Post-processing can be one of the most daunting tasks if you don’t find a system to expedite the process and efficiently make the best use of your time. Although everyone has their own method that works for them, there are always ways to improve on this process, build-in new software that may make your life a lot easier, and implement new strategies to make it seamless. In this video, Pye will show you our entire editing workflow of batch editing and retouching for portrait photo sessions. We’ll run through all of our favorite software to make this an efficient & easy process. Thank you to Skylum Software for sponsoring this video and allowing us to bring full-length tutorials like this straight to you!
In this tutorial, we will be using Adobe Lightroom to batch edit the images with our Visual Flow Development Tools and then finish off with Luminar 4 to batch retouch all of our images. Make sure to download the RAW exercise files we’ve provided here to edit along with us.
Skylum Luminar 4 Discount
Before we dive into the tutorial, make sure to check out Skylum’s 4th of July deal going on from July 2nd – 7th, 2020 which gets you the retouching software used in this video for $64 (and you can use code SLRLOUNGE for an additional $10 off)!
How to Batch Edit & Retouch Your Portraits
We’re going to break this into four different steps to make it easy to follow and highlight why each software works best for what we intend to do. This process doesn’t replace advanced retouching for commercial purposes or select images. For portrait photographers that are delivering a large number of images, this is the perfect tutorial to get 99% of those images ready to go in a short period of time – we’re talking less than 30 minutes of full-editing time, from Lightroom to Luminar.
1. Process Image to Create Desired Look
Our first step is to dial in our preset to be applied to a batch of images or apply your favorite preset in Lightroom. We’re using our Visual Flow Pastel Pack to give this image a nice warm look using the ‘Dark Mode’ preset. You can dial in the exact settings by following these instructions. The look is entirely up to you but being able to post process images quickly means you’ll need to develop a preset or use your selected presets to expedite this process.
2. Design a Luminar Retouching Preset
Once you’ve dialed in your edit, select the image to edit in Luminar 4 and select Portrait Retouch. Select the AI Skin Enhancer (the smiley face icon on the right). Increase the ‘Amount’ slider by however much you see fit, typically I chose anywhere from +20-40. Anything above that gives more of a fake appearance to the skin. Adjust the ‘Shine Removal’ depending on how much oil you see on the skin or to reduce shiny highlights. The next thing to do is to make adjustments in the AI Portrait Enhancer Panel. The key to retouching in Luminar 4 is subtly, don’t overdo any of the sliders because the results may seem too fake. To test whether or not you’ve gone too far, always do a quick zoom in and out to notice if it makes too much of a difference. The idea is to enhance not to alter. Our last adjustment is made in the High Key panel which gives a subtle glow to the image with added contrast. Once you’ve dialed in all your retouching settings, save this preset out in Luminar to apply to our images in Step 4.
3. Process & Export All Images in Lightroom
Once you’ve applied your presets to the batch of images or individually processed them in Lightroom, go ahead and export all the images. Save them to a single folder onto your desktop.
4. Batch Retouch in Luminar 4
When you import all the files in Luminar a ‘Batch Settings’ dialouge will pop up instructing you to select the Look, Save Location, Naming, Format, etc. Find your previously made preset under the ‘Look’ section. You can either overwrite the exported Lightroom edits or save the retouched images to a separate folder. And that’s it!
Save on Luminar 4 for Retouching Portraits!
Skylum’s 4th of July deal going on from July 2nd – 7th, 2020 gets you the retouching software used in this video for $64 (and you can use code SLRLOUNGE for an additional $10 off)! See what other ways we use this powerful software here:
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