How to Remove Clothing Wrinkles Without Making Fabric Look Fake

To remove clothing wrinkles without making fabric look fake, dodge and burn rather than clone. A wrinkle is a shadow and a highlight created by the fabric's shape, so lightening the shadow side and darkening the highlight side flattens the crease while the weave and colour stay in place. Remove hanger creases and bunching, keep the folds that show how the garment drapes, and on commercial work never change how the product appears to fit.

A garment with every wrinkle removed does not look pressed. It looks painted on: a flat shape in the colour of the fabric, with no sign of how it hangs or what it is made of.

Folds are how a viewer reads material. Silk folds differently from denim, and removing the folds removes the information that tells them apart.

So the job is not "remove wrinkles". It is deciding which folds describe the garment and which are simply damage.

Sort them first

Remove: hard horizontal creases from folding or a hanger. Bunching at the armpit and elbow caused by the subject's arm position. Pulling across the chest or back from a garment that does not quite fit. A twisted waistband or a rolled collar. Anything that reads as untidy rather than as drape.

Keep: folds where fabric gathers naturally at the waist, knee and elbow. The drape of anything loose or flowing. The texture and weave. Any fold that shows the body underneath.

Reduce: deep shadows in folds that are the right shape but too dark, where the fabric's colour disappears into them.

Most of the skill is in that sorting. What follows is technique.

The method

Dodge and burn rather than clone

A cloned-out wrinkle looks wrong because a wrinkle is not a mark on the fabric. It is a shadow and a highlight produced by the fabric's shape, and cloning a flat patch over it removes the shape and the texture together.

Dodge and burn works because a wrinkle is a change in tone. Lighten the shadow side, darken the highlight side, and the crease flattens while the weave and colour stay where they were.

Use two curves adjustment layers with black masks, painted with a soft brush at 2–5% flow: the same setup used on skin.

Work along the fold

Follow the direction of the crease with the brush rather than dabbing across it. Fabric has a grain, and the eye follows it.

Keep the taper

A fold does not end abruptly. As you flatten it, keep the gradual fade at each end, or you create a crease that stops dead in the middle, which is more visible than the original.

Clone only actual damage

Lint, a loose thread, a stain, a pulled thread in the weave. Those are marks, and cloning is right for marks. Sample from a matching part of the pattern so the weave continues.

Restore the garment's own modelling

If flattening has taken the shape out of the garment, put it back: burn where the fabric turns away from the light, dodge where it faces it. It is the same principle as rebuilding a face's modelling after evening the skin.

Patterned fabric

Stripes, checks and prints are harder, because a wrinkle bends the pattern as well as shading it. Flatten the tone and you are left with a pattern that bends where the fabric no longer does.

There are two realistic options: accept the fold and only reduce its shadow, or rebuild a section of pattern from elsewhere on the garment and blend it in. The second is slow, and on commercial work it is sometimes the only answer.

If you know a patterned garment is coming, steaming it on set is far cheaper.

The limit on commercial work

E-commerce and catalogue work often has a specific standard: the product must be shown accurately. Removing a wrinkle in a way that changes how the garment appears to fit is misrepresentation rather than retouching.

Ask which standard applies. "Make it look neat" and "show it exactly as it will arrive" are different briefs, and it is not the retoucher's call to choose between them.

The fix on set

A steamer, a clamp behind the back, and one person whose job is to check the garment between frames. Pinning takes seconds and gives a better result than any amount of dodge and burn, because the fabric is really hanging correctly rather than being made to look as though it is.

What BeEdits includes

Clothing wrinkle cleanup is part of Standard Retouching at $4 per image. For commercial and campaign frames, the Premium package of High-End Photo Retouching includes hair and clothing cleanup with detail enhancement, and the Editorial / Campaign package includes hair, clothing and product refinement. If garment accuracy matters more than neatness, say so in the brief.

How the fabric changes the job

Silk and satin. Creases show as bright streaks along the fold. Reduce the highlight along the crease rather than burning the shadow, and keep the overall sheen, which is what makes the fabric read as silk.

Knitwear. Creases are soft and the texture is large. Use a bigger brush, and watch the rib lines, which bend visibly if you flatten a fold without following them.

Denim. Fading and whiskering are part of the wash and belong to the product. Remove only the creases left by folding or packaging.

Linen. Some creasing is expected and looks right. Take out hard fold lines from storage and leave the soft wrinkling that tells a viewer what the fabric is.

Leather. Creases at the joints are part of the material. Soften their highlights slightly rather than erasing them.

Common questions

Should I use liquify to fix a garment that does not fit well? Small corrections to pulling fabric are reasonable on editorial or portrait work. On product and catalogue images, changing how a garment appears to fit misrepresents it, so agree the standard with the client first.

How do I remove creases from a white shirt? Dodge the grey shadows of the creases, but watch for areas clipping to pure white, which erases the weave. Keep a little tone so the fabric still looks like fabric.

Why does cloning a wrinkle out look wrong? A wrinkle is a shadow and a highlight produced by the fabric's shape. Cloning a flat patch removes the shape and the weave together, while dodge and burn flattens the tone and leaves the texture.

What about striped or checked fabric? Either reduce the fold's shadow and accept the bend in the pattern, or rebuild a section of pattern from elsewhere on the garment and blend it in.

Is wrinkle removal included in BeEdits retouching? Clothing wrinkle cleanup is part of Standard Retouching at $4 per image. The Premium and Editorial / Campaign packages of High-End Photo Retouching include hair and clothing cleanup and refinement.

Related reading: How to Retouch Skin Without Making It Look Plastic and Best Product and Commercial Photo Retouching Services.