How To Edit A Couple’s Photo In Luminar

Working with a portrait can be tough. Working with a couple’s photo can be doubly tough. However, thanks to Luminar’s intuitive tools, it’s actually not as daunting a job as you may think. We are going to break down, from start to finish, how to work on a couple’s photo in a way that will help you get your edit done quickly but professionally. Then you can get back out there with your camera and shoot some more, so let’s get started.

Don’t feel like reading the whole breakdown? We’ve pulled together a quick summary below.

Key Takeaways

• Crop the image so both people feel equally framed and visually connected.
• Balance exposure and skin tones individually with masking before making global adjustments.
• Apply skin and facial retouching subtly to preserve each person’s natural appearance.
• Use Vignette, Light Depth, and Dodge & Burn to present the couple as one unified subject.
• Add warmth or a suitable LUT to reinforce the mood without overpowering the portrait.
• Review the finished edit with fresh eyes before exporting to catch uneven lighting, colour, or excessive retouching.

Step 1: Composition

The first place to start is with Luminar’s Crop AI tool. Here, we are going to treat the couple as one subject and ensure that we frame them equally. We want to avoid having one person too central, unless your own composition calls for this, and we certainly don’t want either of them pushed too close to one side of the frame.

One thing to consider is whether cropping can bring them closer together to create greater intimacy. Too much negative space around them might make them, as a subject, feel isolated rather than connected.

And finally, be careful how you crop. You don’t want to crop at the joints as this can create an unflattering look. We also want to leave enough headroom and space in the direction they’re looking.

Step 2: Balance the Overall Exposure

Next, we are jumping into the Develop menu. We want to create a good foundation for the rest of our editing process through a balanced exposure. Start by considering each person separately. Are they equally exposed, or is one of them slightly more shadowed than the other?

If so, we may need to use masking. Jump into the Masking menu and make your selections through Object Select AI or Brush, then make the necessary adjustments to balance their exposure.

Otherwise, attention may be drawn immediately towards one person and they begin to feel less like a cohesive subject. And as with all portraits, be mindful of skin highlights as it can be quite easy to push them too far.

Once you feel that the couple are nicely balanced, move on to the other areas of the image. Again, you can use masking to ensure that unwanted changes aren’t applied to the couple.

Step 3: Balance Skin Tones

Two people will naturally have different skin tones, so we don’t want to make them look identical. Instead, we want to correct any inconsistencies caused by the environment or lighting.

Here we can use the Colour and Develop tools to correct white balance, temperature and any unwanted hues that may have been cast onto their skin, such as green reflected from nearby foliage. Work on each individual separately through masking and use the Temperature and Tint sliders, as well as making adjustments with Hue, Saturation and Luminance if needed.

Step 4: Retouching

By this point, you will have a very solid foundation to begin your retouching work. Your subjects should both be nicely balanced and any unwanted inconsistencies in their skin tones corrected. So, the next step is to start retouching to ensure that they look their best.

Luminar comes equipped with some fantastic retouching tools that are incredibly easy to use yet provide professional results. These tools will detect faces in your scene automatically, allowing you to make changes quickly. If you find that the retouching requires only minimal adjustments, you can go ahead and make those changes. Otherwise, you can use masking where available to refine the effect and fine-tune the result.

Skin smoothing, shine removal and blemish removal can all be applied incredibly quickly, with the strength of the effect controlled by you. I always recommend applying these tools subtly to maintain a natural and realistic look.

Step 5: Refine the Faces

Aside from skin retouching, we can also make teeth and eyes brighter so that they pop, and we can even add a little more colour to the lips. You will find plenty of tools that can be used to enhance the appearance of your subjects. This is where you will want to be particularly mindful of how much you apply, as the changes should be nuanced depending on the person.

There is also a Face Light tool. As a general rule with portraits, we tend to brighten faces as it helps draw attention towards them and separate them from the background. If the faces are already equally exposed, only a subtle amount should be required to avoid making them look unnatural.

Step 6: Make Them One Visual Subject

It’s time to zoom back out and begin working on guiding the eye towards the couple as a unified subject. There are some great tools inside Luminar to do this with ease.

Firstly, starting with the Vignette tool, we can subtly darken the corners of the image, helping to keep the eye within the frame and towards our subjects.

Then, we can jump into Light Depth, one of my favourite tools. This allows me to relight my image in 3D space, so I can position the light around the couple, highlighting them and helping to separate them from the background.

It intelligently reads the scene, so the light interacts with its depth naturally, working wonderfully to draw attention towards them.

As a bonus, you can use this tool to darken the foreground, which helps guide the eye towards the midground of your image, typically where your subjects tend to sit. For any manual adjustments, use the Dodge and Burn tool to brighten and darken areas that need it. For portraits, I will often use Dodge subtly on clothing to further highlight the subjects.

Step 7: Add Your Creative Style

Finally, we bring a little colour into the image to help support the mood and create a truly eye-catching shot. With couple photos, we are often promoting themes of love and intimacy, and that can be further enhanced with warm tones.

I like to push the temperature up just slightly to bring some warmth into the shot. Alternatively, we can jump into the Landscape tool and work with Golden Hour. This enhances the existing warm tones in your shot, which can work beautifully for creating a warmer overall mood.

You could also jump into Mood and apply a LUT to your image to give it that extra style and atmosphere that suits your image and the story it tells.

Final Checks

And that should be your image completed. But don’t hit export just yet. One thing I recommend doing, especially when working with clients, is stepping away from the monitor and coming back later. A fresh pair of eyes can do wonders for your edit, and you may instantly spot glaring issues that you hadn’t noticed before.

This happens more often than you think. One person’s face might be too bright, skin tones may look slightly off, or you may realise that you pushed the retouching a little too far. Once you’re happy with your shot, it’s time to export and send it to the happy couple!

The Bottom Line

For a successful couple’s photo, we want to ensure that the image doesn’t look like we’ve edited two people separately, but rather brought them together as one subject. Any individual corrections you made to either person should disappear into the final image, leaving you with a portrait that feels naturally connected.

So be sure to use masking where necessary, balancing the appearance of each person before moving on to retouching. Once you’re happy with both subjects individually, zoom back out and bring the focus towards them as a couple through tools like Vignette and Light Depth. Finally, add your own creative flair to make the image stand out, and after one last check, you’re all finished. Have fun, and good luck!