How to achieve the soft, pastel tone look?

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runcsmeduncs

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Duncan
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Hi there.

I have been looking for a while now into how I can achieve the soft, pastel tone look seen in photos like:

http://www.100layercake.com/blog/2012/06/01/spring-pastel-bridal-inspiration/

I have a few photos that I think are perfect for some post work in this area (shot in really nice light, main colours fall into the pastel spectrum) but I am drawing blanks on how to achieve this look.

If anyone has any useful pointers such as books to read, 3rd party presets / filters to purchase etc, I would be very grateful.

Currently I am using Lightroom 4.1 and Photoshop Elements 10.

Cheers for any helps.

Duncs
 
Have you tried using negative Clarity? That and lowering the saturation or even using the HSL controls might do the trick.
 
If you've got something like Lightroom, as Trevor says, negative clarity and lowered saturation should get close to that look.

With Photoshop, Elements, Gimp, and the like, duplicating the layer, adding a light diffusion filter of some sort, then brushing back in detail where you need it, perhaps using a 70-80% brush. You could also try adding a layer filled with white with blend mode set to Soft Light (or one of the blend modes around there in the list) and lowering the opacity of that layer.
 
TRA actions or Radlab are pretty good for this. Especially the 'Claire-ify' action. A lot of people are getting the pastel look at the moment by using VSCO in Lightroom/Aperture or AS Exposure. VSCO is my preference at present but I tend to use my own versions of their pre-sets rather than the out-of-the-box settings.

Without buying anything you can take steps towards this look by reducing highlights and increasing blacks. It gives the photo a softer more pastel look but if you overdo it you are left with a very dull image.
 
You need to go a little further then some have suggested here. TRA and RADLAB are OK, but very overblown and develop your own style instead.

Try

Increasing contrast
Leave the clarity slider alone
Decrease saturation overall
but in the individual colour saturation sliders
increase Red the same amount as you decreased saturation overall
Decrease blue along way
In the split toning
add a sandy tone in the highlights. Increase the hue and saturation of this
add a pale blue in the lowlights. Increase the hue and saturation of this. Balance roughly 1/3 towards highlights
Then in the camera calibration
Increase tint
decrease Hue and Sat of reds
increase sat of greens
decrease sat of blues

Play till you are happy. The more you mover the sliders the stronger the effect. But play and develop your own presets, don't buy anything ;)

HM2_96981.jpg
 
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