How to Edit Dreamy Cinematic Photos in Lightroom
Have you ever stumbled on a photo so dreamy and magical that it stopped you in your tracks and left you wondering, how did the photographer do that? Afterwards, you go snap some photos, upload them into Lightroom and try making some edits, but you never quite end up with that same dreamy, cinematic photo look that you’re trying to recreate. Well, thankfully, if you’ve got the basics of Lightroom photo editing down, transforming your shots into dreamy cinematic masterpieces actually isn’t as difficult as you may think. It does, however, require a bit of thinking outside the box, and also employing some editing techniques that may seem counterintuitive at first. But, trust me, with a few minor tweaks, you can edit dreamy cinematic photos in Lightroom that stop other photographers in their tracks.
Colour Theory
The idea of colour theory in art isn’t new, but the concept may be new to some photographers. Colour theory is simply using a certain colour, or combinations of colours, to convey a specific emotion to help tell a story in your image. This can be done in camera by carefully selecting or creating scenes that only use specific colours, or it can be done during the editing phase by removing or altering the colours in your images. If you want to learn more about colour theory in photography and how to apply it in Lightroom, check out my article on the subject here.
Believe it or not, when we see dreamy cinematic photos, a lot of thought has gone into the specific colours that are being presented to us, along with their hue, saturation and luminance. Think about a beautiful desert scene with sand dunes leading your eye across the image. Photographers will often alter the hue of the sand to be more of an earthy orange to make it really stand out. They’ll also eliminate most of the other colours, or leave the blues in the sky to create a classic orange and teal look within their photos.
So, the first step in editing dreamy cinematic photos in Lightroom (after making basic adjustments) is to decide on the colour(s) you want to use in your image, and then alter your shot to make that look happen using the HSL Colour Mixer and Colour Grading panel.
Clarity
With the rise of digital cameras, images have become more and more sharp and clear, which, of course, is a good thing. Too much sharpness and clarity, however, can create an unrealistically crisp look. Most modern cameras are fairly sharp without any post processing, however the tendency for most photographers is to add some sharpness and clarity to their images during post processing. This isn’t an issue depending on the look you’re trying to achieve, however, when editing dreamy cinematic photos in Lightroom, you actually want to reduce the clarity a bit.
That’s right. You actually want to take some of the clarity away from an image to make it look a bit softer. This will make the photo look more like a painting with smooth, dreamy details, as opposed to a super sharp, almost fake AI-generated image. You don’t want to reduce the clarity too much, though, as it’ll make your images look way too soft and out of focus. Try reducing the clarity by -10 to -20 and see how it affects the look of your image.
Texture
Reducing the texture of an image will serve a similar purpose as reducing clarity. I don’t always do this when trying to create dreamy cinematic shots, but, if you reduce the clarity and find that your shot still doesn’t have the desired dreamy cinematic look that you’re after, try reducing the texture too.
Again, be conservative with this. Try reducing the texture by -10 to -20 at first and see how it affects the image. Part of what makes an image is the texture of what’s in the frame, so you don’t want to completely eliminate that. The idea is to simply soften everything up a bit and give it that dreamy effect.
Dehaze
Lastly, you can try increasing or decreasing the dehaze slider a touch to really enhance the dreamy look. Dehaze will, of course, dehaze your image if you increase the slider, however it’ll also add a bit of haze if you reduce it.
When you reduce dehaze, however, you may notice that your image generally gets an overall white look to it, so, again, be conservative when using this. I’d start by sliding the dehaze to -5 and see how it looks first, and then adjust from there.
I will say that, for most photos, I find reducing the clarity is enough to create that dreamy look, however texture and dehaze can sometimes give it that extra bit of dreamy flair, so try adjusting all of these settings on your images and find a look that works for you!
Contrast
Now, after you make adjustments to clarity, texture and / or dehaze, your image will look flatter than it did before. To counter this, you will need to add some contrast back into your image. You can do this by using the contrast slider, or by adjusting the Tone Curve. A simple S-curve with the tone curve can work wonders on any image. Once you add some contrast back in, though, you will be left with an epic, dreamy, cinematic image.
Conclusion
Transforming basic images into dreamy cinematic photos using Lightroom may seem daunting, but it’s actually a fairly straightforward process. First, you need to apply colour theory to your photographs using Adobe Lightroom. Then you need to reduce the clarity, texture and / or dehaze to really give it a soft, atmospheric vibe. Then, just boost the contrast a bit, and you’re good to go. Test these tips out next time you want to transform one of your shots into a truly atmospheric vibe.