Natural skin in any portrait

Many portraits come out with skin that looks too perfect: no pores, no fine lines, and the same even sheen from forehead to chin. Generated images do this often, and so do photos that went through a beauty filter or strong noise reduction. The face can be right in every other way and still read as plastic, because skin texture is one of the first things people look at when they decide whether a picture is real.

The Skin Enhancer works on that one problem. It reads the skin in your portrait and rebuilds its surface: pores, fine lines, small changes in color, and the way light catches them. The person keeps their face, expression, hair, and makeup, and the framing, background, and colors of the photo stay as they were. Only the skin changes.

It also works the other way. Soft Skin smooths texture for a gentle retouch, the way a portrait photographer would before a print, without the blurred, waxy look of a beauty filter. Pick the mode for the look you want, set how strongly it applies, and choose a 2K or 4K output.

Realistic Skin is the general fix. It adds the kind of texture a camera records on skin at portrait distance: pores, fine lines, and soft highlights. Start here with an AI portrait that looks too smooth, or a photo that lost its detail to compression.

Soft Skin is for retouching. It evens out texture and small blemishes and keeps the skin from looking flat. Imperfect Skin goes further than Realistic Skin, with small marks, uneven tone, and visible pores, for close-ups and editorial portraits where perfect skin would look wrong. Imperfect Skin with freckles also adds a natural spread of freckles.

• Realistic Skin: AI portraits that look too smooth.
• Soft Skin: a gentle retouch for a profile photo or a print.
• Imperfect Skin: close-ups and characters that should look lived in.

Each mode has three strengths under Advanced: Low, Medium, and High. Low changes the least and is the safest first try on a portrait you already like. Medium is a clear change that still follows the original skin. High rebuilds the texture fully and suits images where the skin has almost no detail left.

If a result looks overdone, run the original again at a lower strength instead of enhancing the result a second time. Each run starts from the image you give it, so a second pass at High on an enhanced portrait can make the texture too strong.

The enhancer needs to see skin to work on it. Portraits where the face fills a good part of the frame and is in focus give the clearest results. In a full-body shot or a group photo the faces are small, there is less skin to rebuild, and the change is harder to see.

Order matters when you combine edits. Fix the face, the outfit, or the background first, then enhance the skin, and upscale last with the Image Enhancer if you need a larger file. If the eyes or hands came out wrong, fix them first with Refine.

• Use the largest version of the image you have.
• Skip heavy filters and strong compression before you upload.
• Compare the result with the slider at full size, around the eyes and mouth.

Headshots and profile pictures look more trustworthy with real texture. Portraits made with an AI portrait generator or an AI headshot generator often gain from a pass at Low or Medium strength before you use them.

Characters you reuse gain too. Enhance a portrait before you save it as a character, and the character starts from natural skin in every image and video you make with it. For an old or damaged photo, start with AI photo restoration, then finish the face with Soft Skin or Realistic Skin.

Image Enhancer upscales a whole image and adds fine detail everywhere: hair, fabric, background, and skin alike. The Skin Enhancer works on the skin of a portrait, with modes made for texture and retouching. Use the Skin Enhancer to fix how skin looks, and the Image Enhancer to make a finished image larger.

They work well together. Enhance the skin first, at 2K or 4K, then upscale the result with the Image Enhancer when you need a larger file for print.