There are 7 easy steps to achieving this look. Lowering overall exposure, using the curves tool, adjusting the temperature, using point colour, changing the HSL slider tabs, and using masks with the new Lightroom update, this will get you the dark and moody look. Here is a simple step-by-step guide to mastering a dark and moody portrait look in your photos.

Step 1: Adjusting Exposure

First step is to adjust the overall exposure. I changed the exposure of the whole image and dropped it by a bit to get the darker background. You can see I adjusted the values of the exposure, blacks, shadows and whites. I am trying to bring down the contrast in the image here to have a solid base to work with. Lowering the overall exposure may seem odd at first, but in the next few stages we are going to bring up certain parts of the image to work with the model.

Step 2: Tone Curve Adjustment

The tone curve adjustment allows me to focus on certain shades of the photo. Here I wanted to bring up some of the midtones to bring back some details in the model. You can see it’s so subtle, only +5 for this, but focusing on the little details will matter later! This just allows a little more precision in your editing to select more range than the basic adjustments allow you to do.

Step 3: HSL Slider Shifts of Prominent Colour

This stage is really about reducing the saturation of the main colour present in the image. If you’re shooting outdoors like me, you’ll want to adjust the greens like I have. Changing the saturation of the greens allows for the model to pop from the background, and adjusting the hues to a colder tone (and later we’ll warm her up) it will give a great contrast to the background. I did an additional Luminance shift just to help further bring down the overall brightness of the colour green in the image.

Step 4. Subject Mask Inverted to Adjust Background

Now you’re probably like ‘Why would you do that?’ This is an amazing way to just focus on the background without changing the values of the model, we don’t want to darken the model, that isn’t our aim. The aim is to have the model stand out against the background, so this will help us adjust the backgrounds brightness and colour without affecting the model. This subject select function is new to Lightroom, and is so handy when before you’d have to paint the background with a brush to make any adjustments. As you can see, I adjusted the exposure again, darkening it further, and changing the hue slightly, cooling down the overall look of the background from the warm tones we had in the beginning.

Step 5: Get Rid of Unwanted Colours

As you can see from the previous photo, by cooling the whole background down, we made the highlights of the light have a blue tint, this really takes away attention from the model. Here I went back to my HSL slider tab and changed the saturation of the blue to pretty much 0 because we don’t need that distracting light taking away our attention. Things will change as you go through this process, so don’t be afraid to go back and make some adjustments.

Step 6: Warm Up Skin Tones

YAY! My favourite step, as currently she’s really blending into the background as we cooled down the whole image at the start, this is where more masks come into play! Get back out your masks tool and select subject again, this time we won’t invert it. Here you can see I’ve upped the exposure on her, reduced some highlights, upped the shadows to bring back some definition and warmed her up again. Now she’s got some colour back and standing out from the background!

Step 6: Point Colour Adjustments:

Now honestly, if you’re happy at the last step, you can stop there, but I like to add a few magic touches to get the whole image perfect! If you haven’t heard of point colour, this allows you to select a specific colour on your image and are able to adjust the saturation, luminance and more. This gets even more specific than the HSL sliders as you’re working with exactly the tones in your picture. I wanted to change her skin tone a tad so I went and used point colour to give her skin a slightly more red hue. I think she was erring on looking too orange so this may be more specific taste, but it’s nice to know you have options!

Step 7. Adding Sparkle to the Eyes:

More masks, now maybe you’re sick of masks, but these little details take an image from average to awesome! I love doing this last step on all of my photos just to make the models eyes pop a little. It’s super easy, just grabbing a radial mask and upping exposure and shadows a bit, NOT TOO MUCH! You don’t want it to look unrealistic, small adjustments here are the way to go.

And there you have it! A beautiful dark and moody portrait. I love this look in photographs, and it really isn’t that hard to achieve! Especially with this guide! If you liked this blog, you may want to check out my other blog on how to edit Dark and Moody Photos. Sneak Peak on whats next! Adding Light masks in Lightroom, would you like to see this blog? Comment below!