The Natural Light Portrait Book

Adding a Soft Glow Effect

This creates kind of a dreamy effect over your portrait, and it’s so easy to do.

In Lightroom: In the Develop module’s Basic panel, drag the Texture slider nearly all the way to the left (here I dragged it to –80) to create the initial glow. Then, lower the Clarity amount to –10 to add a bit of fog to the scene, adding the soft glow effect to your portrait.

In Photoshop: Open your image, then duplicate the Background layer by pressing Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J). Go under the Filter menu, under Blur, and choose Gaussian Blur ...