I. Understanding the Goal
A soft portrait aims to:
* Soften skin: Reduce harsh texture and blemishes.
* Diffuse highlights: Prevent them from being overly bright and sharp.
* Subtly enhance shadows: Bring out details without creating a harsh contrast.
* Warm or neutral color tone: Create a pleasant and inviting feel.
* Maintain sharpness: Avoid making the image blurry, just softer.
II. Lightroom Settings and Explanation
Here's a breakdown of the Develop module settings you'll adjust:
* Basic Panel:
* Temperature: Adjust this based on your preference. Slightly warmer (+5 to +15) can create a more inviting feel. Experiment to see what you like best.
* Tint: Adjust this to correct any color casts. A small amount towards green (around -2 to -5) can sometimes neutralize reddish skin tones.
* Exposure: Adjust to taste. Aim for a well-exposed image without blowing out highlights.
* Contrast: Reduce contrast slightly (-5 to -15). This is crucial for softening the overall look.
* Highlights: Decrease these significantly (-30 to -60). This is key for diffusing highlights and preventing them from being too harsh on skin.
* Shadows: Increase shadows moderately (+10 to +30). This helps reveal detail in darker areas and balances the reduced highlights.
* Whites: Adjust whites slightly to fine-tune the overall brightness.
* Blacks: Adjust blacks carefully. Increasing blacks slightly can further soften the contrast, but go too far and the image will look washed out. Decrease to add pop.
* Clarity: Reduce clarity moderately (-10 to -30). This is essential for softening skin and reducing overall sharpness. Be careful not to overdo it, or the image will look blurry.
* Vibrance: Increase vibrance slightly (+5 to +15). This adds gentle color richness without oversaturating skin tones.
* Saturation: Adjust to taste. Often a very subtle increase (e.g. +3 to +8) can be nice.
* Tone Curve Panel:
* Point Curve: The "Medium Contrast" preset (which is one of the standard options) is a good starting point to lessen contrast, but you can also do this with custom tone curves:
* Slightly S-shaped curve: This will subtly add contrast in the midtones while maintaining the soft highlight and shadow detail from the Basic panel adjustments. Create a gentle S-curve by dragging the middle point of the curve slightly upwards and the point on the bottom left and top right.
* Flatten the highlights and shadows: This is done by flattening the top right (highlights) and bottom left (shadows) portions of the curve. Drag the endpoint inwards from the corner a little. This further reduces contrast and softens the image.
* HSL/Color Panel:
* Luminance:
* Orange & Red: Increase these slightly (+5 to +15) to brighten skin tones. Be very subtle, as too much will make skin look unnatural.
* Hue & Saturation: Adjust these to refine skin tones and overall color. Minor adjustments can make a big difference. Reducing the saturation of yellows and oranges can soften skin tone, while increasing the saturation of blues and greens can create a more vivid background.
* Detail Panel:
* Sharpening:
* Amount: Reduce sharpening. The default is 25, so try reducing to somewhere between 10-15. We want to soften the image, so less sharpening is key.
* Radius: Keep this low (around 0.5 to 1.0).
* Detail: Reduce detail to help soften skin texture. Start around 10-15, and experiment with what works best for you and the image.
* Masking: Increase masking (around 40 to 70). This prevents sharpening from affecting areas without significant detail, like skin, helping maintain the soft look.
* Noise Reduction:
* Luminance: Apply a small amount of luminance noise reduction (+5 to +15) to further smooth skin. Be careful not to overdo it, as this can make the image look artificial.
* Color: Keep this at its default setting, unless there are color noise issues.
* Lens Corrections Panel:
* Enable Profile Corrections: Check the box to correct lens distortion and vignetting. This can greatly improve the image.
* Remove Chromatic Aberration: Check this box to remove color fringing.
III. Step-by-Step Guide
1. Import your image into Lightroom 4.
2. Start with your White Balance
3. Adjust the Basic Panel: Adjust Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks, Clarity, Vibrance, and Saturation according to the guidelines above. Don't be afraid to experiment to achieve your ideal look.
4. Fine-tune with the Tone Curve: Create a subtle S-curve or flatten the highlights and shadows.
5. Refine Skin Tones in HSL/Color: Adjust luminance, hue, and saturation to enhance skin tones and overall color.
6. Soften with Sharpening: Reduce the sharpening amount, decrease the "Detail" slider, and increase masking.
7. Reduce Noise: Apply a small amount of luminance noise reduction.
8. Apply Lens Corrections: Enable Profile Corrections and Remove Chromatic Aberration.
9. Iterate and Refine: Zoom into the image to check skin texture and overall sharpness. Adjust settings until you achieve the desired soft portrait look.
10. Save as a Preset:
* Click the "+" button in the Presets panel (left-hand side).
* Give your preset a descriptive name (e.g., "Soft Portrait - Warm").
* Crucially: In the "Check" area, choose "Check None" and then only select the settings you adjusted: Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks, Clarity, Vibrance, Saturation, Tone Curve, HSL/Color, Sharpening, Noise Reduction, and Lens Corrections. This ensures the preset only applies the changes relevant to the soft portrait look and won't override other settings you might want to keep from the original image.
* Click "Create."
IV. Important Considerations
* Image-Specific Adjustments: This preset is a starting point. You'll almost always need to make further adjustments to the preset based on the specific image, lighting conditions, and skin tone of the subject.
* Overdoing It: It's easy to overdo the softness. Regularly zoom in and out to assess the overall look.
* Skin Texture: Pay close attention to skin texture. You want to smooth it, but not eliminate it entirely. Leaving some natural texture looks more realistic.
* Lighting: The effectiveness of this preset will depend on the original lighting. It works best with well-lit portraits that aren't overly contrasty to begin with.
* File Type: Shooting in RAW format gives you more flexibility in post-processing.
* Facial Recognition in Newer Lightrooms: Lightroom Classic versions after 4 have face recognition. This allows you to refine skin smoothing selectively and automatically. Lightroom 4 does not have this, so you'll need to be more careful with global settings.
V. Example Settings (Starting Point)
These are just *example* values. Your optimal settings will depend on your source image.
* Temperature: +10
* Tint: -3
* Exposure: +0.3
* Contrast: -10
* Highlights: -50
* Shadows: +20
* Whites: +5
* Blacks: -5
* Clarity: -20
* Vibrance: +10
* Saturation: +5
* Tone Curve: Subtle S-Curve
* HSL - Luminance (Orange): +10
* Sharpening - Amount: 12, Detail: 10, Masking: 50
* Noise Reduction - Luminance: 8
By following these steps and experimenting with different settings, you can create a beautiful soft portrait preset that enhances your images and creates a flattering, polished look. Remember to save your preset so you can easily apply it to future portraits!