Key Elements of a Soft Portrait Preset:
* Reduced Contrast: Lowers the difference between the brightest and darkest areas, creating a smoother tonal range.
* Highlights Recovery: Prevents blown-out highlights and brings back details.
* Shadows Lift: Lightens the darker areas to reveal details and reduce harsh shadows.
* Subtle Skin Smoothing: Achieved through noise reduction, clarity reduction, and possibly a slight adjustment to sharpness.
* Gentle Color Tones: Often warmer tones, or carefully balanced colors, to create a pleasing aesthetic.
Steps to Create Your Preset:
1. Import and Select a Portrait: Open Lightroom 4 and import a portrait photo that you want to use as a reference. Ideally, choose a photo with good lighting that you think is close to what you want to achieve.
2. Basic Panel Adjustments: This is where the foundation of your soft look is built.
* Exposure: Adjust this to achieve a good overall brightness. Aim for a well-exposed image without clipping highlights or shadows. A slight increase (0.10 to 0.30) might be helpful. Evaluate your photo and adjust the exposure until it looks good.
* Contrast: Lower this significantly. Try starting around -30 to -50. Lowering the contrast is crucial for achieving the soft look.
* Highlights: Reduce these. Start around -30 to -60. This brings back details in overexposed areas like the forehead or cheeks.
* Shadows: Increase these. Start around +20 to +50. This lifts the shadows and reduces harshness under the eyes or on the neck.
* Whites: Adjust this to fine-tune the overall brightness. Adjust to your own preferences based on the specific photo.
* Blacks: Adjust this to fine-tune the overall contrast. Adjust to your own preferences based on the specific photo.
* Important: Continuously evaluate the image and adjust these settings to your own preferences based on the specific photo.
3. Tone Curve (Optional but Recommended): The tone curve can add subtle enhancements to the soft look.
* Point Curve: Choose the Point Curve tab.
* Gentle S-Curve (or even a slight inverse S-Curve): A very subtle S-curve adds a touch of contrast and definition. An inverse S-curve (raising the shadows and lowering the highlights) can enhance the softness. Be very subtle! You are aiming for small changes.
* Channel Curves (Red, Green, Blue): These allow you to adjust color tones. For warmer skin tones, you might slightly increase the red in the highlights and decrease it in the shadows, or vice versa for cooler tones. Experiment cautiously.
4. HSL/Color Panel: Refine the colors in your portrait.
* Hue: Make minor adjustments to the hues of specific colors. For example, you might subtly shift orange towards red or yellow to adjust skin tones.
* Saturation: Slightly desaturate colors that are too intense, especially reds and oranges in skin tones. Try -5 to -15 on these colors.
* Luminance: Adjust the brightness of specific colors. Increase the luminance of oranges and yellows to brighten skin. Try +5 to +15 on these colors.
5. Split Toning (Optional): Add subtle color casts to the highlights and shadows.
* Highlights: Experiment with adding a touch of a warm color (yellow, orange) at a very low saturation (2-5).
* Shadows: Experiment with adding a touch of a cool color (blue, violet) at a very low saturation (2-5).
* Balance: Adjust the Balance slider to favor either highlights or shadows.
6. Detail Panel (Important for Skin Smoothing):
* Sharpening: Reduce Sharpening. Start by turning down the "Amount" slider to around 20-40 (or even lower) to soften the overall image. Adjust the "Radius" to 0.7 or 0.8 to further soften the effect.
* Noise Reduction: Increase Luminance Noise Reduction. Start around 10-30. This will smooth out skin imperfections and reduce graininess. Adjust the "Detail" and "Contrast" sliders under Noise Reduction to your own preferences.
7. Lens Corrections (Optional):
* Enable Profile Corrections: Check the box to automatically correct for lens distortion and vignetting.
* Remove Chromatic Aberration: Check the box to reduce color fringing.
8. Effects Panel (Subtle Vignetting - Optional):
* Amount: A very subtle negative vignette (moving the slider to the left) can draw the eye towards the center of the image. Try -5 to -15.
* Midpoint: Adjust the Midpoint slider to control the size of the vignette.
* Roundness: Adjust the Roundness slider to control the shape of the vignette.
9. Save the Preset:
* Click the Presets panel on the left side.
* Click the + (New Preset) button.
* Give your preset a descriptive name, like "Soft Portrait," "Soft & Flattering," or "Dreamy Portrait."
* Select the settings you want to include in the preset. By default, all settings should be selected, but double-check to ensure you are saving what you intend to save. You might consider *not* including exposure as a saved setting, since this often needs to be adjusted based on the initial exposure of the photo.
* Click Create.
Important Considerations & Tips:
* Experiment and Iterate: This is just a starting point. Every photo is different. Don't be afraid to tweak the settings to achieve the look you want. Save multiple versions of your preset as you experiment.
* Lighting is Key: The best soft portraits start with good, soft lighting. If the original photo is poorly lit, no amount of editing will make it perfect.
* Subtlety is Key: Avoid overdoing any single setting. The goal is a natural, flattering look, not an obviously manipulated one.
* Apply and Adjust: Apply your preset to different portraits and fine-tune the settings as needed. A single preset will rarely work perfectly on every photo.
* Brush Tool: Don't forget the power of the Brush tool in Lightroom. You can selectively soften skin, lighten eyes, or darken distracting elements. Use this in addition to the global preset.
Example Starting Point (Settings):
* Exposure: +0.15
* Contrast: -40
* Highlights: -50
* Shadows: +30
* Whites: +5
* Blacks: -5
* Clarity: -15
* Sharpening (Amount): 30
* Noise Reduction (Luminance): 20
Remember to customize these settings based on the specific image and your personal preferences. Good luck!