Skin Smoothing That Keeps the Eyelashes
Neighbouring pixels are only averaged in when they are close in value, so skin between features is smoothed while eyelashes, lip edges and nostrils stay crisp. A fraction of the fine grain is put back, because that is what stops it looking like plastic.
Drop images here
or click to browse · or paste with Ctrl+V
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Thirty to fifty is where skin still looks like skin. Past seventy it starts looking like a rendering.
Puts a fraction of the fine grain back. This is the control that stops the plastic look, and it matters more than the smoothing amount.
Edge guard is how different a neighbouring pixel may be and still be averaged in. Low values keep eyelashes and lip edges crisp; high values start softening them.
How loosely skin is identified. Widen it if some skin tones are being missed, narrow it if other warm objects are being smoothed too.
This finds skin by colour, not by finding faces. Wood, sand and terracotta sit in the same band and will be smoothed too, so check the rest of the frame before exporting.
Presets
Your photos are never uploaded. The skin detection and the smoothing both run inside this browser tab.
People also use
Everything this tool does
Eyelashes and lip edges survive
Only neighbours close in value are averaged in. On a test image, a textured skin field went from 24 levels to 6 while a hard line across it came through at 169 levels against 160 before; a plain blur reduced that same line to 70.
Grain is put back deliberately
Skin with no fine texture reads as a rendering. With retention off, a smoothed patch left 6 levels of variation; at forty percent it left 14, which reads as skin.
A soft skin mask
Every boundary of the mask fades, in hue, saturation and brightness, so there is no visible outline around whatever the tool decided was a face.
Nothing else is touched
Pixels outside the mask are copied through unchanged, verified by comparing every one against the original.
The edge guard is yours
How different a neighbour may be and still count. Low keeps every lash crisp, high smooths harder over larger blemishes. It is the main trade in the whole tool.
Honest about what it finds
Skin is identified by colour, not by detecting faces, so wood, sand and terracotta are caught too. That is stated plainly rather than left for you to discover.
Drag to compare
Before and after share one frame with a slider, and there is a preset with texture retention off so you can see what it prevents.
Six purpose-built presets
Natural, light touch, strong, blemishes, wide skin range, and one with no texture kept for comparison.
Batch with one ZIP
Retouch a whole shoot with identical settings and take everything as a single archive.
Nothing is uploaded
No server, no queue, nothing to delete afterwards, which matters for portraits more than for most images.
What each control does
Two controls decide how it looks and two decide where it applies. The one most people ignore is texture retention, and it matters more than the smoothing amount for whether the result reads as a photograph.
| Setting | What it does | Try | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smoothing 20-40 | gentle, natural | keep texture 40+ | Nothing much |
| Smoothing 60-100 | heavy | keep texture 50+ | Plastic look |
| Keep texture 0 | no grain at all | rarely | Waxy skin |
| Keep texture 30-60 | reads as skin | any | The right range |
| Edge guard 8-20 | features stay crisp | most photos | Blemishes survive |
| Edge guard 40-60 | smooths harder | large blemishes | Soft eyelashes |
| Skin range wide | catches more tones | mixed skin tones | Wood and sand too |
Edge
aware smoothing
0
files uploaded
0
non-skin pixels touched
Soft
mask, no outline
ZIP
batch download
Free
no account needed
FlipMyFormat vs other skin smoothing tools
| Capability | FlipMyFormat | Typical free tool |
|---|---|---|
| Files stay in your browser | ||
| Eyelashes and lip edges stay sharp | ||
| Texture retention to avoid the plastic look | ||
| Soft skin mask with no visible outline | ||
| Honest that it finds skin by colour, not faces | ||
| Batch ZIP download without paying | ||
| No watermark on the output |
How to smooth skin without the plastic look
Every bad skin retouch has the same two faults, and both are avoidable. The first is that the smoothing has been applied without regard for edges, so along with the pores it has softened the eyelashes, blurred the line of the lips and turned the nostrils into vague shadows. A face reads as a face largely because of those small high-contrast details, and once they are soft the person looks slightly wrong in a way that is hard to name. The fix is to average a pixel only with neighbours that are close to it in value. Skin between features varies gently, so its neighbours qualify and it smooths; an eyelash differs from the skin beside it by a large amount, so those pixels are skipped and the lash survives. The second fault is that all the fine texture has been removed. Real skin has grain, and an area with none of it does not look like smooth skin, it looks like a rendering, which is why the texture retention control exists and why it matters more than the amount. Putting thirty to sixty percent of the fine detail back costs almost nothing visually and is the difference between a retouch and a filter. Beyond that, the thing worth knowing is what this tool does not do. It finds skin by colour, not by finding faces, so wood, sand, terracotta and a tan leather sofa all sit in the same band and will be smoothed alongside the person. That is a limitation rather than a bug, and the fix is to check the rest of the frame before you export.
- 1
Add your photos
Drag them in, click to browse, or paste with Ctrl+V. Portraits with good light need the least; harsh light needs the most.
- 2
Set the smoothing, then the texture
Thirty to fifty percent smoothing with texture retention around forty is where skin still looks like skin.
- 3
Check the rest of the frame, then export
Skin is found by colour, so wood and sand can be caught too. Narrow the skin range if something else is being smoothed.
Averaging that stops at features
Only similar neighbours count
The smoothing samples a disc of neighbours around each pixel but discards any whose value differs from the centre by more than a threshold. That single rule does the work. Skin between features varies by only a few levels from pixel to pixel, so almost all of its neighbours qualify and it is heavily averaged. An eyelash against skin differs by tens of levels, so those pixels are excluded and the lash keeps its full contrast. We measured both on a test image containing a textured skin-toned field and a hard dark line across it: the field's texture dropped from 24 levels to 6, while the line came through at 169 levels against 160 before, so it lost nothing at all. A plain blur of the same radius reduced that same line to 70.
A soft mask, and the grain put back
Two details separate a usable result from an obvious one. The skin mask is soft at every boundary, in hue, in saturation and in brightness, so the smoothing fades out gradually rather than stopping at a line. A hard mask leaves a visible outline around whatever it decided was a face, which is more distracting than the texture it removed. And the fine detail is deliberately not all removed. After smoothing, a fraction of the difference between the original pixel and the smoothed one is added back, which restores grain at the scale skin actually has it. On a test patch, smoothing with no retention left a texture variation of 6 levels, which reads as plastic; with retention at forty percent it left 14, which reads as skin. Non-skin pixels are copied through untouched, which we verify by comparing every pixel outside the mask against the original and finding none altered.
What people use it for
Portrait retouching
The main use. A modest smooth evens skin without the person looking rendered.
Headshots and profiles
Professional headshots are usually lit harshly, which exaggerates texture that a light touch calms.
Wedding and event photos
Applying one setting across a set is far faster than retouching each frame.
Product shots with hands
Hands appear in a lot of product photography and show texture strongly under close light.
Video thumbnails
Faces at thumbnail size benefit from a little evening out, since fine texture just becomes noise.
Team and staff pages
A consistent light retouch across a whole team looks more coherent than a mix of untouched photos.
Beauty and cosmetics
The category expects smooth skin, though the honest ones keep visible texture.
Passport style photos
A very light smooth is acceptable where heavier retouching would not be.
Six tips worth knowing
Texture retention matters more than the smoothing amount. Thirty to sixty percent is the difference between a retouch and a filter.
Keep the edge guard low for portraits. It is what stops eyelashes and lip edges going soft.
Less is almost always better. Twenty to forty percent smoothing is invisible in the right way.
Check the whole frame before exporting. Wood, sand and leather sit in the same colour band as skin.
Try the no-texture preset once to see exactly what retention is doing for you.
Smooth after your tonal work. Raising contrast afterwards will bring back some of the texture you just removed.
Troubleshooting
The skin looks like plastic
Your texture retention is too low. Raise it to around forty; skin with no fine grain does not read as skin.
Eyelashes went soft
The edge guard is too high, so pixels belonging to the lash are being averaged with the skin. Lower it.
Something else in the photo got smoothed
Skin is found by colour, not by detecting faces. Wood, sand and terracotta are in the same band. Narrow the skin range.
Some skin was missed
It probably falls outside the hue or saturation band, which happens with very deep or very pale tones under coloured light. Widen the skin range.
Frequently asked questions
How does it keep eyelashes sharp?
It averages a pixel only with neighbours close to it in value. Skin varies gently so its neighbours qualify; an eyelash differs by tens of levels so those pixels are skipped and the lash keeps its contrast.
Can you show that in numbers?
On a test image with a textured skin field and a hard line across it, the field's texture dropped from 24 levels to 6 while the line came through at 169 levels against 160 before. A plain blur of the same radius reduced that same line to 70.
Why does smoothed skin look plastic?
Because all the fine grain has been removed, and real skin has grain. An area with none of it reads as a rendering rather than as smooth skin.
What does texture retention do?
It adds a fraction of the original fine detail back after smoothing. With it off, a test patch left 6 levels of variation; at forty percent it left 14, which reads as skin.
Does it detect faces?
No. It finds skin by colour, which means wood, sand, terracotta and tan leather are caught too. That is a real limitation, so check the whole frame before exporting.
Why not detect faces?
Face detection would need a model running in your browser, and a missed face is a worse failure than a smoothed sofa. Colour-based selection is predictable and you can see exactly what it caught.
Some of the skin was missed
It probably falls outside the hue or saturation band, which happens with very deep or very pale tones, or under strongly coloured light. Widen the skin range.
How much smoothing should I use?
Twenty to forty percent for most portraits. Past seventy it starts to look rendered no matter how much texture you put back.
What is the edge guard?
How different a neighbouring pixel may be and still be averaged in. Low values keep every fine feature crisp; high values smooth harder and start softening lashes.
Is there a visible edge around the smoothed area?
There should not be. Every boundary of the skin mask fades gradually in hue, saturation and brightness, so the effect eases out rather than stopping at a line.
Does it change anything outside skin?
No. Pixels outside the mask are copied through unchanged, which we verify by comparing every one against the original.
Should I smooth before or after other edits?
After your tonal work. Raising contrast afterwards brings back some of the texture you just removed, so you would end up doing it twice.
Is this the same as noise reduction?
Related but aimed differently. Noise reduction targets sensor grain across the whole image. This targets skin specifically and deliberately leaves some texture behind.
Are my photos uploaded to a server?
No. The skin detection and the smoothing both run in your browser using the canvas API. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Which format should I export?
Keep the original for photographs, at quality 90 or above. Smoothing removes fine detail, which makes any remaining JPEG blocks more visible.
Is transparency preserved?
Yes for PNG and WebP output. The alpha channel is untouched. JPG has no alpha, so transparent areas are filled with the background colour first.
Can I process a batch?
Yes. Add as many photos as you like and the same settings are applied to each, which suits a shoot under consistent lighting.
Does it add a watermark or need an account?
No to both. No sign-up, no email wall, no daily limit and no watermark on the output.