People often ask me how I get the look of my images. The honest answer is that it's never one slider. It's a handful of tonal choices that work together: how the curve shapes volume, how soft the shadows are, which colors meet in the frame, and how the skin stays alive through all of it.
After 16 years of teaching photography and post-production, these are the six Lightroom techniques I use on almost every portrait. Below you'll find what each one does and where to start. The full step-by-step settings are in the free guide.
Download the free Paint With Tones guide, available in English, Italiano, Español, Français, Deutsch and Polski.
1. Soft S-Curve: add volume without harsh skin
A gentle S-shaped tone curve adds contrast only in the midtones, where the face and body live. Highlights round off, shadows deepen slightly, and cheekbones and shoulders start to come forward. The key word is soft: if the skin looks harsh or oversaturated, you've gone too far.
Where to start: Tone Curve, Point Curve, with a slight lift in the highlights and a slight drop in the shadows.
2. Matte Blacks: the film look
Instead of pure black, the darkest tones become a soft charcoal. The image loses a bit of hardness and gains the atmosphere of film: quieter, more cinematic, more timeless. Matte blacks work best on scenes with many dark tones, like rocks, night scenes or dark fabrics.
Where to start: raise the bottom-left point of the Tone Curve and add a touch of grain.
3. Warm & Cool: create depth with temperature
Warm tints in the highlights, cool tints in the shadows. Warm areas feel closer while cool areas recede, so you create depth with temperature, not only with brightness. This is the classic cinematic split-toning look, and less is more: if you notice the color before the photo, it's too much.
Where to start: Color Grading, with a warm hue in the highlights and a cool hue in the shadows at low saturation.
4. Skin Tones: color the scene, keep the skin alive
You can push the colors of the scene as much as you want, as long as the skin stays natural. A strong background with warm, living skin is what separates an editorial image from a filtered one.
Where to start: HSL panel, working on Orange, the main skin color, and then only on the background color.
5. Copper + Cyan: color harmony
Two opposite colors on the color wheel create harmony and tension at the same time. Copper hair and warm skin against cyan tones is one of the most flattering color pairs for portraits. Two colors are enough: mute everything else so the pair can speak.
Where to start: HSL for the two main colors, plus a small boost in Calibration.
6. Toned B&W: black and white with warmth
A black and white with a subtle warm tint feels more elegant and alive than a neutral grey one. Deep blacks give strength, the warm tone gives softness. Freckles, hair and fabric textures shine in B&W, so choose images where texture tells the story.
Where to start: B&W Mix to control the skin, then a warm hue in the highlights with Color Grading.
Get the complete settings
Each technique in the free guide comes with step-by-step Lightroom settings, pro tips and a cheat sheet you can save on your phone.
Want these looks in one click?
My Lightroom presets are built on these same six techniques. Curves, soft blacks, color grading and natural skin tones are already balanced for you: apply, fine-tune the exposure, and make the look your own.