A crisp and clear closeup portrait of a woman

Clean Face


Clean Face is a free Lightroom preset that applies versatile adjustments to portraits. It optimizes colors so that they become vivid and captivating. Skin tones will look brighter and more complex. Textures, too, will become sharp and defined.

Collection: Portrait Presets, Skin Tone Presets
Best for: Indoor Portraits
Style: Bright, Clear, Smooth, Natural

If you are looking to bring out as much of the subject as you can, this is the preset to go for. It will certainly reveal facial features and expressions in headshots. Best of all, it gives a modern and dramatic aesthetic that can do well on both casual and professional settings, from everyday Instagram pictures to professional studio photography.

Brightens and Adds Vibrance to Portraits

A vibrant portrait of a woman in a red sweater

Brightening. The Clean Face preset first brightens portraits with an increase in exposure, thus adding more light to images. It also intensifies colors by giving them a boost in vibrance. These adjustments will instantly give you bold colors and vivid tones, as you can see in the above example.

The After photo now appears more sophisticated and captivating. The woman’s face is brightened to fully reveal her expression, and we can now appreciate the details of her makeup and hair. The red elements, her lipstick and clothing, now look vibrant.

Draws Out Hues with Adjustments in Tone

A bright headshot of a man holding up an object to cover half of his face

Complex Tones. The preset applies further tweaks in tone to make the most of the photo’s hues. It softens highlights to moderate its brightening and keep details apparent; it lightens shadows to increase the coverage of light, especially on the subject’s face.

To add definition to the image’s overall texture, the preset deepens blacks and amplifies whites. It increases clarity, too, for crisper mid-tone contrasts.

Notice how there is a subtle tinge of blue in the After photo above. It is visible in the lightest areas of the image, like on the man’s forehead and the object that he is holding. This is because Clean Face filter adds some blue tones in the highlights. Because of this subtle effect, pictures will look stylishly modern.

Boosts Colors and Sharpens Details

A high-contrast headshot of a woman in a white top and with red dangling earrings

Crisp and Vivid. One important aspect of this portrait preset is its emphasis on colors. For this, it even further adds saturation. With all the mentioned enhancements in tone and color, the additional saturation deepens hues; you can see its effect on the woman’s dangling earrings. The reds are deep and vivid. It is a good way to make certain color accents pop.

The other focus of this Clean Face preset is texture: all the tweaks above help reveal details, yes, but it is its added sharpening that draws out texture. We can examine the result in the above After photo: we can now see more the woman’s hair, eyelashes, and earrings.

Clean Face is for Lightroom Mobile, Desktop and…

Like all our presets, you can absolutely use Clean Face preset as is, right out of the box. With any preset, you might need to make adjustments to accommodate your specific camera, settings, lighting and subject matter.

If you want more presets like this, you can check out our collection of Lightroom presets for portraits.

Need help with the presets? You can visit our guide to learn how to install Lightroom presets.

  • Entirely Adjustable
  • Compatible with Lightroom 4, 5, 6 and CC
  • Performs with both PC, Mac and Mobile
  • Applicable to both RAW and JPG images
  • 100% Free

Free Lightroom Preset by Kola

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