Editing Portraits: Before and After Lightroom
The Premise
What makes professional photos pop? Could it be the camera, studio lighting, the lens, or maybe they hired a really expensive model? In some cases, yes to all or some of the above. In many cases, no to most of them. The answer is, most professional-looking photos these days are put through some sort of image processor…it’s just the cold hard truth.
In this article, you will see how I use Adobe Lightroom to get my images to (hopefully) pop off the screen. Many images straight out of camera are plain and quite simply, boring. There are ways to make photos more intriguing out of camera by using strategies like back-lighting, the rule of thirds, leading lines, shallow depth of field, and many others, but most people want their portraits to be better than reality. Which is where post processing, specifically Lightroom, comes into play.
Example 1: An Unflattering Portrait
Here we have a very simple individual portrait. Right off the bat, you can see we have a back-lit image here with out subject’s face in the shadow. I love what the sun in the background does to his hair, but obviously we’re going to need to do some tweaking to shine the spotlight on our subject’s face.
Before:
Out of camera RAW file converted to JPEG in Lightroom.
My exact edits starting from the top of the Lightroom toolbox:
Basic Panel:
Temp: 6650
Tint: +7
Exposure: +0.50
Contrast: +30
Highlights: +100
Shadows: -100
Clarity: +21
Vibrance: +5
HSL Color Saturation:
Green: -100
Aqua: -76
Blue: +100 (for the shirt)
Radial Filter: Desaturated background and lowered the clarity.
Masking: Masked our subject’s face to soften facial texture. Masked the eyes and pumped up the blue.
After:
Fully processed RAW file converted to JPEG
Pretty snazzy huh? I think we’ve made quite the sophisticated gentleman in this portrait.
Example 2: A Dull Family Portrait
You can probably spot a few problems the second you look at this family portrait. First, it’s askew…and there are lots of vertical lines to make that obvious. Second, it’s very flat (little to no depth of field). Third, The colors are very “meh,” besides the pretty pink dresses.
Before:
Out of camera RAW file converted to JPEG in Lightroom.
My exact edits starting from the top of the Lightroom toolbox:
Crop Overlay: Leveled image along horizontal lines.
Basic Panel:
Temp: 5750
Tint: -4
Exposure: +0.90
Highlights: +35
Shadows: +2
Clarity: +20
HSL Color Saturation:
Red: -2
Orange: -6
HSL Color Luminance:
Magenta: -33
Split Toning: Over-saturated orange and teal.
Radial Filter: Desaturated background and lowered the clarity.
Graduated Filter: Darkened top and bottom of the image.
After:
Fully processed RAW file converted to JPEG
You might be thinking, “That’s a really weird place for family/maternity photos.” You’re not wrong. It is weird, and it wasn’t my idea…but I actually think it’s pretty dang cool. The object of the edits was simply to correct blatant errors and add the weight of the texture and color to the family in the center rather than the background.
Example 3: A Hazy Engagement Portrait
One of the types of images that will almost NEVER be acceptable out of camera are harshly back-lit photos. In this engagement portrait, the only direct lighting I had was an on camera flash. Now, we’re staring directly into the sun which doesn’t give my on-camera flash much of a chance, but it did just enough to keep the subjects from being complete black halos. I have artistic reasons for taking this photo, and many other photographers take these back-lit photos religiously…people just seem to like them.
So here, there is way too much haze, subjects are not contrasted well with the background, and my hand caught the top right corner while hooding the lens and trying to eliminate some of the haze.
Before:
Out of camera RAW file converted to JPEG in Lightroom.
My exact edits starting from the top of the Lightroom toolbox:
Spot Removal Tool: Removed my hand.
Basic Panel:
Temp: 5900
Tint: +3
Shadows: -49
Clarity: +45
HSL Color Saturation:
Orange: -10
HSL Color Luminance:
Orange: +30 (you say, “that makes no sense,” I say, “it’s what felt right.”)
Split Toning: Over-saturated orange and teal again.
Radial Filter: Darkened background and reduced clarity.
Masking: Masked subjects’ faces to remove shadows and increase clarity.
After:
Fully processed RAW file converted to JPEG
A harsh edit, I admit. But you can’t deny our subjects more clearly take the center stage, and there is far less haze. i will confess, I made a terrible mistake by leaving a car on the bottom left of the frame…it will always haunt me.
Example 4: A Way-too-Dark Portrait
This image was shot in a hurry, unplanned, and unstaged. The 2 subjects, my wife and her best friend, just happened to turn around as I took this picture. This image is super dark….but my subjects don’t have total black shadows per my histogram, so that means there is something to salvage. Let’s fix it.
Before:
Out of camera RAW file converted to JPEG in Lightroom.
My exact edits starting from the top of the Lightroom toolbox:
Crop Overlay: Cropped in closer to the subjects.
Basic Panel:
Temp: 4700
Tint: +13
Exposure: +0.36
Contrast: +81
Shadows: +52
Clarity: +24
Split Toning: Over-saturated orange and teal yet again.
Masked subjects to remove shadows and increase clarity.
Masked background to desaturate and lower clarity and exposure.
After:
Fully processed RAW file converted to JPEG
This edit was exceptionally rewarding because my wife really liked it, and because the original looked like a lost cause. Not too shabby.
Example 5: An individual Portrait with so much Potential
At first glance this image looks good…nothing too daring or out of the ordinary. But that’s just it! There is so much potential! Our subject is lit from the side which casts nice contrast shadows on her face and dress. I want those shadows because it adds character and depth to the image…so they ain’t goin’ nowhere. But watch….
Before
Out of camera RAW file converted to JPEG in Lightroom.
Basic Panel:
Temp: 7000
Tint: +4
Exposure: +0.83
Shadows: -19
Whites: -2
Blacks: -19
Clarity: +7
HSL Color Saturation:
Green: -100
Split Toning: Over-saturated orange and teal yet again.
Masking: Masked background to desaturate, lower clarity and exposure and deepen shadows.
After:
Fully processed RAW file converted to JPEG
Now we have some of the Hollywood-esque tones. This image, in my opinion, went from decent to captivating with the few easy edits shown above.
Conclusion:
In a nutshell, that is my editing process in Lightroom. I avoid Adobe Photoshop as much as I can because I do believe in retelling most of the real story. I do, however, love making art, and if adding contrast and color makes my art more beautiful to the naked eye, I will employ it. That is my underlying philosophy.
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