19 If you happen to feel that the skin softening is not enough
to suit your taste but your settings are already maxed
out, you can right-click on the control point for the active
adjustment brush and select Duplicate from the list. This will
double the effect of the softening.21
We edited the preset by adding more Exposure and
reducing the strength of the Shadows. This is just enough
to reveal the brown of the model’s eyes without going over the
top. The whites of her eyes are fine as they are. Any brightening
of the whites would look unnatural.22 To add a little more mood to the image, you can add a
Radial Filter to create a tight vignette around the model.
Click on the Radial Filter tool drag an ellipse that encompasses
the model’s head and shoulders. You can always move and
scale the filter later if you wish.23
In the properties panel, make sure the Invert Mask button
is not checked, click on the exposure slider and drag it
to the left to about -1.00. Then, drag the Temp and Tint sliders
a little to the right. This is creates a warm toned vignette that
darkens the background but keeps Jess's face unaffected.24
Under Split Toning, you can also opt for a blue Hue with
saturation of about 30 to the Highlights. Shadows have a
yellow Hue with Saturation of about 20 to give the colour tones
of the portrait a more contemporary feel to them. Watch out for
making the skin too blue.20 Now you can add a new Adjustment Brush and choose Iris
Enhance from the Effect dropdown list. This has a preset
applied that is a good start for brightening a subjects irises if
they are too dark. Again, we would suggest a subtle approach
to avoid overly bright ‘devil eyes’.138
GOING FURTHER: LIGHTROOM PROJECTS
BDM’s Made Easy Series | Volume 22