Less can often be more when it comes to creating stunning portraits in Lightroom. If you’re relatively new to it or you’re somebody who prefers a minimalist but effective approach to portrait editing over going crazy in post with loads of effects, then this tutorial is definitely going to help you.
Over the years that I have been using Adobe’s Lightroom, I have witnessed its incredible growth in features and capabilities. In common with the experience of many photographers with whom I have spoken, a great deal of the post-production editing that I would once have done in Photoshop, I can now do in Lightroom. With the advent of features like masks and AI editing, Lightroom has effectively replaced a lot of the functionality for which we used to depend on Photoshop. All that said, however, features like layers (which is arguably one of Photoshop’s special superpowers) ensure that, at least for the time being, Photoshop is probably not in any danger of being rendered redundant by Lightroom.
Lightroom offers the photographer so much functionality these days that it can be easy to get lost in the post-production rabbit hole. As intuitive as it is to use, its burgeoning capabilities definitely present a steeper learning curve for photographers who are new to the software, and even those of us who have been using Lightroom for years can find ourselves stymied by the plethora of choices it presents for editing images.
In this excellent video tutorial by professional photographer and cinematographer Ben Staley, Ben takes us through his own efficient process for editing portraits in Lightroom. For anyone who is relatively new to Lightroom or who finds themselves getting overwhelmed by its many features, this tutorial is truly a godsend because it lays out a minimalist but highly effective approach to editing portraits that will appeal to anybody who wants to create stunning images with minimal futzing around in Lightroom’s many menus.
I already introduced Ben Staley in previous articles, and even if his name is not familiar to you, you have almost certainly seen his work. Ben is an award-winning videographer and filmmaker whose stunning imagery has been featured on popular TV shows like “Deadliest Catch” and “Ice Road Truckers.” Ben also happens to be an avid (and excellent) still photographer and regularly features his still photography work on his YouTube channel, “Adventure & Art.”
Perhaps the greatest value of Ben’s tutorial is that it demonstrates the minimal set of Lightroom features that will give you the greatest impact on your images with the least amount of editing.
If you’re somebody who loves to spend long hours exploring Lightroom’s extensive features and effects to get your portraits exactly how you want them, that’s great. But if you’re more interested in getting rapid and excellent results using only a minimal set of Lightroom’s features that can be learned and mastered in fairly short order, then you are going to love this tutorial.
Despite its simplicity and brevity, Ben’s tutorial takes you through a set of foundational Lightroom skills that every portrait photographer should have in their editing tool belt. These include the use of tone curves for both color and black-and-white images, the application of camera profiles and presets, and the enhancement of skin tones and eyes using Lightroom masks and brushes.
