Soften Wrinkles and Smile Lines

Removing wrinkles from a photo, done well, means softening the deepest lines on a face rather than erasing them, so the person looks rested but still clearly themselves. In this example, a woman in her mid-seventies, in a green cardigan and pearls, smiles at her family birthday party. Her children want to frame the photo for her, and she asked that the lines on her forehead and around her eyes look a little softer.

What changed in this photo, and what stayed the same?

• Softened: the forehead lines, the creases at the corners of her eyes and the lines from nose to mouth, by roughly half.
• Kept: her smile and smile lines, silver hair, skin tone, cardigan and pearls, and the balloons and cake behind her.

How much wrinkle softening still looks natural?

The face should still be the age it is. The editor reduces the darkest part of each line, the shadow inside the crease, and leaves the fine texture around it. Lines that come from expression, like the creases when she smiles, are kept lighter but present, because removing them makes a smile look frozen. A useful test: family members should notice that she looks well, not that the photo was edited.

Wrinkle softening or age reduction?

• Softening (this example): the same face with lighter lines. Suits gifts, family prints and profile photos.
• Strong smoothing: fewer visible lines everywhere. Possible on request, but it often looks filtered on older faces.
• Making someone look younger also changes face shape, skin tone and hair, and is a different, larger edit.

What should you send?

The original file and a sentence on how much you want: "just a little softer", "about half" or "as smooth as still looks natural". For a gift, it helps to say who the photo is for, since the person in it usually prefers a lighter touch.

For lines and shadows under the eyes only, see remove dark circles. For spots and redness, see remove blemishes from a photo. More under face and skin retouching.

Private: recreated on our own images, not customer photos

The before/after shown here is recreated on images created or licensed for this site — never a real customer's photo. Your upload is seen only by the editor working on it, and the edit comes with free revisions within 14 days of delivery if anything needs adjusting.