Understanding the Goal: What is a "Soft Portrait?"
A soft portrait aims to create a flattering image that minimizes harsh details and emphasizes a gentle, dreamlike quality. Key elements include:
* Reduced Sharpness: Softening fine lines and imperfections.
* Glowy Skin: Gentle highlight lift and shadow softening.
* Subtle Color Palette: Often muted or pastel tones.
* Smooth Transitions: Avoiding harsh contrasts.
* Highlight Recovery: Bringing back detail in blown-out highlights.
Steps to Create the Preset in Lightroom 4
1. Start with a Suitable Portrait:
* Choose a portrait that is relatively well-exposed and has decent lighting to begin with. This will make the adjustments easier. Raw format is always preferable.
2. Basic Panel Adjustments: This is your foundation.
* Exposure: Adjust to get a good overall brightness. You might need to slightly overexpose to achieve a brighter, softer look. Be cautious, don't clip highlights.
* Contrast: Lower the Contrast significantly. This is key to reducing harshness. Start around -20 to -40 and adjust based on the specific image.
* Highlights: Lower the Highlights. This helps recover details in bright areas and reduces harsh specular highlights on the skin. Start at -20 to -40.
* Shadows: Raise the Shadows. This opens up the darker areas, revealing detail and reducing the overall contrast. Start at +20 to +40.
* Whites: Adjust slightly, usually upwards, to brighten the overall image without clipping the brightest parts. Watch the histogram.
* Blacks: Adjust downwards slightly to add a touch of depth without making the image appear too harsh. Be conservative.
* Clarity: Reduce Clarity dramatically. This is a *critical* step for softening the image. Start around -20 to -50. Too much will make the image appear blurry.
3. Tone Curve Adjustments: This adds subtle depth and tone.
* In the Tone Curve panel, consider making a slight "S" curve, but very gentle.
* Flatten the Shadows: Slightly raise the bottom left point of the curve to lift the shadows a bit more. This will add to the softness.
* Reduce Contrast in Highlights: Slightly pull down the top right point of the curve to soften the highlights.
4. HSL / Color Panel Adjustments (Subtle, but important):
* Luminance:
* Increase Orange Luminance: This brightens skin tones. Start with +5 to +15.
* Increase Yellow Luminance: Can add warmth and brightness. Be cautious, as it can affect hair color.
* Saturation:
* Decrease Orange Saturation: Slightly desaturating orange can help even out skin tones. Start at -5 to -10.
* Decrease Red Saturation: A slight reduction can help avoid overly rosy cheeks.
* Hue: Generally, leave these alone unless you have specific color casts to correct.
5. Detail Panel Adjustments:
* Sharpening: Reduce Sharpening Significantly. You want to soften the image, not sharpen it. Set Amount to a low value (e.g., 0-20). You might also reduce the Radius.
* Noise Reduction: Increase Luminance Noise Reduction. This helps smooth out skin and reduce grain. Start around 10-20 and adjust to taste. Too much can make the skin look plastic.
6. Effects Panel (Optional):
* Post-Crop Vignetting: Consider adding a very subtle vignette to draw the eye to the center of the image. Choose the "Highlight Priority" style.
* Grain: Avoid adding grain for a soft portrait.
7. Lens Corrections (Optional):
* Enable Profile Corrections: This can sometimes improve the overall image quality and fix distortions, especially if you are using a wide-angle lens.
8. Save as a Preset:
* Go to the "Presets" panel (usually on the left).
* Click the "+" icon (New Preset).
* Give your preset a descriptive name (e.g., "Soft Portrait - Muted Tones", "Soft Portrait - Gentle Glow").
* Crucially, check the boxes next to all the settings you want to include in the preset. Typically, you'll want to include:
* Basic Tone (Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, etc.)
* Tone Curve
* HSL / Color
* Detail (Sharpening, Noise Reduction)
* Effects (Vignetting, Grain)
* Lens Corrections (if you want to include lens profile settings)
* Click "Create."
Important Considerations and Tips:
* Iterate and Refine: Don't expect perfection on the first try. Apply the preset to several different portraits and make small adjustments to the preset itself to fine-tune it.
* One-Click is Rarely Enough: Presets are a *starting point*. You will almost always need to tweak individual settings after applying the preset to a specific image.
* Skin Tone: Pay close attention to skin tones. Over-softening can make skin look unnatural.
* Experiment with Colors: Try different Hue and Saturation adjustments to create a specific mood or style.
* Backups: Periodically back up your Lightroom presets!
* Version Compatibility: Lightroom 4 is older. Presets created in newer versions of Lightroom may not be fully compatible, or might require adjustments.
Example Settings (Starting Points - Adjust to Your Needs):
Keep in mind that these are just examples, and the optimal settings will depend heavily on the original image.
* Exposure: +0.3 to +0.7
* Contrast: -30
* Highlights: -35
* Shadows: +30
* Whites: +10
* Blacks: -5
* Clarity: -35
* Sharpening Amount: 10
* Noise Reduction Luminance: 15
* Orange Luminance: +10
* Orange Saturation: -7
By following these steps and experimenting, you can create a beautiful "soft portrait" preset that enhances your portrait photography in Lightroom 4. Good luck!