How to add makeup to a photo and keep it looking natural

Open Add makeup to photo, choose a portrait and move the sliders you want: Blush, Eyeliner, Eyeshadow, Eye colour and Brows, with Lipstick at the top. Each one starts at zero, and a colour list appears once it is above zero. Keep most of them low, check the result at full size, and download.

Steps

1. Open Add makeup to photo and choose a photo where the face is clear and the eyes are open. The photo editor opens with the Face tool, and the faces are found on your device.
2. Move a slider under Cheeks, Eyes or Brows. The colour list for that step appears below it.
3. Tap a colour, or use the colour picker or a hex code for a shade that is not in the list.
4. For brows, choose Darken or Fill. For lipstick, choose Matte or Gloss.
5. In a group photo, pick a face under Faces to change one person only.
6. Download. A double-click sets a slider back to zero, undo and redo work for every step, and Reset face takes everything off.

What each step does

Lipstick has its own guide: how to add lipstick to a photo covers the colours, the finish and how the lip line is kept.

Keeping the whole look natural

Makeup on a photo looks pasted on when every step is strong, or when the colours fight each other. A few habits help:

• Pick one feature to lead. Strong eyeliner with soft lips, or a bold lipstick with light eyes. Two strong steps at once read as heavy in a photo.
• Keep the warm colours in one family. Peach blush sits well with coral or nude lips; pink or berry blush with rose, berry or red.
• Match brows to the hair, a little darker at most. Brows much darker than the hair are the first thing people notice.
• Brown eyeliner is softer than black. On light lashes or a gentle look, start with Brown or Bronze.
• Look at full size. The preview is smaller than the saved photo, so check the liner wing and the brow edges zoomed in before you share it.

How the colour is placed

The face points found on the photo mark where the eyes, lids, brows, cheeks and lips are. Each step then changes the colour of the pixels in its own area and keeps their light and shade, so skin texture, lashes and brow hairs still show through.

Blush is laid as a soft oval on each cheek and only where the pixels match the skin, so hair falling across the cheek keeps its colour. It can darken the skin a little but never lightens it, so a pale pink does not turn darker skin chalky.

Eyeliner follows the upper lash line and stops at the eye opening, so it never covers the eye itself. It gets a little thicker as the slider goes up. Eyeshadow colours the lid and leaves the eye opening out. Liner is drawn over the shadow, as it would be on a real face.

Eye colour changes only the iris. The pupil, the bright catchlight and the iris's own lighter and darker flecks stay, which is what keeps a changed eye colour from looking flat. It needs the eyes open; with eyes closed or turned away there is no iris to change.

Brows: Darken or Fill

Darken colours only the hairs: the pixels in the brow area that are darker than the skin around it. Gaps stay as they are, so this suits full brows that are just light.

Fill also colours the skin between the hairs, at half strength, which fills sparse or patchy brows into a fuller shape. Either way brows are only made darker, so a light brow colour on dark brows changes little.

One face in a group photo

Every face gets the same makeup unless you pick one. Under Faces, choose Face 2 (faces are numbered left to right) and the sliders change that face only; it is outlined on the photo. A face with its own settings keeps them when you change All faces later.

Your photo stays on your device

The face points are found by a face landmark model that runs in your browser, and every makeup step is an ordinary colour change placed by those points. Nothing is generated and the photo is never uploaded. To smooth skin or whiten teeth as well, use Retouch a face photo or see how to smooth skin in a photo.