How To Make Photos Light And Airy In Photoshop

You tin hands create the low-cal and blusterous editing style in Lightroom with a simple ten-pace workflow. This editing style works wonders for all types of photography and guarantees a stunning social media feed. From weddings, portraits, landscapes, and more, these steps will help to liven up whatsoever photo in seconds. To start things off, let'south learn how to create this editing style in Adobe Lightroom Classic.

To edit the calorie-free and airy await in Lightroom, follow these steps:

Increase the exposure slider.
Bring up the shadows slider.
Boost the highlights and whites sliders.
Bring down the blacks slider.
Increment the clarity.
Shift the white residue to a more blue hue.
Lift the shadows in the Tone Curve.
Lower the darks in the Tone Curve.
Desaturate any dominant colors using HSL.
Heave the luminance of dominant colors in HSL.

Now, yous can practice these steps in both Lightroom Archetype and Lightroom Mobile, so you tin can create this effect only about anywhere. Although learning how to make this editing mode manually is super useful, there are faster ways of doing information technology. With the help of these 25 light and airy Lightroom Presets for merely $9, you can create a light and blusterous editing style in a single click. Later in this post, I'll share a few of my other favorite calorie-free and blusterous presets if you lot want more fast ways of creating this consequence!

Merely for now, let's swoop into the stride-past-step process of creating this look!

How To Edit The Light & Airy Look in Lightroom

Pace 1: Increase The Exposure Slider

This first footstep just applies to photos that are a little bit darker to begin with. In this example, my image is slightly underexposed, so it needs to be brightened. Using the exposure slider, I can quickly boost the overall brightness of my photo.

For you, the goal should be to create a slightly brighter version of your photo without going as far as bravado out your highlights. A slight adjustment hither will do merely the flim-flam!

Here'southward how your image should look after this adjustment. Slightly brighter than before, but zip too drastic.

Step ii: Elevator The Shadows Slider

A huge part of the light and airy editing style is an overall depression-contrast feel. Past lifting the shadows in your photo, yous will remove a lot of the black in the photo. This really helps to make your photo experience "lighter."

Just beneath the exposure slider, yous volition see a "Shadows" slider. Move this slider to the right to lift (aka brighten) your shadows. Be careful not to go overboard with this, or your epitome volition appear over-edited. Instead, elevator the shadows to a betoken where there is still some contrast, simply significantly less than earlier.

Here's how the epitome looks after lifting the shadows:

Step 3: Boost The Whites And Highlights

To make the photo experience even brighter, heave the whites and highlights sliders by moving them to the right. This will increase the brightness of all the brightest exposures in your photograph. Of course, depending on how bright your whites and highlights are to brainstorm with, the corporeality you increase will vary. In my case, the heaven is already quite bright, and so a slight adjustment here will do.

Now the photo has a slightly more than vivid advent than before.

Step 4: Bring Downwardly The Blacks Slider

At this point, your image volition look a petty scrap too washed out. To add together a flake more life into the picture, you need to add together back some contrast. Rather than using the contrast slider, adjusting the blacks slider will target only the darkest parts of your photograph. This way, your highlights remain at the correct level of brightness while you control the darker areas.

Moving the blacks slider to the left will assist add together back some life to your photograph. To retain that light and airy experience, yet, you will want to exist sparing with this.

Now the image looks a bit less done out.

Step 5: Slightly Increment The Clarity Slider

Next, go to the clarity slider and increment it slightly. This adjustment will make the details in your photo pop a little more and helps to create a crisp edit.

Step six: Adjust The White Balance To Favor A Bluer Hue

The final adjustment you'll make in the nuts panel is with the white residual. A more bluish colour temperature will make your photo look white and aid to create a clean appearance.

To conform this, click on the white balance slider and move it left to add a bit of blue to the photo. If your image already has a good white residue, only a slight aligning is needed.

This time the image is left with a more cool and white feel than before:

Footstep seven: Lift The Darks In The Tone Curve

Now it's time to motility on to the Tone Curve. This is one of the best exposure and dissimilarity tools in Lightroom to stylize your images with. To make life piece of cake, make sure you lot use the Region Bend past clicking on the Region Curve icon. If you want to acquire how to use the Tone Curve manually, cheque out this mail service.

Going to the darks slider, move information technology to the correct to brighten the shadows in your photo further. This allows for some added adjustments to refine the light and airy look.

Footstep viii: Bring Downward The Shadows In The Tone Curve

Similar before, you need to annul the lack of contrast to foreclose the photograph from looking washed out. Going to the shadows slider, bring that down slightly to add back a hint of dissimilarity. If y'all're already happy with the level of contrast in your photo, you tin skip this step.

Now the calorie-free and blusterous wait is actually coming together, merely let's take it 1 step further with the help of the HSL aligning.

Step 9: Desaturate Any Ascendant Colors In Your Photograph Using HSL

Going to the HSL adjustment, click on the Saturation option.

Looking at your photograph, identify any dominant colors. In my epitome, that is blue, yellow, and cherry. So that means I will desaturate those two color hues. You don't desire to become equally far as making these colors appear grayness, only rather simply dull down the vibrance of these colors. This will help to make your overall image feel a bit softer.

Footstep 10: Boost The Luminance Of Dominant Colors In Your Photo Using HSL

Next, click on the Luminance adjustment inside the HSL and boost the luminance of the colors you just desaturated. In my example, that is the blue yellow, and red color channels.

Increasing the luminance volition make certain colors announced brighter and assist to enhance the light and airy look. You can as well experiment with lowering the luminance of other color ranges likewise. This can oftentimes create some pretty neat effects to cease off your edit!

The Consequence

With ten easy steps, yous can at present create the light and airy editing fashion in Lightroom. Since each stride is just adjusting a slider or two, the whole process can be washed relatively quickly one time you lot go the hang of it. With that said, the absolute fastest way of creating this effect is with the help of Lightroom presets. Rather than messing about with all these sliders, you can apply this look with one click. Let'southward break down some of the best light and airy presets bachelor correct now!

5 Best Light & Airy Editing Presets For Lightroom & Lightroom Mobile

Below are some of the best light and airy preset collections for Lightroom and Lightroom Mobile. Although almost of these packs include presets for both Lightroom desktop and mobile, number iv on this list just has Lightroom Mobile presets.

1. Low-cal & Airy Preset Pack By Brendan Williams (Best Value)

light and airy lightroom preset collection product image

This preset pack comes with 25 lite and airy presets for Lightroom Desktop & Mobile, also as installation instructions to help become you started. I adult these presets over the years, working equally a photographer for various social media influencers. These presets accept what you learned throughout this post and condense them into a unmarried click. Meliorate yet, they offer a ton of diversity in looks, so you can e'er find the perfect one for your image. This is a preset pack I use and love, and I know you will too!

ii. Blusterous Preset Pack Past Flourish Presets

This preset pack comes with 20 light and airy presets for Lightroom Mobile and Lightroom Desktop. With 1 click, you can soften shadows, brighten highlights, and fifty-fifty add soft glows to your photos. This preset pack is perfect for portraits and will make batch editing your photo sessions easier than ever. I similar this preset pack because it adds a prissy dark-green hue to a lot of images, giving them an earthy, natural feel. Information technology offers a clean and timeless editing style perfect for any portfolio or social media feed!

iii. Light & Airy Preset Pack Past Flourish Presets

Some other bully preset pack for this editing style is the Light & Airy Preset Pack by Flourish Presets. Unlike the Airy preset pack mentioned higher up, this i keeps a less colorful look and doesn't add the same earthy tones. Instead, it focuses primarily on making your images await brighter, whiter, and lighter! This preset pack comes with thirteen light and blusterous looks for both Lightroom Desktop and Lightroom Mobile. Although at that place are fewer presets in this pack, they still provide an excellent option for rapidly creating this editing fashion.

four. Low-cal & Airy Lightroom Mobile Preset Pack By JaneColors

If you lot primarily edit in Lightroom Mobile, this preset pack offers 4 Lightroom Mobile presets to edit while on the go. This pack is one of the cheapest on this listing but only contains 4 Lightroom Mobile presets to use. So if y'all only want a few presets that cost less than a Starbucks coffee, this is a good option!

five. Lite & Blusterous Wedding Collection Presets By Be Fine art Presets

The final preset packet I recommend is this wedding ceremony collection by Be Art Presets. This packet sits on the pricier side of things just has 30 great light, and blusterous presets for Lightroom Desktop and Lightroom Mobile. These preset piece of work bang-up for shut-up shots, portraits, or grouping photos. They provide another like shooting fish in a barrel way to create this editing mode by softening your images and adding a soft color palette.

Of these five presets, this is the preset pack I would recommend in a higher place all. It has the most blindside for your buck with 25 high-quality Lightroom Mobile and Lightroom desktop presets. Regardless of which option you lot choose, each one will allow you to edit light and blusterous photos in Lightroom in far less time than doing it manually. If you'd like to larn how to put your new skills to use and create your own presets, you tin can acquire how here.

Happy Editing!

Brendan 🙂