Understanding the Soft Portrait Look
The "soft portrait" look typically involves:
* Soft, diffused light: Minimizing harsh shadows.
* Even skin tones: Reducing blemishes and imperfections.
* Slightly muted colors: Creating a more gentle feel.
* Gentle highlights and shadows: Avoiding extremes.
* Overall dreamy and ethereal feel: Creating a slightly softened image.
Steps to Create the Preset in Lightroom 4
1. Import a Portrait Image: Open Lightroom 4 and import a portrait image that you'd like to work with. Choose an image that's relatively well-exposed, as this will make the editing process easier.
2. Develop Module: Navigate to the "Develop" module in Lightroom. This is where you'll make all your adjustments.
3. Basic Panel Adjustments:
* White Balance: Adjust to your liking, generally aiming for natural-looking skin tones. Pay attention to whether the light source was warm or cool, and compensate accordingly. A slight warming effect often works well (e.g., a small nudge towards the yellow/orange side).
* Exposure: Adjust to ensure the image is properly exposed. A slightly brighter exposure than 'normal' can contribute to the soft look. Be careful not to overexpose the highlights.
* Contrast: Reduce this significantly. This is a key element of the soft portrait look. Try starting around -20 to -40. Reducing contrast helps to flatten the image and create a smoother, less harsh feel.
* Highlights: Reduce the highlights. This recovers detail in bright areas and further softens the light. Start around -30 to -50.
* Shadows: Increase the shadows. This opens up the darker areas of the image, revealing more detail and reducing harsh shadows. Start around +20 to +40.
* Whites: Adjust slightly, usually downward, to prevent clipping in the brightest areas.
* Blacks: Adjust slightly, usually upward, to lift the blacks and further contribute to the soft, airy feel.
* Clarity: Reduce this! This is another crucial element. Reducing clarity softens the image and smooths skin. Try starting around -15 to -30. Don't overdo it, or your image will look blurry.
* Vibrance/Saturation: Adjust these to your taste. Often, reducing Saturation a bit and increasing Vibrance can help to keep colors looking natural and not overly saturated, especially skin tones. You might try decreasing Saturation by -5 to -10, and increasing Vibrance by +5 to +10.
4. Tone Curve Panel: The tone curve allows for more fine-grained control over contrast.
* Point Curve: Consider creating a very slight "S" curve, but a *very* gentle one. This can add a touch of contrast back while still maintaining the softness. Grab the curve near the center and gently pull the highlights slightly up and the shadows slightly down. Alternately, flatten the curve slightly by pulling the upper part down a little and pulling the lower part up a little.
* Channel Curves (Red, Green, Blue): This is optional, but you can make subtle color adjustments here. For example, if skin tones look too red, you might slightly reduce the red in the midtones.
5. HSL/Color Panel:
* Luminance: Adjust the luminance of different colors to fine-tune skin tones and other colors in the image. Often, increasing the Luminance of Orange and Yellow can brighten skin tones.
* Saturation: Refine any overly saturated colors. Pay special attention to skin tones (reds, oranges, yellows). A slight reduction in saturation can make them look more natural.
* Hue: Make subtle adjustments to the hues of colors to ensure they look natural and pleasing.
6. Split Toning (Optional):
* Consider adding subtle split toning to introduce a color cast to the highlights and shadows. A very slight touch of warm tones (e.g., orange or yellow) in the highlights and cool tones (e.g., blue or purple) in the shadows can create a subtle, vintage feel. Keep the saturation *very* low (1-3%) to avoid an artificial look.
7. Detail Panel:
* Sharpening: Reduce Sharpening from the default (25 in LR4). Too much sharpening can make skin look harsh. A value of 0-15 might be appropriate.
* Noise Reduction (Luminance): Increase Noise Reduction to smooth out skin texture and reduce grain. Start with a small amount (5-15) and increase until you achieve the desired smoothness. Be careful not to overdo it, or the image will look artificial.
8. Lens Corrections (Optional):
* If your lens introduces distortion or vignetting, enable "Remove Chromatic Aberration" and "Enable Profile Corrections."
9. Effects Panel:
* Vignetting (Post-Crop): Consider adding a very subtle vignette (negative value) to draw the viewer's eye towards the subject. Use sparingly!
10. Save the Preset:
* Click on the "+" icon in the "Presets" panel on the left side of the Develop module.
* Give your preset a descriptive name, such as "Soft Portrait Lightroom 4."
* Important: In the "New Develop Preset" window, check all the boxes for the settings you want to include in the preset. Usually, you'll want to include everything you've adjusted. If you've made WB adjustments specifically for one image, you might *not* want to include White Balance in the preset. Same for Exposure - consider whether you want the preset to adjust exposure, or whether it's better to adjust that manually for each image. Click "Create."
Important Considerations and Tips:
* Image-Specific Adjustments: Remember that every image is different. This preset is a starting point. You'll likely need to fine-tune the settings for each individual photo to achieve the best results. Pay attention to skin tones, highlights, and shadows.
* Skin Tone Accuracy: Always prioritize accurate and natural-looking skin tones. Use the HSL/Color panel to adjust colors as needed.
* Subtlety is Key: The best "soft portrait" presets are subtle. Avoid extreme adjustments that can make the image look unnatural or over-processed.
* Experiment: Don't be afraid to experiment with different settings to find what works best for your style and your images.
* Before/After Comparison: Use the backslash key (\) to toggle between the original image and the edited version to see the effect of your adjustments.
* Brush Tool: For more targeted adjustments, use the Adjustment Brush tool to selectively smooth skin, brighten eyes, or dodge and burn specific areas of the image.
Example Starting Point (Remember to adjust this based on your image):
* Exposure: +0.2 to +0.5
* Contrast: -30
* Highlights: -40
* Shadows: +30
* Whites: -10
* Blacks: +10
* Clarity: -20
* Vibrance: +5
* Saturation: -5
* Sharpening: 10
* Noise Reduction (Luminance): 8
This provides a solid base. From here, adjust based on the specific image you are working with. Good luck!