A ComfyUI node that turns clean AI-generated portraits and photos into images that look like they were shot on real film, edited in a darkroom, or simply lived-in and human. It combines classic photo effects (compression artifacts, grain, vignette, color grading) with a full suite of face skin effects that break the plastic, over-smooth look common in AI art.

Quick Start

The node has a lot of inputs, but most of them default to 0 (disabled). A good starting point for making an AI portrait look real:

Setting	Value	Why
`quality`	75	Adds subtle JPEG texture
`grain_strength`	12	Light film grain
`color_grade`	Faded	Lifts blacks like old film
`color_grade_strength`	40	Keeps it subtle
`skin_texture_strength`	35	Breaks the plastic-skin look
`pores_strength`	30	Adds visible pore detail
`sss_strength`	18	Warm inner glow under skin
`skin_redness_strength`	20	Natural cheek/nose flush

All Settings Explained

Photo Effects

quality (0–100, default 70) Controls JPEG compression. Lower values add the blocky artifacts and colour banding you see in old scanned photos or heavily-compressed images. Values around 65–80 give a subtle film-scan texture. Go below 50 for a heavily degraded look.

passes (1–10, default 1) How many times the image is compressed. Each pass compounds the degradation. 1–2 passes is subtle; 5+ starts to look like a photo that was saved and re-saved many times over the years.

pixelate_strength (0–100, default 0) Downscales the image to a coarse pixel grid and scales it back up, creating hard blocky pixels. Good for lo-fi or retro game aesthetics. Keep at 0 for realistic photography.

grain_strength (0–100, default 5) Adds monochromatic film grain noise. Real film grain is coarser in shadow areas — this effect is uniform, so keep it subtle (5–20) for realism, or push higher for a pushed-film or high-ISO look.

vignette_strength (0–100, default 0) Darkens the corners and edges of the image, drawing the eye toward the centre. Classic in portraiture and old-lens photography. 15–35 is natural; above 60 becomes very dramatic.

saturation (0–200, default 70) Controls colour intensity. 100 = unchanged. Below 100 desaturates toward black and white. Above 100 boosts colours. The default of 70 gives a slightly muted, film-like palette.

Color Grading

color_grade (None / Warm / Cool / Faded / Sepia) Applies a colour tone to the whole image:

None — no colour change at all (saturation is also bypassed)
Warm — boosts reds and yellows, pulls back blues. Good for golden-hour or portrait looks.
Cool — pulls back reds, lifts blues. Cinematic, slightly cold feel.
Faded — reduces contrast and lifts shadows, like an old print that has lost some depth. The most "film" feeling of the presets.
Sepia — classic warm brown tone, like early photography.

color_grade_strength (0–100, default 50) How strongly the color grade is applied. At 0 it has no effect even if a grade is selected. Use this to dial back any preset that feels too heavy-handed.

Blur

blur_type (None / Gaussian / Box / Motion Horizontal / Motion Vertical / Radial / Lens / Soft Focus) Adds various types of blur:

Gaussian / Box — general softening, like a slightly out-of-focus shot
Motion Horizontal / Vertical — simulates camera shake or fast movement
Radial — zoom-burst effect, blurs outward from the centre
Lens — sharp centre, increasingly blurry toward the edges, like a fast lens wide open
Soft Focus — a dreamy, glamour-photography softness that preserves some edge detail

blur_strength (0–100, default 0) How strong the blur is. Has no effect if blur_type is None.

Lighting Match

These settings let you transfer the lighting mood from one image onto another — useful for making a generated portrait match the lighting of a reference photo.

lighting_match_mode (Disabled / Histogram L-channel / Reinhard Transfer / Full LAB Histogram)

Disabled — no matching
Histogram (L-channel) — the best general-purpose option. Matches the brightness distribution of the reference without shifting colours.
Reinhard Transfer — faster, matches the average brightness and contrast. Good for subtle corrections.
Full LAB Histogram — matches brightness and colour tone. Use when you want the reference's colour mood, not just its lighting.

lighting_match_strength (0.0–1.0, default 1.0) Blend between the original (0.0) and fully matched (1.0). Use 0.5–0.8 to get the mood of the reference without fully overriding the original.

reference_image (optional image input) Connect any image here to use as the lighting reference. Only active when lighting_match_mode is not Disabled.

Face Skin Effects

These effects are designed specifically to fix the over-smooth, plastic look of AI-generated faces. They work best when combined with a face mask input so they only apply to skin and not the background or hair.

Tip: All skin effects share a skin_seed control. Change it to get a different arrangement of pores, freckles, hairs, and spots while keeping the same strength settings.

skin_texture_strength (0–100) The most important setting for breaking the plastic-skin look. Uses a professional frequency-separation technique (High-Pass + Linear Light blend) to inject fine surface relief — pore rims, fine lines, micro-shadows — plus a layer of organic skin-grain noise. This is what makes skin look like it has actual geometry rather than being painted on.

15–25: barely noticeable, good for close-up checks
30–50: natural, unretouched look
55–75: strong detail, older/textured skin

skin_texture_opacity (0–100, default 100) Final visibility of the texture effect. Use this to blend it back if skin_texture_strength feels too heavy.

pores_strength (0–100) Simulates visible skin pores as tiny dark indentations. Denser around the nose, forehead, and chin (the T-zone) where pores are naturally larger. Uses a procedural grid of small ellipses combined with a depth-enhancement layer that deepens any pore-like structure already in the source image.

10–20: subtle, mostly felt rather than seen
25–45: natural visible pores
50–70: enlarged, oily-skin look

pores_opacity (0–100, default 100) Controls overall visibility independently of density.

freckles_strength (0–100) Scatters small melanin freckles concentrated on the nose bridge and cheeks — exactly where real sun-exposure freckles appear. Each freckle is a slightly irregular ellipse (not a perfect circle) with soft edges, and the colour is tuned to the detected skin tone using pheomelanin colour science (warm tan-to-brown on fair skin, near-black on dark skin).

10–20: a light dusting, barely noticeable
25–50: natural freckled look
55–100: heavily freckled

freckles_opacity (0–100, default 100) Useful for creating many faint freckles (high strength, low opacity) vs. few vivid ones (low strength, high opacity).

blemishes_strength (0–100) Adds flat pigmentation marks — post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, sunspots, and uneven skin tone. Two types are mixed: warm brown melanin spots and reddish post-inflammation marks. They sometimes appear in small clusters, like real PIH. These are flat (no raised texture), which distinguishes them from acne.

10–20: a few marks
25–50: noticeable uneven skin
55–100: heavy pigmentation

blemishes_opacity (0–100, default 100)

acne_strength (0–100) Renders inflammatory acne lesions with anatomically correct layers: a wide diffuse redness halo, a tighter inflammatory ring, a central spot core, and — for pustules — a white/yellow pus dome with a specular highlight to suggest a raised bump. About 30% of spots are rendered as pustules (with a visible centre), the rest as papules (solid red bumps).

10–20: a few spots
25–50: moderate breakout
55–100: severe

acne_opacity (0–100, default 100)

sss_strength (Subsurface Scattering) (0–100) Adds the warm inner glow of real skin. Human skin is slightly translucent — light enters the surface, scatters through the dermis, and exits nearby, giving skin its life-like warmth. This effect simulates that by Screen-blending a warm-tinted blurred copy of the image. The tint colour is tuned to skin tone (peachy-orange for fair skin, deeper warm brown for dark skin). This is one of the most effective single settings for making AI skin look alive.

5–15: subtle warmth
16–35: natural living-skin glow
36–60: strong, slightly translucent look

peach_fuzz_strength (0–100) Adds vellus (peach fuzz) hair — the fine short hairs that cover almost all of the human face and are one of the most reliably missing elements in AI portraits. Each hair is a short stroke oriented mostly downward, at very low individual opacity. Colour is skin-tone aware: near-white blonde fuzz on fair skin, dark brown on deeper skin tones. The effect is cumulative — individual hairs are nearly invisible, but together they break the perfectly-smooth surface.

5–15: barely visible, mostly a texture feel
16–40: natural fuzz
41–70: dense, clearly visible

skin_redness_strength (0–100) Adds natural redness zones to the cheeks, nose tip, and chin from blood vessels near the skin surface. This is the warm flush that most real faces have and AI portraits consistently lack. Uses anatomically-placed soft blobs in Soft-Light blend so they shift the skin tone without looking painted on.

5–20: subtle flush
21–50: rosy cheeks, clear nose redness
51–80: strong redness, rosacea-like

sebum_shine_strength (0–100) Simulates the natural oil/sebum shine of the T-zone (forehead, nose bridge, chin). Rendered as small specular highlight spots in Screen blend mode — they only brighten, never darken, which is physically correct for surface reflection. Adds the natural sheen that oily skin has without overexposing the whole face.

5–20: light healthy sheen
21–55: oily skin
56–80: very oily / sweaty

Seed & Mask

skin_seed (0–2,147,483,647, default 0) Controls the random pattern for all procedural skin effects (pores, freckles, blemishes, acne, peach fuzz, shine). The same seed always produces the same pattern on the same image. Change this number to get a completely different arrangement while keeping all your strength settings. Useful when generating multiple images of the same character.

face_mask (optional mask input) Connect a face mask here to restrict all skin effects to the face only, leaving the background, hair, and clothing untouched. Any ComfyUI mask node works — face detection segmenters (like BiSeNet), hand-painted masks, or SAM segments. The mask edges are automatically feathered so the transition is seamless.

When a mask is connected, it is also passed through as the second output (face_mask) so you can reuse it in other nodes without needing a second mask node.

Outputs

Output	Type	Description
`images`	IMAGE	The processed image batch
`face_mask`	MASK	Pass-through of the connected face mask, or a full-white mask if none was connected

Recommended Workflows

Natural Portrait (AI skin fix)

skin_texture_strength: 35  skin_texture_opacity: 85
pores_strength: 28          pores_opacity: 80
sss_strength: 20
skin_redness_strength: 22
peach_fuzz_strength: 25
grain_strength: 8
color_grade: Faded          color_grade_strength: 30
quality: 78

Film Portrait (vintage feel)

quality: 65       passes: 2
grain_strength: 22
color_grade: Warm   color_grade_strength: 55
saturation: 75
vignette_strength: 25
skin_texture_strength: 20
sss_strength: 15

Heavy Blemished Skin

skin_texture_strength: 55   skin_texture_opacity: 90
pores_strength: 50
blemishes_strength: 45      blemishes_opacity: 70
acne_strength: 30           acne_opacity: 80
skin_redness_strength: 40
sss_strength: 15

Freckled Fair Skin

freckles_strength: 55   freckles_opacity: 75
skin_redness_strength: 30
sss_strength: 22
peach_fuzz_strength: 20
skin_texture_strength: 30
pores_strength: 20

Notes

Skin effects apply to the entire image by default. Connect a face_mask to restrict them to the face.
Effects are applied in a fixed order: lighting match → color grade → pixelate → skin effects → grain → blur → vignette → JPEG compression. The JPEG pass happens last so compression interacts with all effects.
The skin_seed affects pores, freckles, blemishes, acne, peach fuzz, and sebum shine. It does not affect film grain (use a different grain_strength value for variation there).
Skin tone is automatically detected from the centre of the image and used to tune freckle colour, SSS tint, and peach fuzz colour. No manual skin tone setting is needed.
Lighting match requires scikit-image. If it's not installed: pip install scikit-image. The node will skip lighting match and print a warning if it's missing.
Motion blur types (Horizontal, Vertical) require scipy. Peach fuzz and skin texture also use scipy. Install with: pip install scipy.

License: MIT

Developed by: ialhabbal

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PhotoLab — ComfyUI Node