Next, we’ll turn off the distracting sunburn effect by un-ticking the ‘Show Selected Mask Overlay’ box and slide the Clarity slider to the left. If you try to brighten them without tackling the surrounding area first, your subject will appear to have creepy glowing orbs for eyes. Hit the ‘Z’ key to zoom in and out of the photo. Select the Adjustment Brush as before and collapse the panel using the arrow in the top right corner. Next click on the box at the bottom of the panel to pop out a colour picker as shown here: The eye-dropper tool will allow you to pick a colour for the ‘make-up’ you want to apply. This technique is also useful to deal with stubborn shiny patches such as the forehead or the tip of the nose. And in the video below, British landscape photographer Nigel Danson reveals seven powerful Lightroom tricks he says every photographer should know. Some users may be tempted to use the saturation slider and doing that will result in the whole image getting overly saturated. If your image is shot against a lighter background, you may want to check and set the black end of your dynamic range in a similar way to the whites. Zooming in even closer, then use the Adjustment Brush to add clarity and sparkle to the eyes. Excire – Experience the best photo organizer for your photo library and discover your photos by color, subject — even people. At first, the image will appear to be black. You should only duplicate a master photo for backup reasons. Lightroom is an essential tool in digital photography. You can generally see on-screen if the photo is too dark or too bright. You can turn this on or off using the ‘J’ keyboard shortcut. Experiment with different presets. Hover it over an area that should be neutral in colour. But collections pull together many photos in a named list or ‘Collection’. But there’s a further step you can take in Lightroom, and it’s not for the faint-hearted. Let’s see what you can do using the Adjustment Brush to help even out the illumination: You can also use the Burn (Darken) setting to add depth in light shadows to build up the definition. Zoom in to take a closer look at the skin. It’s useful to click the ‘+’ button on the Snapshots panel and name it to correspond with the sequence of edits you’ve finished. After that, you’ll only need to fine-tune the others. Using the same technique as with the eyes, brush on clarity and increase saturation. Originally from South Africa, she now lives in Melbourne with her husband, two teenage daughters, a neurotic dog and two spoilt rabbits. 4. While the video below is primarily intended for those new to Lightroom, it can also provide a fresh outlook for experienced photographers looking for new ideas or those who are stuck in a rut. 'RealPlayer.RealPlayer(tm) ActiveX Control (32-bit)', This makes your brightest pixel scrape in at full brightness. The histogram will show you the distribution of brightness values. Does it need a slight adjustment? There are a number of ways to adjust the white balance. In our case, we want to target the skin to reduce the texture from the pores. In the LIBRARY module, import your image into Lightroom. Best Lightroom Presets Improve your Photography! In this image, the subject is showing enough of a white t-shirt to make this a good choice. This can happen by bright pixels saturating into blown-out areas of white. Once you have your folders organised, you will no longer need to use Finder or File Explorer to manage them. Don’t make the mistake of downloading a single preset pack and applying it to every portrait photo you have. However, for the purpose of this exercise, I will. Lightroom now has built-in HDR merging, thankfully, and with one of the most recent updates to (Classic) CC, you can even merge images to HDR (DNG files) in batches. If you like the effect, close the Adjustment Brush panel. This contains a folder under Users called ‘Loraine’ that has ‘Desktop’ and ‘ImageMatters’ sub-folders. The spot area will show a preview of how the area will look when patched with pixels from the source. Use the sliders under the presence tab to increase the vibrance and saturation, and move the whites slider up to give your portrait a nice clean look. That step is adding make-up. It’s a good point to stop and think about whether we’ve over-edited our subject. Use the brush tool to sharpen the outline of the eyes. Save your time - make your portrait, landscape, and travel images look great in several simple clicks. After this, you can think about a small exposure adjustment if it’s still needed. These Lightroom presets for portraits give a matte and stylish look. This is the eye-dropper icon at the top of the Basic panel in the Develop Module. See our Complete Guide to Portrait Photography. It may be difficult to notice this (particularly if there is already a lot red in the photo). I have also moved the temp and tint sliders up to alter the hue of her lips. You can build up the mask density with successive brush strokes. 3. Most people have less than perfect teeth. When you click on the spot, Lightroom will select a nearby area to use as the source. This will display a pop-up from which you can create one of three kinds of collection. Now paint on the image and watch the colour overlay appear. Stop at this point and back off until the screen is all white. of one image, you can sync the rest of the images in the series, with the same settings. Simply brush the iris to add the effect or hold down the ALT key as before in order to subtract from it. We’ll start with a reasonably good photo straight from the camera. You can also select your interests for free access to our premium training: Learning how to edit portraits in Lightroom is rewarding and fun. You can load your brush with any adjustments you want to apply. This means that extreme editing, such as head swapping between photos, is not possible. TIP: Prepend the collection name by the underscore character as shown below. As you slide the Whites control further right, you’ll begin to see some pixels appear. It can be difficult to work on the details of the eyes if they’re in deep shadow. This shows that although there are many very dark pixels in this image, none of them has yet become pure black. Clicking on a folder name will display its contents on-screen. This time, there’s no preset for adding make-up, so we need to set up a new slider combination. Use the backslash (\) key to see the photo before using various tools. 1. An easy way to tell is to take a quick look... 3. Lightroom can adapt to a few different strategies: If you work with other editing software, you’ll likely have already organised your photos folders. If you tick the ‘Include selected photos’ box, they will be added to the new collection. If this is not visible, tap the ‘T’ key to show it. The rest of the histogram shows a good spread of values from the subject’s skin and clothes. For the best results, capture as much detail and get as much right in-camera as possible. I have created a custom sharpening preset (shown here), which I find works with the majority of my portraits. 2. … Adding a vignette is a great way to direct the viewer’s attention towards the main subject of your photo. If you choose a neutral point, the White Balance Selector will adjust the colour temperature and tint well. In this example, the ‘Tool Overlays’ drop-down box has been set to ‘Always’ to superimpose some guides. It’s now capable of dealing with much more. To start zapping spots, select the Spot Removal Tool. To redress the imbalance, pull back the highlights and lighten the shadows. Simply type the keywords into the panel. Clicking on a collection will populate the filmstrip with the photos in that collection. They have straightforward names, so you know which effects you will achieve. I am also going to smooth out her skin tone, and bring a bit more sparkle to her eyes. The cursor will change from a circle with a + to a circle with a -. When I edit RAW portraits in Lightroom, I use the Spot Removal tool and zoom into my photo to the area I want to work on. Most people are vain to some extent, and of course, they want to look their best. If you tick the ‘Auto Mask’ box, Lightroom will try to keep the mask painting from crossing over any high contrast edges. In our example, moving the shadows slider to the right amplifies the values of the pixels in the hair. You can always revert to any stage in the editing process. Check the highlights:. How do they look? This preset makes a slight increase in exposure, increases the clarity and boosts the saturation to enhance the patterns in the iris. If this is the case, you can import your existing folder(s) into Lightroom from the Folders panel. If you tick the ‘Show Loupe’ box as shown at the bottom of the image, Lightroom will display a grid of pixels with the sample pixel in the centre. I prefer to import the full set into Lightroom, and edit them down within Lightroom. Clicking and dragging within the rectangle will shift the image around inside the rectangle. The image still looks a little dull. To lighten teeth, use the brush tool with the saturation slider decreased, and the exposure slider increased just a little. With these Lightroom tips, we show how you can use Lightroom for a variety of useful adjustments. It all depends on the subject but feel free to experiment because you can always go back in history to any previous edit in Lightroom. Navigate to the folder you want to add. Apart from being able to use your subjects’ names as keywords, you can recall them all. The Adjustment Brush control panel should contain 19 sliders, as shown below. But be careful not to go too far when it comes to ironing out blemishes. Now select the Adjustment Brush again and select the ‘Iris Enhance’ option from the list. Either click on this or hit the ‘W’ keyboard shortcut to activate the tool. At this stage, we’ve worked our way through basic global adjustments and removed or cropped out distractions. This will produce a better quality edit. So before we look at how to retouch portrait photos, it’s worth reviewing a few tips. 14 Lightroom Presets for Portraits This bundle of Lightroom presets comes with various effects and adjustments that are commonly used in portrait photo editing. How to Merge Photos in Affinity Photo: A Step-by-Step Guide. This indicates there is no strong colour cast, but there is a slight red bias. is a writer and photographer, specialising in documentary and branding portraiture. 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