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By Ryan Breitkreutz

Lightroom Tutorials, All Posts, Lightroom Presets, Video Tutorials

How To Edit Wedding Photos In Lightroom WITHOUT PRESETS | Lightroom Editing Tutorial

How To Edit Wedding Photos In Lightroom Without Presets

Learn How To Edit Wedding Photos In Lightroom – No Presets.

Today you’re going to learn how to edit raw wedding photos in Lightroom, without using presets. When I started editing photos using Lightroom… I had no idea. I was a completely Lightroom beginner, and so I stumbled around trying to find out how to edit my wedding photos in Lightroom. I had no idea how to edit dark and moody images or how to make colors pop. When it came to editing wedding photography was my biggest challenge. There were a LOT of wedding photographers out there, but not a lot of information being shared on how photographers edit their wedding photos in lightroom to get their specific look.

Not a lot of information being shared on how photographers edit their wedding photos in lightroom to get their specific look.

This was partially because when it comes to editing wedding photos in Lightroom, one of main things that separates a wedding photographer from the other wedding photographers in the area is their edit process. So it makes a sense they’d play their cards close to the chest. A lot of them didn’t edit their wedding photos from scratch either. In fact MOST of the wedding photographers I know use Lightroom Presets as a part of their work flow.

Why Do Most Wedding Photographers Use Lightroom Presets?

Presets can be a great tool for editing wedding photos – in our studio we couldn’t even function without using the SE Genesis Preset Workflow Pack – They save so much time. When you’re editing wedding photos in Lightroom and you’ve got 2000 photos per wedding, you can’t edit every single photo from scratch without using presets.

But like any tool, presets are only good if the photographer has a strong working knowledge of how to use them – And how to get their images to look the way they want using Lightroom WITHOUT presets.

So without further ado, lets dive in to learn how to edit wedding photo raw files without presets inside of Lightroom!

How To Edit Wedding Photos In Lightroom Without Presets | Video Tutorial |

Download the FREE RAW file practice image and edit along!

Download the final image preset here!

Video Transcript

[AUTO GENERATED] 00:00
hey guys Ryan here at signature edits
00:01
and today I’m going to be showing you
00:03
how to edit this image without presets
00:05
let’s do it now if you’re a hands-on
00:14
learner don’t worry I got you you can
00:16
head to the link in the description
00:17
below and download this raw image for
00:19
free to practice along okay let’s do it
00:21
alright let’s get into it first things
00:23
first I’m going to adjust my basic
00:25
settings here I’m going to warm up my
00:27
image very slightly because it was taken
00:29
on a cloudy cold day I’m going to take
00:31
my exposure down just a little bit
00:33
because it’s looking kind of bright and
00:34
my contrast up now another way to do
00:36
that is just go to down to this tone
00:38
curve here and we’re going to take three
00:41
points our highlights mid-tones and
00:43
shadows and I’m going to take my
00:45
mid-tones up and thereby increase the
00:47
mid-tone contrast I could take this a
00:49
step further and add a little bit of
00:51
green to my shadows because I feel like
00:53
green is one of those cool colors that
00:55
you see popping up in film stocks ever
00:57
so slightly so we’re going to take our
00:59
greens up just a little bit in the
01:00
shadows now if I wanted to I could also
01:04
take my greens out of the mid-tones and
01:06
thereby making the skin tones more red
01:08
but I’m going to leave that alone for
01:09
now
01:09
let’s keep going so I’m going to take my
01:13
highlights down just a little to get
01:15
some detail out of that dress not blow
01:17
anything out and by pressing alt I can
01:19
drag on my shadows and see if anything
01:21
is clipping sure enough I’ve got a
01:22
couple things I’m going to take my
01:23
shadows up to get rid of the clipping in
01:25
her hair and then I’m going to take my
01:29
blacks down just a little bit and I know
01:31
this is looking very saturated very
01:33
weird we’re going to get to that don’t
01:35
worry going to take my saturation down
01:37
here to make things a little bit more
01:38
usual normal that is take my vibrance up
01:42
and take my exposure down even more
01:45
perfect so so far we’ve gone from here
01:48
to here we’re looking a little bit
01:50
magenta in our sky so I’m going to take
01:52
some magenta out of there I find
01:55
Lightroom in general makes things a
01:56
little bit too magenta so adding a
01:58
little bit of green is never such a bad
01:59
thing so we’re going to take it down to
02:02
about their -6 or so and we’re going to
02:07
go into our HSL panel this is where all
02:09
the styling magic happens I want to make
02:11
the greens a little bit warmer in this
02:13
for
02:13
because I feel like the clouds it’s kind
02:15
of that cozy vibe I want to give the
02:16
image we’re then going to take our
02:19
little eyedropper click it on the greens
02:21
and drag it down until it warms them up
02:23
ever so slightly and as a default
02:26
I always desaturate my yellows my
02:28
oranges just a little bit and my greens
02:32
so again this is without the HSL and
02:35
this is with it at it perfect I’m going
02:40
to leave my skin tones alone because
02:42
they actually look pretty fine to me I
02:44
might brighten them ever so slightly
02:46
just to make them pop a little bit not
02:48
like that but you know just six or so
02:50
darken things down even a little bit and
02:54
these dresses are looking a little bit
02:57
limey I would rather have them be blue
02:58
so one quick trick you can just drag
03:01
your eyedropper drag it down or drag it
03:03
up oh I’m on my Lu minutes that’s why
03:04
that’s not working go to my hue do the
03:07
same thing I drop her down her up there
03:11
we go now they’re more like they were in
03:12
the original photo so here’s before and
03:15
here’s after great let’s go down into
03:18
our split toning again I’m going for a
03:20
warm kind of look so I’m going to hit
03:22
alt and slide on the hue that’s going to
03:24
give me a preview of what’s happening I
03:26
actually do kind of like the blue being
03:27
added to that image and what happens if
03:29
we add some red mmm you know the blue
03:32
seems to be the most vibey so let’s go
03:34
up to there and drag our saturation up
03:36
just so there’s a little bit in there
03:38
and the same thing with the shadows if
03:40
we had the blue in the highlights we
03:42
might need to add some warmth in the
03:44
shadows so let’s maybe something around
03:47
here’s some oranges obviously nowhere
03:50
near that intense but somewhere around
03:51
there that’s a little much let’s dial it
03:54
back here’s before and here’s after I’m
04:00
going to take it back even a little bit
04:02
more great detail I normally leave this
04:06
at a kind of stock setting of around 40
04:07
that doesn’t matter to me unless it
04:09
looks like it needs work and lens
04:11
correction I’m just going to put that on
04:12
and take my vignette down because I
04:16
actually like a little bit of vignette
04:18
in my photo I want them to be focusing
04:19
on the couple not in the corners of the
04:20
image so that’s fine
04:24
moving down I don’t need to adjust any
04:26
of the transform functions because
04:27
everything looks pretty good my effects
04:29
I could add a little bit of grain sure
04:31
I’ll make it a little bit more filmy
04:33
vibe I like grain some people don’t
04:35
that’s a personal preference thing if I
04:38
take my grain up even more and my size
04:41
down so it’s a little bit more subtle
04:44
here’s before and here’s after you can
04:47
see how it adds just a little bit of
04:48
texture now that’s pretty extreme let’s
04:50
take our size down and our mount down
04:52
that’s where the before and after it can
04:54
be helpful sometimes your eye gets used
04:56
to something it thinks it’s normal and
04:57
then later on you look and you’re like
04:58
wow that was the worst edit I ever did
05:00
and lastly my calibration
05:03
I don’t normally tweak this too much
05:05
when I’m using presets but when I’m
05:06
editing without a preset it could be a
05:08
great way just to finesse your colors
05:09
there final stage so you can see that
05:12
the shadows by default everything is
05:13
looking a little bit magenta so I’m
05:15
going to dial that back a little bit get
05:18
a little bit more natural greens take my
05:20
reds and maybe add some warmth up there
05:22
or try this way now definitely towards
05:25
the oranges greens I’m kind of thinking
05:28
I’m gonna go this way but let’s see
05:30
that’s more of a cool air revive if
05:32
that’s your thing or you can go a little
05:33
bit more dark earthy organic and the
05:36
blues this is the most extreme of them
05:37
all I always find that it does be most
05:40
normally I lean towards dragging it
05:43
towards this kind of aqua color in my
05:46
saturation down perfect so now I can see
05:52
that my skin tones are looking actually
05:54
a little bit dark so I’m going to take
05:55
my luminance and just grab the oranges
05:57
bring them up just a little bit do the
05:59
same with the Reds and with the yellows
06:00
because they’re close to skin color and
06:02
so therefore they’re probably going to
06:03
affect the skin on some level so I want
06:05
to just be cognizant of that
06:08
so dragging that up I now have an image
06:11
that’s looking pretty good maybe a
06:13
little bit more than the oranges in the
06:14
red still so it’s not a weird change and
06:19
here is our before here’s our after
06:23
lastly if you want to add a little bit
06:25
more pop to your image you can add a
06:26
little bit of de haze or a little bit
06:29
more saturation in there now when you do
06:32
add the saturation you’re going to see
06:34
that your skin is looking pretty
06:35
saturated so we head down to your HSM
06:38
and we’ll just grab some saturation out
06:40
of our oranges here until things are
06:46
looking natural again somewhere around
06:48
there you don’t want your people to look
06:51
like a Oompa Loompas that’s maybe a
06:52
little bit too far though let’s drag it
06:54
back just a bit all right so our very
06:59
last step is going to be saving this as
07:00
a preset for future photos like this I’m
07:02
going to go up to create preset and I’m
07:04
going to save it as let’s try dark moody
07:08
cloudy wedding if you want to download
07:11
this preset I’m going to make it
07:13
available for you you can just find the
07:15
link in the description below and
07:18
normally when you save your presets
07:19
there’s certain things that you don’t
07:21
want to save your graduated filters for
07:22
instance things that apply only to that
07:24
particular image like my white balance
07:26
my exposure transform perfect I’m going
07:30
to leave it just like that and you can
07:32
download that in the link below I hope
07:34
this tutorial was helpful for you if it
07:36
was please hit that like button don’t
07:37
forget to subscribe and come back for
07:38
more great content and if you have an
07:40
image that you would like me to edit
07:41
please send it my way leave a comment
07:43
below and I’ll get you the details
07:44
alright until next time take care

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to edit wedding photos WITHOUT using presets. We’ll break down the different parts of editing raw wedding photos, tweaking colors in Lightroom, and how to make your photos look professional by editing them using Lightroom.