Understanding the Goal:
The key to a soft portrait lies in:
* Reducing Contrast: Makes the image feel less harsh.
* Subtle Blurring: Simulates a soft focus effect.
* Smoothing Skin Tones: Reduces the appearance of imperfections.
* Gentle Color Grading: Often warmer tones or muted colors contribute to the softness.
Lightroom 4 Settings to Focus On:
* Basic Panel: Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks, Clarity, Vibrance, Saturation.
* Tone Curve: Subtle adjustments to contrast.
* HSL/Color Panel: Fine-tuning skin tones and overall color palette.
* Detail Panel: Noise Reduction and Sharpening (crucial for softening).
Step-by-Step Guide:
1. Start with a Sample Portrait: Open a portrait photo in Lightroom 4. It's best to choose a photo with good natural lighting.
2. Basic Panel Adjustments:
* Exposure: Adjust as needed to achieve proper brightness. Slightly overexposing can contribute to a softer look, but be careful not to clip highlights.
* Contrast: Reduce the contrast significantly. Start around -20 to -40. This is a crucial step.
* Highlights: Lower the highlights. Start around -20 to -40 to recover detail in bright areas like the forehead and cheeks.
* Shadows: Raise the shadows slightly to bring out details in darker areas. Start around +10 to +20.
* Whites: Adjust whites carefully. Slightly reduce them if necessary to prevent clipping.
* Blacks: Slightly increase the blacks if the image feels too flat. A small increase can add subtle depth.
* Clarity: This is very important! Lower Clarity significantly. Start around -30 to -50. This is what really creates the soft, dreamy look. Going too low will make the image blurry, so adjust with care.
* Vibrance: Increase Vibrance slightly to bring out the colors in the skin. Start around +5 to +15.
* Saturation: Adjust Saturation if needed, but be careful not to over-saturate skin tones. A slight decrease can sometimes be beneficial.
3. Tone Curve Adjustments (Subtle):
* Click the Tone Curve Panel.
* You can use the Point Curve for more control. Create a very subtle "S" curve (or a flattened "S" curve) to slightly reduce overall contrast or add some highlights. This is optional, but can fine-tune the overall tonal balance. A very small dip in the shadows and rise in the highlights is usually what you want if going with an S curve.
4. HSL/Color Panel Adjustments (For Skin Tones):
* Click the HSL/Color Panel.
* Focus on the Luminance and Saturation tabs.
* Orange and Red Hue: These often affect skin tones. Slight adjustments can improve skin color. Generally, avoid pushing these too far in either direction.
* Orange Luminance: Increase the Orange Luminance slightly to brighten skin tones. Start around +5 to +15.
* Orange Saturation: Reduce the Orange Saturation slightly to prevent skin from looking too orange. Start around -5 to -10.
* Yellow Saturation Reduce yellow saturation to remove any yellowness in the skin
* Red Saturation Reducing red saturation will smooth out any overly bright skin
* Adjust other color channels subtly if they contribute significantly to the portrait (e.g., if the background colors are distracting).
5. Detail Panel Adjustments (Crucial for Softening):
* Click the Detail Panel.
* Sharpening: Reduce Sharpening significantly. Start by setting the Amount to 0. Then, slowly increase it until you see just a tiny bit of detail coming back. Don't over-sharpen! A value around 20-30 might be appropriate. Reduce the Radius to around 0.5-0.7
* Noise Reduction (Luminance): Increase Luminance Noise Reduction to smooth out skin tones. Start around +10 to +30. Experiment to find the right balance – too much will make the image look artificial. Adjust the Detail and Contrast sliders to fine-tune the noise reduction and prevent overly blurry results.
* Color Noise Reduction Increase the Color noise reduction. This will reduce unwanted color noise.
6. Effects Panel (Optional):
* Grain: A very subtle amount of grain can add a touch of film-like texture and can contribute to a softer feel. Try Amount 5-10, Size 25, Roughness 50
* Vignette: A subtle vignette can draw attention to the subject.
7. Calibration Panel (Optional):
* The red, blue, and green primaries can slightly adjusted, but only small amounts should be changed
8. Before & After Comparison: Use the backslash key (\) to toggle between the "Before" and "After" views to see the impact of your changes.
9. Save the Preset:
* Click the "Presets" panel on the left side.
* Click the "+" button (or "Create New Preset").
* Give your preset a descriptive name (e.g., "Soft Portrait - Light," "Soft Portrait - Dreamy").
* In the "Check All" window, make sure all the settings you adjusted are selected. Deselect any settings you *don't* want to include in the preset (like Exposure, if you want the preset to be adaptable to different lighting conditions).
* Click "Create."
Important Considerations:
* Adaptability: Every photo is different. A preset is a starting point, not a magic bullet. You'll likely need to tweak the settings slightly for each individual portrait.
* Skin Tone: Pay close attention to skin tones. Monitor the color balance and saturation to avoid unnatural-looking skin. The HSL/Color panel is your friend here.
* Over-Processing: Avoid overdoing the softening. It's easy to make a portrait look too blurry or artificial. Subtlety is key.
* Light Source: The type of light in the original photo will influence the effectiveness of the preset. Adjust accordingly.
* Experimentation: Don't be afraid to experiment with different settings to find what works best for your style.
* Backup: Always back up your Lightroom catalog and presets.
Example Starting Point (as a Preset File - requires conversion):
I can't create an actual .lrtemplate file for you to import directly. However, here's a text representation of the settings you'd likely see *inside* a Lightroom preset file (this is a simplified example - a real preset file has a lot more metadata):
```
s = "Version = 10\n"
s = s + "ProcessVersion = 6.7\n"
s = s + "WhiteBalance = As Shot\n"
s = s + "Temperature = 0\n"
s = s + "Tint = 0\n"
s = s + "Exposure = 0.00\n"
s = s + "Contrast = -30\n"
s = s + "Highlights = -30\n"
s = s + "Shadows = +15\n"
s = s + "Whites = -5\n"
s = s + "Blacks = +5\n"
s = s + "Clarity = -40\n"
s = s + "Vibrance = +10\n"
s = s + "Saturation = 0\n"
s = s + "HueRed = 0\n"
s = s + "HueOrange = 0\n"
s = s + "HueYellow = 0\n"
s = s + "HueGreen = 0\n"
s = s + "HueAqua = 0\n"
s = s + "HueBlue = 0\n"
s = s + "HuePurple = 0\n"
s = s + "HueMagenta = 0\n"
s = s + "SaturationRed = 0\n"
s = s + "SaturationOrange = -5\n"
s = s + "SaturationYellow = 0\n"
s = s + "SaturationGreen = 0\n"
s = s + "SaturationAqua = 0\n"
s = s + "SaturationBlue = 0\n"
s = s + "SaturationPurple = 0\n"
s = s + "SaturationMagenta = 0\n"
s = s + "LuminanceRed = 0\n"
s = s + "LuminanceOrange = +10\n"
s = s + "LuminanceYellow = 0\n"
s = s + "LuminanceGreen = 0\n"
s = s + "LuminanceAqua = 0\n"
s = s + "LuminanceBlue = 0\n"
s = s + "LuminancePurple = 0\n"
s = s + "LuminanceMagenta = 0\n"
s = s + "Sharpening = 25\n"
s = s + "SharpenRadius = 0.7\n"
s = s + "SharpenDetail = 25\n"
s = s + "SharpenEdgeMasking = 0\n"
s = s + "LuminanceSmoothing = +20\n"
s = s + "LuminanceNoiseReductionDetail = 50\n"
s = s + "LuminanceNoiseReductionContrast = 0\n"
s = s + "ColorNoiseReduction = +10\n"
s = s + "ColorNoiseReductionDetail = 50\n"
s = s + "ColorNoiseReductionSmoothness = 50\n"
s = s + "GrainAmount = 0\n"
s = s + "GrainSize = 25\n"
s = s + "GrainRoughness = 50\n"
s = s + "PostCropVignetteAmount = 0\n"
s = s + "PostCropVignetteMidpoint = 50\n"
s = s + "PostCropVignetteRoundness = 0\n"
s = s + "PostCropVignetteFeather = 50\n"
s = s + "PostCropVignetteHighlightContrast = 0\n"
s = s + "ShadowTint = 0\n"
s = s + "RedHue = 0\n"
s = s + "RedSaturation = 0\n"
s = s + "GreenHue = 0\n"
s = s + "GreenSaturation = 0\n"
s = s + "BlueHue = 0\n"
s = s + "BlueSaturation = 0\n"
s = s + "ConvertToGrayscale = False\n"
```
How to Use the Text Representation:
1. Manually Enter Settings: The easiest approach is to open your sample portrait in Lightroom and manually enter these values into the corresponding panels. This is the most reliable method.
2. (Advanced/Difficult) Try to Convert to Preset: It *might* be possible to create a Lightroom preset file (.lrtemplate) by creating a new text file, pasting the text above into it, and renaming it to something like "SoftPortrait.lrtemplate." However, Lightroom preset files have a complex structure, and this method is unlikely to work without significant modifications to the header and other metadata. *Don't* expect this to work "out of the box." The method is provided more as information.
Remember to adjust settings based on your specific image. Good luck!