I was wondering if its possible to pay smiths in game to improve armor for me, or find some other way besides doing it myself. I want to play a light armor type and not use smithing at all so i can level up with more combat skills, however, wearing light armor, ill really need the enhancements of better quality types. Any way to get improved stuff without making it myself?

You can upgrade stuff that you did not make.

But to upgrade items that have enchants on them, you need arcane smithing perk.

I mean not using smithing at all. I dont want to gain levels in smithing at all, but i wanted to know if npcs can improve an forge stuff for you

No, there's no way to get items improved except to do it yourself. I've heard that you can find, occasionally, items with some degree of improvement on them already, but I've not seen it.