How to Use Lightroom Classic Portrait Mode
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Video Title: How to Use Lightroom Classic Portrait Mode
– This video is sponsored by BenQ. Technology has come a long way, and is really making a huge difference in how photographers can edit their photos. And, if you haven’t seen Lightroom’s new blur feature yet, it is a game changer. So, let’s talk about how to use it.
So, if you haven’t had a chance to jump into Lightroom yet and check out the new blur feature, you’re really missing out. And, one thing you may be thinking to yourself, is like, “Oh, this feature doesn’t make any sense. It’s only for Lightroom mobile, and everyone’s shooting with their iPhones.”
But, actually, in Lightroom Classic you get the most versatility with the blur feature, and you have so many ways to edit with it. And, honestly, you can use it on your preexisting cameras, or how everyone always complains that Crop Sensor doesn’t have enough background blur,
You can add a little bit in if you’d like to, and I know that’s controversial, but either way, it is an awesome feature. So, we’re gonna be jumping into Lightroom Classic so I can show you how this works. So, let’s start out by using this on some actual photos
I took a little bit ago, earlier this year, on my XT5. So, like usual, I can edit my photos like I normally would. I have the Natural Feels preset, which I’m gonna apply, and go through my normal editing steps. Also, let’s go ahead and save the sky a bit,
Which I can easily do with the new Natural Fills AI actions. And, if you’d like to check those out, definitely check ’em out in the description below. So, I have my sky save here. And, there we go. That’s a pretty decent little edit, actually, let me bring her out as well.
Now, keep in mind to get such great colors out of my photos, it’s not just the Natural Feels preset, but the monitor that I’m using. And BenQ’s color accuracy is, hands down, some of the best in the industry. I’ve been using BenQ monitors since I started my business
And honestly, they have never let me down. The amazing color accuracy right out of the box, the fact that it’s Thunderbolt3 compatible so I can hook my MacBook Pro up to it, the hotkey puck so I can easily chain settings, and all the ports on the back,
Which easily lets me connect other USB devices to my MacBook Pro through the monitor. But they just added a new ergo arm to their monitors, which makes them even better. The PD 27-06 UA is a great example of this, with this ergo arm, which allows you to move and tilt your monitor
Any way you need. Between setting it up horizontally or vertically, being able to easily raise it, and also pull it towards you, this monitor gives you so many options. It even has cable management built right into the arm, so that you can have a nice clean desk set up.
Also, it’s USB-C, so it’s easy to plug in any device and start using it almost immediately. And, the monitor’s gonna charge your laptop the whole time. So, this makes it very easy to plug in and use. With all the included ports as well, you’re able to quickly plug in things to your monitor
And use it as a full hub, which is something I absolutely love about it. If you wanna check out BenQ monitors, definitely check out the link in the description below for 10% off of your monitor. Again, I swear by them, here are some of my other reviews of them.
I’ve been using BenQ for over 10 years and absolutely love their monitors. So, now that I’ve edited my photo, we’ll see here over on the side, I can scroll down and we’ll get our new lens blur. So, go ahead and turn that on. Now, generally when you first turn it on,
It’s gonna be way overdone. You can currently see that, but there’s a lot we can do to make it look more natural. So, first off here, you have your bouquet pattern and there’s basically different simulations of lenses. I like the five blade, it looks the most natural to me,
But there’s other options as well. But, the five blade really gives that nice classic kind of lens look. Now, after I’ve dealt with the bouquet, I can also choose what’s gonna be focused on, but generally it does that by itself when you select the subject.
But, if for some reason it’s not selecting the subject correctly, you can do this point here, and then choose the point yourself. Now, after your subject is selected, or you chose it by point, next is the focal range. And, this is where Lightroom Classic really shines.
Instead of it just putting the blur on the photo, I can go in and choose how wide that depth the field is. So generally, first what I’ll do is select visual depth, and this shows me what’s in focus, and how deep that focus is going. You’ll see here the yellow part
Is usually what’s in the foreground, and the purple part is what is in the background. So, what I can do is drag this out, and you’ll see anything that’s basically that white gray color is what’s in focus. So, I could make the whole thing in focus like this,
Or I can choose to make it not too super deep, pull this right up there. And, now that I’ve done that, you can already see it’s starting to look a little bit more natural. At that point, I can change the blower amount,
And really just tone it into how I want it to look. Here’s a before and after, and let’s just see it drastically so you can really see the difference. You can even see, like, it’s hard to see some of the blur because with this photo, there’s not that much in the background.
So, adding a little bit in honestly, no one’s gonna know. (laughs) Who’s gonna know? Now, if for some reason Lightroom is selecting areas, and it’s just not working out for you, you also can paint in your focus areas. So, again, if I turn on visualized depth, and I go to focus,
I now have a brush that I can paint in the focus, or if I go to Blur, I have a brush where I can paint in the blur. This way, if I want it to, I can select certain areas and have that be blurry or not. ‘Cause sometimes,
Lightroom’s just not gonna do it perfectly, you know? So, you, kind of, really need to hone it in sometimes. Now, clearly what I just did doesn’t work, but again, the fact that you can paint in your blur or your focus, makes a huge difference as well.
Let’s go ahead and look at some other photos. So this photo should be a great example. I’m shooting it with my XT5 on the 23F-1.4, and again, on crop sensor, I’m not gonna get a whole bunch of background blur. Now we can see some there,
But let’s say I wanted to add just a touch of more in. So, my photo’s already edited, I like the way it looks. I’m gonna head down to my blur, turn that on. Now, I wanna double check and see if it was able to select the subject,
And it looks like it got it for the most part, but you can see some of the people, I don’t think they’re fully in focus. So, first way I’m gonna deal with that is going through my depth. So, let’s pull this back here and make sure everyone’s all the way
In that gray white area. And, we’ll just pull this back a bit too, because again, this is a wide shot. So, with a real wide lens, you’re not gonna have that much background blur, anyway. Now, you can see it’s getting it pretty well, but this section over on the right with the fence,
That should be in focus also. So, I’m gonna go ahead and paint that in. So, let’s select “Focus,” and I have my auto mask on to make sure I stay in the lines. And, then we can paint in some focus here. And, then I was a little sloppy there.
I’m gonna get some blur back in here behind the fence. Cool. So, the people are in focus, this tree is pretty much in the same depth of field, so that’s in focus as well. We see the angle of the house, so that is correct for the depth there.
So now, I can go in and dial in my blurriness, again, I like the five blade, and it’s looking a little fake, so I’m gonna pull this back some. Usually, I found that 15 to 20 range feels about right. The place where it probably looks the most awkward,
Just kind of, is around this guy here on the right side, but that’s just because of the contrast is so different between the sky and him. So, here’s our before and after. And, again, just a touch of blur, not a whole lot, and that’s the biggest thing.
A lot of people wanna sit around and be mad at new technological advances for editing your photos, but it’s more so about figuring out the best way to use it for you, and what’s gonna work for your photos to get a great result. Obviously, just blowing portrait mode on your photos
Is not the way to do it. What you wanna do is finesse it in there so that you’re doing it like an artist. It’s just an art technique, like, there’s no reason at being mad at it. (giggles) So, another place where this helps out as well,
Is if you’re taking photos with your iPhone. Now, again, I’ve made shorts about it, which I’ll link up above, but the fact that you can shoot in RAW, already gives your photos a large amount of editing that you can do, add on top of that this blurt feature,
And you can start making your photos look really good, even though they were taken on an iPhone. So, it’s a little bit more powerful than portrait mode. I know a lot of people like to be mad about it, but let’s actually check out how this works on a phone photo.
So, here’s a shot I took on my iPhone, and I’m gonna go ahead and edit it like I would any other photo, because again, it’s 48 megapixels, and also is shot in RAW. Generally I’ll level it out first, apply the Natural Feels preset. From there, I go ahead and adjust.
Then, I’ll also use some of my AI actions. I have one for skin smooth. I think I can turn down the amount of that, as well, so it’s not too much. Awesome. So, now I’m pretty happy with where this photo is. Here’s a before and after, so that’s just the RAW adjustment.
If anything, I’m gonna pull the exposure back just a tiny bit. So, now that I’ve done that, I can go ahead and add some blur as well. Go down to my blur feature here, and turn it on, make sure it found my subject. And so, what it’s trying to do
Is do a lot of foreground blur, but the way this was shot, that doesn’t totally work out. So, I’m gonna adjust my focal range. And, again, this is a wide shot, like, I don’t need the whole background to be blurry anyway, so that depth should really be around here.
And, let me, I don’t think it totally got the subject, See if I can do it like this. There. And, that’s like, that’s where the blower really should be. Like, it’s not really gonna be anywhere else. She’s the focus here and I’m just gonna paint in some focus on her
To make sure that it’s really seeing all that as well. And, now that I have it adjusted, I can change my blur amount if I’d like to. And, honestly, that’s, that’s pretty good. I don’t think I want it more blurred than that. And here’s our before and after you see,
It’s just a slight amount of blur in the back there. And, that’s what you really want to do, is just find what feels natural to your eye, especially as a professional, you’ve been looking at photos for a long time. You know what has a more professional look to it.
Being able to add additional blur to the photos goes a long way. And, I think this is gonna be a great feature going on to the future. Let me know what you think in the comments below about this blur feature. Do you love it? Do you hate it? Are you indifferent?
I’m actually very curious to see what photographers think and how they might use it themselves. I hope this tutorial was helpful, and I’ll catch y’all next time.
Video Keywords: Lightroom
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Bro, the haircut is a good look man.
Good evening,
With Black Friday, the end-of-year holidays quickly approaching, I would like to acquire an environmental portrait lens in order to photograph families, children in an indoor context in low light without flash like outside day or night (the Christmas markets are coming with beautiful night lights :-)). I shoot with the Fuji XH2S.
I have the 56mm APD 1st Generation whose bokeh and focal length are very nice but you know it's execrable AF. Last year I bought the Sigma 18-50 which is practical but overall I am disappointed because the bokeh is not eau pronounced for me.
So I'm looking for a lens with a larger aperture at 1.0, 1.2 or even 1.4. (to increase the bokeh, have a better ISO setting in low light) but while maintaining a beautiful sharpness worthy of 2023.
On the other hand, I would like a top AF knowing that I often capture the moment (children playing, friends chatting, etc.).
Watching your videos, I'm still hesitating between a Sigma 56mm, a Viltrox 56, the new Fuji 56 or changing focal length with either the 30mm/33 from Sigma/Fuji/Viltrox or going for the Fuji 90mm F2 or the Viltro 75 or 85 mm. But even if the latter are better for good compression of shots, I fear that it will not be practical enough for indoors pictures by limiting to head shooting. On the opposite, isn't a 33mm too wide to have bokeh without distortion because you would have to get too close to the subject?
Another thing, I'm really not a fan of Cats-eye, onion ring and important chromatic aeration which are a limiting factors for me. On the other hand, a vignatage does not batter me. Based on this, what would you recommend to me to buy on my Fuji?
Thank you.
Alexander
YOUR HAIR OMG
❤
What's an I phone??
I could shoot raw on my samsung….like 7 years ago.
Hello John, how can I get the AI actions sky?
Nice hair cut bro. But you got rid of the signature hairstyle lol
Sky save? Aka turn highligjts down? The sponsorships are becoming too much John.
This is going to open up many possibilities (when used correctly) for M4/3 users as well. I wonder what the FF folks think about this:)
Your hair man! Totally out of focus!
I was so used to your dope ass hair, but this cut is clean!
Doing subtle adjustments, instead of big ones, make AI Blur more convincing.
You are good 👍❤
As a concert photographer mostly, I think this definitely has potential to be super useful in situations where I just need the a touch more separation between the subject and background. Can't see myself using it a ton, but definitely a nice tool to have in the arsenal.
Trop bizarre de te voir sans tes dreadlocks 😆. Néanmoins, ton nouveau look te va bien 👍🏾
Really like the new look! [hair cut/change]