To get you started, I’ve provided my Adobe Photoshop Lightroom preset, and Adobe has curated a collection of Adobe Stock assets you may want to use as you try these techniques. If you follow along, I’d love to see your project — just share it on Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #MAXcreativechallenge.

With almost every photo I take, I use the editing process to enhance the image so that it more fully expresses the feeling I had when I took the photo.

This is especially true of portraits — and that includes self-portraits. Here are some tips I’ve picked up along the way for bringing focus to a photo’s subject while using the environment to enhance the overall feel of the image.

Getting started.

I’m using images shot on a smartphone — in part because I wanted to demonstrate that you can create stunning imagery without high-end, expensive equipment. You already have an excellent camera in your pocket! Furthermore, I believe that one of the most important pieces of equipment you can invest in is one that you were born with: your creative mind. Don’t overlook the importance of creativity when shooting.

Editing adds flavor to the raw Ingredients of a good photo. A good “cook” prepares well, knows their tools well, and doesn’t over-season or overcook.

Let me show you how to make your own presets for portraits.

Step 1: Choose your selects.

It’s helpful to stay organized when editing. I selected a set of images and then gave them a five-star rating. Once I did that, I created a new collection and named it.

While creating the new collection, I chose to create virtual copies so that I could retain the originals. It’s important to learn how to curate your work. If you’re working for a client, providing too many images to choose from can waste time for everyone involved (and may result in your having to edit more selects than you had planned).

Step 2: Evaluate your image.

Consider what look you’re going for. Depending on how you shot your image, you may already know what that that look is. It could be an understated monochromatic look with soft light and pastel colors; a bright, vibrant, colorful image; or even a high-contrast black-and-white image. 

In this example, I wanted to enhance the image to bring focus to my subject. If the background had more substance or elements of interest, then I might try to make sure that I got more of a balance in terms of presence. As there’s not much going on, I'll make sure that my model is the main thing and that viewers aren’t distracted by anything else.

Step 3: Frame your image.

I typically focus on framing when I’m taking a picture, but you can make tweaks while editing. It’s good to do this early in the process, to avoid spending time on details that won’t appear in the final image. Press the O key to change the overlay to suit your particular cropping needs. I want the ratio of this image to be 4:5, which is the native portraiture setting for posting to Instagram. I also want to ensure that my model is framed in the center, which is typical for headshots. Then I want to remove a distracting area from the bottom left corner of the background, which I didn’t notice when taking the picture. The horizon appears to be straight, so for this picture I won’t need to worry about making it level or any other geometric corrections.

Step 4: Adjust exposure.

Correctly exposing for skin tones is key. To maintain a natural feel in your photos, you’ll want to ensure that skin tones retain an exposure range people are used to seeing. The human eye picks up on unnatural skin tones, and they will not seem pleasant. As such, avoid adding certain colors unless you want a really stylized look.

The overall image is exposed as I like it, and the histogram seems to be about right and even. I do, however, want to bring back some of the colors in the model’s skin, so I’m going to reduce the overall exposure of the image by –0.50 to get richer color.

I’ll add some contrast to bring a sense of depth to the image — but not too much, because too much clarity and contrast can be unflattering. My model has good skin, so this isn't a huge concern, but it’s something to be mindful of if your subject doesn't have the best skin. This goes the same for most, if not all, of the settings in the Presence section of the right-hand side of the Develop module, especially Clarity and Texture.

I want to take the highlights down a touch (–5), but not too much, as I like the graduation of light from the left side of the image to the right. Then I’ll lift the shadows a bit more to bring back some of the detail on the right side of the model’s face (+20). I’ll increase the whites to add a little boost to the colors (+10), and I’ll leave the black level where it is for now.

Step 5: Dehaze.

As its name suggests, the Dehaze tool was designed to remove haze and artifacts from images. However, I’ve found that the algorithm that removes haze from images is particularly good at adding a bit of contrast in an image’s midtones, which can seem to give images more depth or a 3D pop, so your subject stands out from the background.

Step 6: Adjust vibrance.

In most cases, I prefer to adjust vibrance instead of saturation. Saturation affects the image as a whole; increasing it adds saturation to all the pixels in an image. Vibrance takes a smarter approach: If you increase vibrance, Lightroom looks for the areas of your image that are desaturated and increases saturation in those areas. Depending on your shot, you may find it helpful to reduce saturation across the entire image and then increase vibrance instead. As with any tool, use these according to your own tastes. Everything I’m saying here is meant to be guidance and is dependent on many factors, including how you shot the image, the look that you're going for, the type of camera and lens you used, and even the time of day you captured the image.

Step 7: Adjust the Tone Curve.

I want to add some contrast using the Tone Curve. Click and drag the bottom left point on the Tone Curve up by 20 to add some fade to the image.

Now I’ll go back and lift the black point under the Basic tab to regain some detail in the shadows.

The changes are subtle, but I think they improve the overall look.

Step 8: Adjust HSL settings.

The last tweak I’m going to make to this image is to give a slight boost to the color orange, via the Luminance tab, because orange is frequently found in skin tones, and this will help to separate the model from the background, which is blue. There are many ways to achieve separation in an image: contrast between light and dark is one way, but color contrast is also effective.

Step 9: Save as a preset.

Now I’ll save this as a preset. On the top left of the Lightroom interface is the Presets menu.

Click on the plus-sign and then click on Create Preset. You will be presented with a screen called New Develop Preset. Here, you can decide which image adjustments you want to save in your preset, by selecting or deselecting them. I selected all the settings I adjusted. Then I just click on Create, and I have a new preset.

All presets you save this way are under User Presets on the left side of the Lightroom interface. You can use them on any image you’ve imported to Lightroom. To share them with others, export a preset by right-clicking on it and choosing Export. The exported file appears in the designated folder as an XMP file that’s very small and easy to share.

If you download my preset from the button at the top of this page, be sure to click the “Save as preset” button in the bottom-right corner of the Lightroom interface.