The luminosity profiles of galaxies acting as strong gravitational lenses can be tricky to study. Indeed, strong gravitational lensing images display several lensed components, both point-like and diffuse, around the lensing galaxy. Those objects limit the study of the galaxy luminosity to its inner parts. Therefore, the usual fitting methods perform rather badly on such images. Previous studies of strong lenses luminosity profiles using software such as like GALFIT or IMFITFITS and various PSF-determining methods have resulted in somewhat discrepant results. The present work aims at investigating the causes of those discrepancies, as well as at designing more robust techniques for studying the morphology of early-type lensing galaxies with the ability to subtract a lensed signal from their luminosity profiles. The morphology of early-type lensing galaxies with the ability to subtract a lensed signal from their luminosity profiles. Methods. We design a new method to independently measure each shape parameter, namely, the position angle, ellipticity, and half- light radius of the galaxy. Our half-light radius measurement method is based on an innovative scheme for computing isophotes that is well suited to measuring the morphological properties of gravitational lensing galaxies. Its robustness regarding various specific aspects of gravitational lensing image processing is analysed and tested against GALFIT. It is then applied to a sample of systems from the CASTLES database.