fancy light blue castle photo-by-brian-mcgowan-on-unsplash

Light Blue Aesthetic: Free Lightroom Preset Tutorial: Step-by-Step

March 3, 2023

Light Blue Aesthetic is a popular theme in photography and social media, and has gained popularity in recent years, especially on platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, as it captures a serene and calming feeling.

In this article, we will explore the Light Blue Aesthetic in-depth, from what it is and its photo effects to the step-by-step procedure of achieving it using the adobe lightroom application.

What is Light Blue Aesthetic?

Light Blue Aesthetic is a visual style characterized by pale blue hues, soft lighting, and a minimalistic approach to composition. You can use this aesthetic to create images that convey a sense of tranquility and calmness, often with a dreamy or ethereal quality.

This aesthetic can be used in various forms of visual art, such as photography. It is a popular style in portrait, landscape, and still-life photography and is often associated with a clean, modern, and sophisticated aesthetic.

light blue sky beside building corner

Photo-by-christos-andriopoulos-on-unsplash

The photo effects of the Light Blue Aesthetic are an essential aspect of this visual style.

Here are some key photo effects to consider when aiming for the Light Blue Aesthetic look:

1. Soft, Diffused Lighting

Light Blue Aesthetic photography often features soft and diffused lighting. This type of lighting is achieved through natural light sources, such as windows or diffusers and reflectors.

2. Pale Blue Hues

The use of pale blue hues is a defining characteristic of Light Blue Aesthetic photography. You can achieve this by adjusting the white balance or using color grading in post-processing.

3. Minimalistic Composition

ferris wheel in blue sky

Photo-by-peyman-farmani-on-unsplash

Light Blue Aesthetic photography is characterized by minimalistic composition. This includes clean lines, uncluttered backgrounds, and the use of negative space.

4. Dreamy or Ethereal Quality

The Light Blue Aesthetic often aims to convey a sense of tranquility and calmness through a dreamy or ethereal quality. You can create this using soft focus, shallow depth of field, and light tones.

5. Cool Tones

Light Blue Aesthetic photography is associated with cool tones, which create a calming effect. Use a blue filter or adjust the color temperature to achieve this.

6. Vintage or Film-like Quality

living room with a blue tone

Photo-by-juan-rojas-on-unsplash

Some Light Blue Aesthetic photography may have a vintage or film-like quality which can be achieved by adding a film grain effect, vignetting, or adjusting the saturation and contrast.

7. Clean, Modern, and Sophisticated

The Light Blue Aesthetic is often associated with a clean, modern, and sophisticated look. You can achieve this by paying attention to details such as framing, exposure, and contrast.

Free Lightroom Preset Tutorial

Step 1: Launch the Lightroom App

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

  • Launch the Lightroom app.
  • Once Lightroom is open, navigate to the Library module to access your photos.
  • Select the photo that you'd like to edit from your Library.
  • If you haven't imported your photo into Lightroom yet, you can do so by clicking the "Import" button and selecting your photo from your phone.

Step 2: Apply the Light Blue Aesthetic Preset

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

  • After selecting the photo, you want to edit, click the three dots on the top right-hand side.
  • Go to “copy settings” and uncheck all the boxes.
  • Now go to the “light” section and check the “tone curve” box. 

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

  • Navigate back to copy the settings.
  • Open your image, click the three dots on the top right corner and select "paste settings" from the screen to apply the "Light Blue Aesthetic" preset you created previously.
 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

Step 3: Draw a Curve by Selecting the Tone Curve Tool

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

  • On the right tab, select the light panel then click on the CURVE option that appears at the top. A curve will appear on your image.
  • You can choose from a variety of color options, but I suggest going with white.

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

Step 4: Click on the Brightness Icon

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

Click on the brightness icon and make some adjustments by moving the slider.

  • For contrast, adjust it to -27
  • For highlights, adjust it to -76
  • For shadows, adjust it to +20
  • For whites, adjust it to -37
  • For blacks, adjust it to +50
  • For exposure, adjust it to +0.11EV

Step 5: Adjust the Vibrance and Saturation

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

  • Click on the Temperature icon in the Basic panel, represented by a thermometer symbol.
  • Leave the temperature and tint at 0
  • Adjust the tint to 0
  • Adjust the vibrance to 27
  • Adjust the saturation to 10

Step 6: Adjust the Colors using the Colonics

  • Click on the color mixer or the little color wheel located in the top right corner of the Lightroom app. This is an essential step as it helps to adjust each color separately and adjust them as follows:

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

  • For the color red, adjust the hue to 16, saturation to -6, and luminance to 17

And you’re done. Now you can copy this preset and paste it to any image you would like to add the light blue aesthetic to.

To get the perfect preset, you can experiment with a few more photos. Feel free to play around with the brightness, vibrance and saturation values to get the perfect result for each individual image.

Here are a few more examples:

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

  • For orange, adjust the hue to -11, saturation to 9, and luminance to 25

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

  • For yellow, adjust the hue to -33, saturation to -26, and luminance to 32

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

  • For green, adjust the hue down to 82, saturation to -50, and luminance to 36

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

  • For yellow, adjust the hue to -18, saturation to -26, and luminance to 32

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

  • For light blue, adjust the hue to 46, saturation to 15, and luminance to 18.
 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset
  • For blue, adjust the hue to -15, saturation to -16, and luminance to 37
 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset
  • For purple, leave the hue at -27, adjust the saturation to 18, and leave the luminance at 37

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

  • For pink, adjust the hue to 56, saturation to 28, and luminance to 34

After that, click the "Done" button in the top right corner of the Lightroom app to save your edited photo with all of the adjustments you made.

Step 7: Adjust the Texture

Click the square icon on the right side of the Basic panel to access the Texture, clarity, dehaze, vignette, midpoint, feather, roundness, highlights, grain amount, size, and roughness sliders and adjust them.

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

  • For Texture, adjust to -10
  • For clarity, adjust to -13
  • For dehaze, adjust to 9
  • For the vignette, leave it at 0

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

  • For the midpoint, leave it at 50
  • For feathers, leave it at 50
  • For roughness, leave it at 0
  • For highlights, leave it at 0
  • For the gain, the amount adjusts to 12
  • For size, adjust to 25
  • For roughness, adjust to 50,

Step 8. Copy the Setting

 Lightroom Tutorial of  light blue preset

Once you have made all of your desired adjustments to your photo, you can copy these settings to apply them to other photos.

To do this, select the edited photo and click the "Copy" button at the bottom of the right-hand panel. You can select the other photos you want to apply these settings and click the "Paste" button. This will apply all of the adjustments you made to the selected photos.

Tutorial Image Credit: youtube.com

Conclusion

The light blue aesthetic is a beautiful and soothing color scheme that you can use to create a calming and inviting atmosphere in your home or your digital content.

Knowing some light blue aesthetic ideas and the step-by-step procedure you can use to create this aesthetic using the adobe lightroom app, you now have the tools and knowledge to create a stunning light blue aesthetic for your photos.

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