In this Lightroom tutorial, we’ll look at five different retouching workflows in Lightroom that work particularly well with wedding photos. The types of images we’ll cover are:
#1. Crisp, sharp, high contrast black and white.
#2. Rich and cinematic environmental bridal portrait.
#3. Lite “VSCO” faded style.
#4. Colorful low-light venue shot retouch.
#5. Faded black and white effect.
Enjoy the tutorial and let me know what styles you love most in wedding photography!
Creating a Sharp Black and White Photo (Good for Candid Shots)
Once you have your RAW photo straight from the camera into Lightroom, we’ll hit up the Detail panel in the Develop module first and increase the sharpness until the image looks nice and clean and sharp.
Finding the Balance Between Light and Contrast
In the Basic tab we want to select the Black and White button near the top right corner of the panel and boost the brightness and contrast of the image to create this balance between very bright and very snappy so the blacks come off very crisp and the whites are bright, but not entirely blown out. I also like to jump down to the Effects panel and add +10 or so on the Dehaze slider.
Leveling the Photo For an Even Better Look
Go down to the Transform panel and click on the little icon in the top left corner of this panel and click and drag lines across a few horizontal lines that should be flat in your image and then do the same for a couple vertical lines in the image as well. This is such a cool and effective way to pull an image into straightness without getting involved in the depths of Lens Correction. Watch the full video at the top of this post to see all the details about this effect and also how to create the other four retouching looks that work amazingly for wedding photos.
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