LIGHTROOM TUTORIAL
Get a vintage look with this Lightroom technique
Natural, bold-looking colours are preferable in many types of photography, but if you’re aiming for a more stylistic approach, you can have lots of fun at the editing stage.
Vintage colour effects remain as popular as ever, so we’re going to take a look at how to create an effect that reduces contrast and brightens colours, shifting them towards a more pastel-like appearance.
What you’ll be using
Presence controls
White Balance
Tone controls
HSL controls
Exposure
1 Reduce contrast Adjust White Balance if necessary and increase Exposure to the desired amount. Set Highlights to -35, Shadows to +45, Whites to +30 and Blacks to +65 to brighten the image overall while reducing contrast. This will be the perfect starting point for applying additional effects.
2 Soften the image Scroll down to the Presence controls in the Basic tab and set both Texture and Clarity to -20. This creates a softening effect similar to the Orton effect, a technique where an overall softening is applied to images without affecting fine detail for a more atmospheric result.
3 Apply a matte effect Scroll down to the Tone Curve and make sure it’s set to Point Curve. Next, left-click on the curve and place three points roughly 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 of the way up the curve to hold it in place. Now leftclick on the point in the bottom left corner and drag it up the left side a small amount.
4 Adjust Hue values Scroll down to the HSL tab and click on Hue. We’re now going to shift the hues of most of the colour channels
