Natural Light Portrait Photography Guide

Editing Tips to Master Natural Light Portraits

Assignment 1: Basic Exposure Adjustment

Goal: Learn to adjust exposure, contrast, and white balance to get the best out of natural light portraits.

What to Do:

• Choose 3 portraits you’ve taken in different natural light conditions (golden hour, midday, open shade).
• Edit the basic exposure settings:

1. Exposure: Adjust to correct brightness. Make sure your face is properly lit.
2. Contrast: Increase to add depth, but don’t overdo it.
3. White Balance: Adjust the temperature to match the natural light (warm for golden hour, neutral for midday).

Tips:

• Don’t use too much exposure correction (avoid overexposed highlights or crushed shadows).
• Adjust Temperature to cool down blue shadows in midday light or warm up cool shadows during overcast days.

What You Learn:

• Exposure correction: Knowing how to brighten or darken the entire image.
• Balancing contrast: Getting a well-balanced look without making shadows too harsh or highlights too bright.

Assignment 2: Enhance Skin Tones (Smoothing)

Goal: Make skin look smooth without losing natural texture.

What to Do:

• Open one portrait with soft natural light.
• Use the “HSL/Color” panel to adjust skin tones:

1. Target the Orange slider (affecting skin tones).
2. Slightly adjust Hue for more natural, vibrant skin color (avoid too much red or yellow).
3. Adjust Saturation to bring out the natural color without over-saturation.
4. Reduce Luminance to brighten skin areas (if needed).

Tips:

• Use the brush tool (or radial filter) to selectively smooth skin by reducing clarity around the face.
• Don’t over-smooth—preserve the skin’s natural texture for a more realistic look.

What You Learn:

• Fine-tuning skin tones: Giving your subject’s skin a natural, even color without looking artificial.
• Selective adjustments: How to adjust specific areas of an image, like skin, without affecting the whole photo.

Assignment 3: Background Blur & Separation (Using Clarity and Dehaze)

Goal: Make your subject stand out by softening or enhancing the background.

What to Do:

• Open a portrait shot with a busy background (e.g., a park, crowded street).
• Use the “Radial Filter” tool:

1. Draw a radial filter around your subject’s face.
2. Decrease the clarity inside the radial filter to soften the background and give your subject more focus.
3. Increase Dehaze if the background looks too foggy or dull.

Tips:

• Use a subtle radial blur so the subject stays sharp, but the background becomes nicely out of focus.
• Increase contrast to make your subject pop against a softened background.

What You Learn:

• Creating separation between subject and background.
• Selective edits: Keeping the focus on the subject by softening distracting areas.

Assignment 4: Perfecting Golden Hour Light

Goal: Enhance the warm tones of golden hour without over-saturating.

What to Do:

• Choose a golden hour portrait with warm sunlight.
• Adjust the Temperature slider to enhance warmth (if needed).
• Use the Graduated Filter to selectively brighten the face, especially if the light is too dim or the subject is in shadow.

1. Drag the graduated filter over your subject’s face.
2. Increase the exposure slightly to brighten them.
3. Decrease highlights to recover any overexposed areas in the face.

Tips:

• Golden hour light has a natural orange-yellow tint. Be careful not to overdo the warmth—keep it realistic.
• Slight adjustments with the gradient filter can make a big difference to the face.

What You Learn:

• Highlight recovery: Making sure you don’t lose detail in highlights while keeping the warmth.
• Graduated filters: Perfect for working with uneven lighting (e.g., strong backlight).

Assignment 5: Boosting Contrast and Depth

Goal: Make your subject pop against a soft, natural light background.

What to Do:

• Open a portrait taken in open shade or during midday.
• Adjust the Contrast slider to make the image feel less flat.
• Use the Tone Curve to create a more defined contrast:

1. Lift the shadows slightly (S-curve shape) for more depth.
2. Increase the blacks a little to add richness to dark areas.

Tips:

• Tone Curve is the most powerful tool to control the image’s overall contrast.
• If the image feels too “flat,” increase contrast using the contrast slider and tweak the tone curve for more depth.

What You Learn:

• Contrast and depth: Creating a three-dimensional feel in the portrait.
• Tone curve: Fine-tuning shadows, midtones, and highlights.

Assignment 6: Noise Reduction for Low Light

Goal: Eliminate grain/noise from high-ISO portraits.

What to Do:

• Select a portrait shot taken indoors with low light (where you had to increase the ISO).
• Use the Noise Reduction slider under the “Detail” tab:

1. Increase Luminance Noise Reduction to smooth out any grainy texture.
2. If color noise appears, increase Color Noise Reduction.

Tips:

• Don’t overdo the noise reduction—it can make the image look too soft.
• Zoom in and inspect the photo at 100% to check noise reduction accuracy.

What You Learn:

• Reducing noise: Making portraits cleaner when you have to shoot in low light.
• Balancing sharpness and smoothness: Maintaining detail while removing unwanted noise.

Assignment 7: Fine-Tuning with Local Adjustments

Goal: Apply selective edits to enhance specific areas of the portrait.

What to Do:

• Open a portrait where the background is too bright or distracting.
• Use Adjustment Brush:

1. Brush the background areas where you want to darken or add contrast (e.g., background trees or a cloudy sky).
2. Increase Exposure or Contrast on the subject’s face (brightening it up a little).

Tips:

• Use feathered edges to blend the adjustments smoothly.
• Avoid obvious, harsh lines between the edited and unedited areas.

What You Learn:

• Local adjustments: How to make precise edits without affecting the entire image.
• Highlighting the subject: Ensuring the subject remains the focal point of the image.

Assignment 8: Black & White Natural Light Portraits

Goal: Explore black and white editing to bring out texture and mood.

What to Do:

• Choose a portrait with interesting light and shadows (especially from open shade or golden hour).
• Convert the image to black and white using the Black & White Mix panel:

1. Adjust the individual color channels (e.g., lighten reds for skin tones, darken greens or blues for the background).
2. Increase contrast and clarity for a more dramatic, textured look.

Tips:

• Clarity in black and white portraits gives the photo a more dramatic and timeless feel.
• Use gradual tones to emphasize highlights and shadows for depth.

What You Learn:

• Black and white conversion: Creating mood with limited color.
• Texture enhancement: Using contrast and clarity to bring out details in skin and clothing.

Final Thoughts on Editing

Editing natural light portraits is about enhancing what’s already beautiful in the shot. The goal is to bring out the best of the light, colors, and details without making the image feel overly manipulated. Practice these assignments, and you’ll develop your style while getting better at seeing how light and editing work together to produce stunning portraits!

Conclusion

Natural light portrait photography is about seeing light, not buying equipment. This trend is growing because people love photos that feel real, warm, and human.

If you are new to photography, natural light is the best place to start. Look at how sunlight enters a room, how it falls on faces, and how it changes during the day. With practice, you will learn to create beautiful portraits using only natural light.