Estimate your session count

Darker skin types absorb more energy at the same laser settings, so clinicians use lower fluences and sometimes longer wavelengths to avoid pigment changes. The session count tends to drift up as a result, and the picosecond-era correction has the least published validation in Fitzpatrick V and VI cohorts.

Distal extremities (forearms, hands, lower legs, ankles) clear more slowly than the trunk because the lymphatic system has farther to carry the fragmented pigment. The 2009 cohort showed this clearly enough that the scale weighs location at 1 to 5 points; modern devices have not changed the underlying biology.

Black absorbs every wavelength a tattoo-removal laser produces; multi-color tattoos require multiple passes per session at different wavelengths and a longer total course. White and yellow inks are the hardest because they reflect rather than absorb, and they sometimes darken before they fade. Light-flesh tones behave similarly but vary by pigment composition.

Larger tattoos hold more ink mass and take more sessions to clear because each pulse only fragments the pigment within its spot diameter. The consultation will measure the exact area, but a rough bucket here is enough to ground the range; the picosecond-era correction is most validated on small-to-medium tattoos under PicoSure 755 nm.

Scar tissue absorbs and scatters laser energy differently than intact skin, which can both reduce treatment efficiency and concentrate heat in ways that make further scarring more likely. This calculator weights scarring at 0, 2, or 4 points (adapted from the original 2009 scoring of 0, 1, 3, or 5) because it raises clinical risk, not just session count.

A cover-up sits over an older, often partly-faded tattoo, which means more pigment under the same surface area. The clearance dynamics depend on what the original ink was made of and how deeply it sits, so cover-ups are usually a candidate for fade-only-then-rework rather than full removal.