Creating a "Soft Portrait" Preset in Lightroom 4
Here's a step-by-step guide on how to create a "Soft Portrait" preset in Lightroom 4, focusing on achieving a dreamy, flattering look:
Understanding the Goals of a Soft Portrait Preset:
* Smooth Skin: Reducing fine lines and imperfections.
* Soft Light: Diffusing harsh shadows and highlights.
* Gentle Color Palette: Often warm and muted tones.
* Pleasing Contrast: A balance between detail and a slightly hazy feel.
* Subtle Focus: Guiding the eye to the subject's face.
Step 1: Choose Your Starting Image
Select a portrait photo that you want to improve. Ideally, it should be a relatively well-exposed image. This will give you a good baseline to work from.
Step 2: Adjusting the Basic Panel
This is the foundation of your preset. Experiment with these settings:
* Temperature: Adjust towards the warmer side (slightly orange/yellow). A setting like +5 to +15 can be a good starting point, but adapt it to the skin tone of your model.
* Tint: Move slightly towards magenta. A small adjustment like +2 to +7 can help to make skin look healthier.
* Exposure: Adjust for a good overall brightness. A little brighter is usually better for a soft look. Often, +0.1 to +0.5 stops can work well.
* Contrast: Reduce contrast. This is key to softening the image. Try values like -15 to -30.
* Highlights: Reduce the highlights. This helps to recover detail in bright areas and avoid harshness. -10 to -30.
* Shadows: Increase the shadows. Opens up shadow detail for a more even, softer look. +10 to +30.
* Whites: Adjust whites to fine-tune overall brightness without clipping. Slightly positive or negative adjustments are common.
* Blacks: Adjust blacks to set the depth and mood. Slightly negative is often preferable for this style to prevent a completely washed-out look.
Step 3: Tone Curve Adjustments (Crucial for Softness)
The Tone Curve is a powerful tool for creating the soft look.
* Point Curve: Use the "Point Curve" (you can switch from Region Tone Curve to Point Curve at the bottom of the Tone Curve panel).
* S-Curve (Gentle Inverted S): Create a very subtle inverted "S" curve.
* Anchor Points: Add at least 3 points: One in the highlights, one in the shadows, and one in the midtones.
* Highlights Point: Gently pull the point in the highlights *downward* slightly. This softens highlights.
* Shadows Point: Gently pull the point in the shadows *upward* slightly. This lifts shadows.
* Midtones Point: Leave the midtones point relatively unchanged or move it slightly upward to boost brightness, if needed.
* Experiment: This is the most important part. Small adjustments can have a big impact. Don't overdo it; aim for subtlety. The goal is to reduce contrast without making the image flat.
Step 4: HSL/Color Adjustments (Fine-Tuning)
* Hue: Make subtle adjustments to specific color ranges, focusing on skin tones.
* Orange: Adjust the Orange Hue slightly toward the yellow side (+2 to +5) can make skin look warmer.
* Red: Adjust the Red Hue toward Orange (+2 to +5) can also enhance skin tones.
* Saturation: Reduce saturation slightly, especially in oranges, reds, and yellows, to soften the overall color palette. -3 to -10 can be helpful.
* Luminance: Adjust luminance (brightness) of skin tones:
* Orange: Increase the luminance of the orange color to brighten skin (+3 to +10).
* Red: Increase the luminance of the red color also (+3 to +10).
Step 5: Split Toning (Optional - Adds a subtle color tint)
* Highlights: Add a very subtle warm tint to the highlights (e.g., Hue 30-40, Saturation 3-5).
* Shadows: Add a subtle cool tint to the shadows (e.g., Hue 220-240, Saturation 3-5).
Step 6: Detail Panel (Sharpening and Noise Reduction)
* Sharpening: Reduce sharpening. Over-sharpening will accentuate skin texture.
* Amount: Reduce to around 20-30. (Lower is better for softness, but too low can look blurry).
* Radius: Keep the radius fairly small (e.g., 0.5 - 0.7).
* Detail: Reduce the detail slider (e.g. 20-30) to prevent sharpening fine skin texture.
* Masking: Increase masking (e.g. 70-90) to only sharpen edges and avoid sharpening skin. Hold ALT while adjusting the masking slider to see which areas are sharpened.
* Noise Reduction: Increase Luminance noise reduction to smooth skin.
* Luminance: A slight boost in Luminance noise reduction (e.g., 10-20) can help. Don't overdo it or you'll lose detail.
* Color: A small amount of Color noise reduction (e.g., 5-10) may also be helpful.
Step 7: Lens Corrections (Important)
* Enable Profile Corrections: Check the "Enable Profile Corrections" box to correct lens distortion and vignetting (darkening at the edges).
* Remove Chromatic Aberration: Check "Remove Chromatic Aberration."
Step 8: Effects Panel (Vignetting - Optional)
* Amount: Add a *slight* negative vignette (e.g., -5 to -15) to draw the eye to the subject. Use sparingly. Positive vignettes (whitening the edges) can also work, especially for a very dreamy look.
* Midpoint: Adjust the midpoint to control the size of the vignette. Smaller values pull the vignette closer to the center.
* Roundness: Affects the shape of the vignette.
* Feather: Increase feather to soften the vignette's edges.
Step 9: Save the Preset
1. Click the "+" button in the Presets panel on the left.
2. Name your preset (e.g., "Soft Portrait - Dreamy").
3. In the "New Develop Preset" window, check the boxes next to the settings you want to include in the preset. *Make sure to check all the settings you've adjusted!* It's generally best to include everything except "Process Version" and "Crop."
4. Click "Create."
Tips and Considerations:
* Subtlety is Key: Don't overdo any of the adjustments. The goal is to enhance the photo, not drastically alter it.
* Adapt the Preset: Every photo is different. You will likely need to tweak the preset slightly for each image. Pay particular attention to exposure and white balance.
* Skin Tone: Monitor skin tones carefully. The goal is to enhance them, not make them look artificial.
* Practice: Experiment with different settings and see what works best for your style and your images.
* Local Adjustments: For even more refined control, use the Adjustment Brush or Graduated Filter tools to make localized adjustments to skin smoothing, dodging and burning, or color correction. A subtle brush stroke over the skin with negative clarity can work wonders for smoothing.
* Before/After Comparisons: Use the Y key to easily compare the original image with your edited version.
Example Settings (as a starting point – adjust for your image):
Basic:
* Temperature: +10
* Tint: +5
* Exposure: +0.3
* Contrast: -20
* Highlights: -20
* Shadows: +25
* Whites: +5
* Blacks: -5
Tone Curve: (Subtle inverted S-curve)
HSL:
* Orange Hue: +3
* Red Hue: +3
* Orange Saturation: -5
* Red Saturation: -5
* Orange Luminance: +7
* Red Luminance: +7
Detail:
* Sharpening Amount: 25
* Sharpening Radius: 0.6
* Sharpening Detail: 25
* Sharpening Masking: 80
* Luminance Noise Reduction: 15
Lens Corrections:
* Enable Profile Corrections: Checked
* Remove Chromatic Aberration: Checked
Effects:
* Vignetting Amount: -10
* Vignetting Midpoint: 50
* Vignetting Feather: 70
This preset provides a great starting point for creating beautiful, soft portraits in Lightroom 4. Remember to experiment and adapt the settings to achieve your desired look. Good luck!