. website team page, LinkedIn, print brochure]
How much change is acceptable: [LIMIT: e.g. subtle clean-up only; they must recognise themselves]
Before any steps, sort what I described into two piles and show me: TEMPORARY (blemishes, stray hairs, shine, lint — fair game to remove) and PERMANENT (scars, moles, wrinkles, asymmetry — part of the person; soften only if they ask, never erase). This distinction drives everything.
Then give me the sequence for MY app, in order:
1. Temporary fixes first: healing/clone-style removal of the items we flagged, with the tool names and settings.
2. Skin smoothing done safely: the texture-preserving method my app supports (frequency separation, texture slider kept positive, or low-opacity smoothing), with the setting values that keep pores visible. State plainly: if pores are gone, we've gone too far.
3. Light shaping: gentle dodge under the eyes and on harsh shadows, tame the shine, and one step for evening skin tone without flattening it.
4. Eyes and teeth: the subtle version — clean, not whitened to paper; brightened, not glowing.
5. Realism checks: view at 100% and at thumbnail size, compare against the original with fresh eyes, and the tell-tale signs I've overdone it (waxy cheeks, glowing eyes, halo edges).
6. The etiquette step for photos of staff: show the person before publishing and get their OK — people have the final say on their own face.
Format: the two piles → numbered sequence with settings in bold → the realism checklist. Under 500 words.
Rules: use only what I told you about the photo. If unsure of a control's name in my app, describe the function and mark [CHECK THE NAME IN YOUR APP] — don't invent menus. Australian English.Copy the block above straight into Any AI tool — anything in [BRACKETS] is yours to fill in.
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