What Are Light and Airy Lightroom Presets?
Light and Airy Lightroom Presets typically emulate film stock like Fuji 400 or Portra 400. The style is generally characterized by soft, pastel colors and often uses natural light as the primary light source when capturing the photograph. Other terms used to describe this style are whimsical, romantic, bright and airy, and filmic.
We are thrilled to launch the Pastel Pack, our light and airy Lightroom presets pack for photographers. See some of the examples of our Pastel Presets below.
Photo by Taylor
Images by Taylor Kinzie with the Pastel Presets applied
Images by Paul Von Rieter with the Pastel Presets applied.
Images by Pye Jirsa with the Pastel Presets applied.
How to get the Light and Airy Look?
The light and airy look is more than just an editing style. Probably more so than the other major styles of wedding and portrait photography, this style encompasses all elements of the photograph, such as the subject matter, wardrobe, composition, scene and lighting. While there are not “rules” to follow when creating light and airy images, here are a few commonalities and general guidelines:
Simplicity in Backgrounds, Compositions, and Wardrobe
Simplicity is key in getting the light and airy look. The mindset of looking for opportunities like shoot throughs, reflections, motion/movement, etc is less important. Instead look to create simple and clean beauty, focusing on the expressions and the light in the scene.
Pastel Color Palettes
Light and Airy photography is often is most ideal to images with pastel color palettes. The wardrobe styling and the backgrounds often contain natural browns, greens and subtle pinks, baby blues, and other “soft” colors. Of course, this isn’t always the case, but again, these are just general guidelines that lead to the desired look and feel of a light and airy image.
Vertical (Portrait) Orientation Over Horizontal (Landscape) Orientation
Light and Airy photos often work better with vertical/portrait orientation. While most photographers with this style shoot both vertical and landscape, the ratio from a set of images is often weighted heavier on the vertical side.
The primary reason for this is the focus on clean, simple beauty, with the subject taking up the majority of the frame in many of the photographs. Again, exceptions apply and these are generalized rules of thumb, but you’ll notice fewer “epic wide angle photos” and “environmental portraits” and more mid-range crops that focus on the expressions and details of the subjects.
Natural Light over Modified Light and Flash
In Light and Airy Photography, you’ll also notice more use of natural light in comparison to other styles of photography. This falls in line with the concept of clean, simple, natural beauty.
Instead of heavily modifying light, the light and airy photographer typically relies on finding the right scenes and shoots at the right time of day and in the right weather. Note that there are still many instances when a light and airy photographer would use flash, and many advanced photographers use it subtly while still maintaining a natural light look.
Conclusion
We hope this gives you a glimpse into our light and airy Lightroom presets. As you can see, this style in particular is more than just an editing style. It’s a complete shooting style, and some would even argue, an entire philosophy that encompasses clean, simple, and natural beauty. For more information, please see our pastel pack.
