Ok I did some research and based on what I found if I want to upgrade my leather to superior it requires 22 BS skill (with perk) or 31 without perk..correct? I have 23 and the steel smithing perk...so what am I missing here?

Or is the perk for elven leather required to upgrade leather to superior?


Thank you!

Leather, and all the other armors that you can craft without taking any perks, aren't tied to any perk.
Thus, you can never improve leather, iron or hide as much as for example steel.

that svcks. i love my leather armor. and i can never make it legendary?

You can, but it requires 168 points in smithing which you'll need enchanted gear and potions to reach.
Perked armor will be improved to be even more "legendarier" with such a high skill than if improved with "only" 100 points.

I can improve any leather-based armor to Legendary and past the cap with the following conditions:
1) Smithing skill 100
2) 4 pieces of +25% Fortify Smithing gear
3) 1 +120% Fortify Smithing potion
4) Enchanting skill 100 with all perks except Soul Squeezer and Soul Siphon - to make the gear
5) Alchemy skill 100 with all the beneficial perks and 4 pieces of Fortify Alchemy gear - to make the potion
6) Agile Defender 5/5, Custom Fit, and Matching Set

If you don't take the Light Armor perks you can:
1) Put Fortify Light Armor enchants on gear or
3) use the Restoration Glitch you can make a Fortify Smithing potion to improve the leather-based stuff past the cap or make Fortify Enchanting potion to enchant Fortify Smithing gear higher than +25%.

There is no perk for leather, so you need smithing at 31 to make superior leather. If you want superior leather with less than 31 smithing it is possible with enchanted smithing gear or fortify smithing potions.

EDIT: Wow! in the time it took me to type this simple post, so many other posts appeared above answering the question in so much more detail. Good job guys.

But this answered my exact question...all other responses are all excellent answers that cover things I needed to know also!

Thanks for the responses.

Yeah, I realize my response was more than you probably wanted to know, but since I've done the trial and error part I post that whenever people ask about leather-based armors.

Also.... if you're playing the pc version of the game, there's a GREAT mod which does make this a bit simpler to effect: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=1690

Oh that is so awesome thank you very much for the link...I have been using the new steam workshop for my mod updates forgot to check nexus!