DIY Photography

Your one stop shop for everything photo-video

  • News
  • Inspiration
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • DIY
  • Gear
Search

Submit A Story

Four easy and effective Lightroom portrait processing techniques in 4 minutes

Oct 4, 2019 by John Aldred 1 Comment

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Before we bring out photographs into Photoshop they have to go through some kind of raw processor. For many of photographers, that raw processor is Lightroom. But Lightroom doesn’t just have to be for tweaking your exposure and contrast. Adobe’s RAW engine has gotten pretty powerful over the years, and there’s a lot you can do in Lightroom now.

In this four-minute video, Tajreen Hedayet talks us through for of the most used portrait processing techniques for Lightroom she uses to help enhance her portraits.

Refine the details

While you don’t want to go overboard, brightening the teeth and eyes a little can help to add more life and sparkle to a portrait. You’ll also want to enhance some of the detail areas, such as eyebrows and hair, which can be done selectively using the adjustment brush tool, which can improve the apparent sharpness in the image without oversharpening skin pores.

Add Glow

This one’s going to be quite subjective and will depend on the type of portrait photography you shoot. If you’re more of a dark, moody and contrasty type of photographer, then it might not be so helpful. But if you’re more the high key location look, this can help add some bright vibrancy to your shots. This isn’t actually a glow glow, like Photoshop’s “Glow” filter. It’s mostly just increasing the midtones and highlights while leaving the shadows untouched.

Dial in the skintones

I tend to trust my ColorChecker for this one, but still the white balance for the scene might not produce quite the right look of skin that you’re after. You can refine this by just adjusting the hue, luminance and saturation of the orange colours where skin falls.

Smoothing Skin

While I prefer to clean up the skin in Photoshop, you can do some work to improve the skin in Lightroom, too. How much you adjust it will depend on the image in question and your personal tastes, but try not to turn your subjects into a plastic doll.

Whether you use these techniques, and how strongly you apply them is up to you. But they’re worth practising with to understand them.

What are your favourite Lightroom portrait processing techniques?

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Related posts:

Simple And Effective Food Photography Techniques Watch these four awesome one-light portrait setups in just 10 minutes Lightroom Update brings new “Texture” slider, in-app education and batch processing for Android Free Lightroom alternative: Processing and editing images in Darktable

Filed Under: news Tagged With: lightroom, portrait photography, Tajreen Hedayet

John Aldred: from diyphotography.net

About John Aldred

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

« These are five most common mistakes you’ve probably made as a freelance creative
This breathtaking photo shows rare St. Elmo’s fire from an airplane cockpit »

Submit A Story

Get our FREE Lighting Book

DIYP lighting book cover

* download requires newsletter signup
DIYPhotography

Recent Comments

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Recent Posts

  • Here’s a bullet time video booth you can build yourself
  • Ricoh has discontinued the HD PENTAX-DA 21mm F3.2AL Limited silver lens
  • This “stellar flower” unravels the twilight’s evolution in 360 degrees
  • Strobes vs Continuous LEDs – Which is right for you?
  • Wave goodbye to Apple’s My Photo Stream next month

Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.netUdi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

Alex Baker: from diyphotography.netAlex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

David Williams: from diyphotography.netDave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred: from diyphotography.netJohn Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic: from diyphotography.netDunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2023 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy