{"id":103006,"date":"2024-04-04T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-04T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital-photography-school.com\/?p=103006"},"modified":"2024-04-04T08:28:27","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T21:28:27","slug":"how-to-edit-corporate-headshots-in-lightroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digital-photography-school.com\/how-to-edit-corporate-headshots-in-lightroom\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Edit Corporate Headshots in Lightroom"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span>\"How<\/span><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

When it comes to making people look their best in corporate headshot photography, you should certainly start with lighting, exposure, and composition. However, even if you’re on top of your headshot photography game<\/a>, there are plenty of small adjustments you can make in the editing process that’ll make your photos (and your clients!) look far more professional. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To start, it’s important to recognize that, on the day of the shoot, a lot of things will be out of your control. This is true whether you’re a complete newbie – or a seasoned pro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take a booking I had recently. It was scheduled for a Friday afternoon, and it happened to follow a full week of annual strategy meetings. All the head honchos were dead tired, and looking good for photos was the last thing on their to-do list. After a week of deciding the future of their company, a lot of them looked a little….less than fresh. Dehydration, bags under the eyes, and coffee-stained teeth were starting to appear – because we\u2019re human and that\u2019s what happens. And although I knew that soft light would help, I also knew that cameras are rather unforgiving of the sleep-deprived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is an extreme example, but there are always minor aesthetic problems that you’ll face as a headshot photographer. Fortunately, in every case, post-processing can come to the rescue. It’ll make you feel better about your photos, and it’ll make your subjects feel better about themselves. Although most of my corporate headshot clients know that post-production doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019ll end up as Heidi Klum, they do appreciate just a smidge of help once the photos are loaded up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Corporate touch-ups are about making the subject look as fresh as can be. However, a post-processing workflow doesn’t need to take hours. I like to keep my post-processing efficient, effective, and easy – so I can get the photos off my computer and onto my clients’ desks as quickly as possible. Below, I explain how I edit my corporate headshots in Lightroom, using the streamlined workflow I’ve developed over the years. Specifically, I explain how you can take an unprocessed photo like this:<\/p>\n\n\n

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<\/span><\/span>\"How<\/span><\/span><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

And, with a bit of editing, get a result like this:<\/p>\n\n\n

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<\/span><\/span>\"How<\/span><\/span><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

(Note: While I certainly recommend Lightroom for your own post-processing needs, you can easily recreate my headshot editing workflow in Photoshop, Capture One, ON1 Photo RAW, and more.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lightroom workflow I use for corporate headshots<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The workflow I’m about to show you will suit a variety of corporate clients. But I’m going to use a single example photo from a professional photoshoot I did a few years back; that way, you can see my approach in action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s start with the shot straight out of camera:<\/p>\n\n\n

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<\/span><\/span>\"How<\/span><\/span>
This is an image I captured for a corporate client. The lighting is nice (the woman’s face is softly lit from the right, but with plenty of detail on the left), the composition is strong (minus the reflector on the left-hand side!), and the exposure is reasonably solid. However, there are some small tweaks I can make in Lightroom that’ll make a major difference, as you’ll soon see!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

This particular company wanted to feature their employees in their native work environment, so the office became the background, which eliminated the need to bring a backdrop. I lit the subject with window light, an octabox, and a reflector, and I shot the image with a 50mm lens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Normally, I’d grab my 85mm for corporate work, but we were out of town and didn’t have our full complement of gear with us. The 50mm did the job just fine, however!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 1: Make basic exposure, white balance, and compositional adjustments<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As soon as I pull up an image in Lightroom, I start by considering some simple adjustments:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cropping, lens corrections, exposure, and white balance<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not all of these adjustments are needed in every case, but it’s always worth thinking about each one before moving on. Here, I need to crop the reflector out of the frame, as it’s intruding on the left-hand side. If you look carefully at the vertical lines on the right-hand side, you’ll notice some barrel distortion caused by my lens (the wall is curving slightly inward). Fortunately, this is easy to fix by checking the Enable Profile Corrections <\/strong>box in Lightroom’s Lens Corrections panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m happy with the white balance in this image, but I do want to boost the exposure – the unedited file is a little dark – while also dropping the Highlights<\/strong> slider to prevent the brightest parts of the image from getting out of hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After making those adjustments, here’s how the headshot looks:<\/p>\n\n\n

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<\/span>\"How<\/span><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Hopefully, you’ll agree with me that it’s much improved. Those minor tweaks refined the composition while making the scene feel tonally balanced. However, there’s still more work to be done: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 2: Make local adjustments<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Local adjustments are targeted to a specific part of the image, and while you can spend hours carefully retouching your subjects’ features, the changes I make are subtle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In truth, the best way to get some of these effects is to have the client get a great night’s rest and stay hydrated, but as I said at the beginning of this article, that’s mostly out of your control. And again, these adjustments aren’t meant to turn anyone into an airbrushed masterpiece; they’re designed to give your corporate clients a small boost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we dive in, let’s review some local adjustment keyword shortcuts to help you speed things up:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adjustment Brush keyboard shortcuts<\/h4>\n\n\n\n