The Art to Dreamy Photos - Post Processing

Tom Tom

Tom Tom

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Ive recently taken a huge liking to very dreamy looking photos, soft light and colours. I currently use Lightroom and just wondering does anyone have any good tips to process this sort of imagery? I thought it may be presets such as in colour eFex Pro.

I have been experimenting with the clarity slider and like the effect it gives with it set to around -20/30 but was wondering how this effects the sharpness of the image?

I have also started applying vignetting to soften the overall photo which seems to help.

Any tips/advice would be great!
 
While this isn't a look I particularly like, there are a number of LR presets around that do this. It might be worth looking around for some free ones and looking at what different controls they have altered - will give you a starting point. Not sure what they are like, but the first link I found on Google for free dreamy presets was this one - no doubt there will be others :)
 
[New here, but as this is the post-processing forum I'm going to assume that all the factors that would contribute to a 'dreamy-looking' photo in-camera (shallow DOF, diffuse lighting, etc.) are a given and to be discussed elsewhere?]

The clarity adjustment is a reasonable place to start - this affects microcontrast (think contrast across edges) rather like a wide-radius unsharp mask. If negative clarity helps towards the effect you want then great, but can/will affect perceived sharpness too. That may or may not matter to you if its doing the right thing. Personally I would stick to subtle alterations with the clarity slider but its your judgement call.

A soft look can also come from altering global contrast, particularly focusing on the shadows and blacks. This something fairly common to many of these VSCO/film-emulation presets. Not a hard rule, but 'dreamy' images would tend not to have strong darks that hit the absolute 'black point', instead having a softer, lower-contrast look.

A starting point would be to raise the black point on the curves module. You can click the little button to the right to edit the curve points; drag the bottom-left corner point up slightly along the Y-axis until you're happy with the black point. Play about and see what works and what doesn't.

Lastly, you might want to try split-toning to the highlights. With this you basically selectively apply a tint, which can be used quite subtly and in this situation could be used to help to tie together the colours of an image and give a sort of coherent 'glow' to the colour.

Hope that helps, I'm sure you'll get lots of other suggestions too
 
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jon ryan said:
Google 'Orton Effect'. That may give you what you're after.
Click to expand...

I think that might be exactly what I'm after. I don't use photoshop but will have a little place with this technique - it looks quite simple and like the way it softens forest and woodland scenes.

MR92 said:
[New here, but as this is the post-processing forum I'm going to assume that all the factors that would contribute to a 'dreamy-looking' photo in-camera (shallow DOF, diffuse lighting, etc.) are a given and to be discussed elsewhere?]

The clarity adjustment is a reasonable place to start - this affects microcontrast (think contrast across edges) rather like a wide-radius unsharp mask. If negative clarity helps towards the effect you want then great, but can/will affect perceived sharpness too. That may or may not matter to you if its doing the right thing. Personally I would stick to subtle alterations with the clarity slider but its your judgement call.

A soft look can also come from altering global contrast, particularly focusing on the shadows and blacks. This something fairly common to many of these VSCO/film-emulation presets. Not a hard rule, but 'dreamy' images would tend not to have strong darks that hit the absolute 'black point', instead having a softer, lower-contrast look.

A starting point would be to raise the black point on the curves module. You can click the little button to the right to edit the curve points; drag the bottom-left corner point up slightly along the Y-axis until you're happy with the black point. Play about and see what works and what doesn't.

Lastly, you might want to try split-toning to the highlights. With this you basically selectively apply a tint, which can be used quite subtly and in this situation could be used to help to tie together the colours of an image and give a sort of coherent 'glow' to the colour.

Hope that helps, I'm sure you'll get lots of other suggestions too
Click to expand...

Great advice buddy! Really appreciate your helpful post :)
 
Bythesea said:
While this isn't a look I particularly like, there are a number of LR presets around that do this. It might be worth looking around for some free ones and looking at what different controls they have altered - will give you a starting point. Not sure what they are like, but the first link I found on Google for free dreamy presets was this one - no doubt there will be others :)
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for that will take a look! :)
 
You can do this with layers.

I don't have PhotShop or lightroom etc but in my editing program I have layers and I first turn down the contrast and colour saturation then make a duplicate layer.

The I use Gaussian Blur to blur it.

Then I usually use the Hard Light option or Soft Light which can produce a nice dreamy effect when properly done.

Finally Merge the layers and edit as needed.

If you haven't done it before practice is needed and some subjects may not be suitable.
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Hi Peter, thanks for that, I'm assuming that is the "Orton effect" again. I do like the effect it gives, softens the whole overall image without losing sharpness.

I only really plan to use it for woodland and forest scenes - i feel it works well here.

Im not too familiar with photoshop as i tend to avoid large amounts of processing but i will give it a shot and report how it goes.
 
Check this tutorial out, it works a treat with the images I've tried it on.

 
Tom Tom said:
Hi Peter, thanks for that, I'm assuming that is the "Orton effect" again.
Click to expand...

Not completely - the "Orton Effect" is achieved mainly by using the diffused layer on "Normal" and then using the sliders to apply a small amount of blur.

The technique I described can give quite different results.
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