Posted by Jeff C.

In this tutorial we’ll go through the process of creating a cinema-inspired effect in Lightroom. The cinematic style works well with a lot of photos, and it is not difficult to create. The effects created in this tutorial are used in our Pro Cinematic Lightroom Presets, so if you want the effect without following all of the steps you can simply use the preset.

Here is a before version of the sample photo that we’ll be using for the tutorial:

Pro Cinematic Lightroom Preset Before

And here is what it will look like after the cinema effect:

Pro Cinematic Lightroom Preset After

The first step is to adjust the settings of the colors - temperature, tint, exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks. I’m using the following settings:

Temp: +12; Tint: 0; Exposure: 0; Contrast: 0; Highlights: +7; Shadows: +38; Whites: +17; Blacks: -50.

Pro Cinematic Lightroom Effect

Next for the presence, edit clarity, vibrance, and saturation settings. I’m using +40, 0, and 0.

Pro Cinematic Lightroom Effect

The last thing to do is give the photo a slight vignette by changing the amount setting under post-crop vignetting to -20.

Pro Cinematic Lightroom Effect

And the result is slightly intensive with a cinema-inspired fashion!

Pro Cinematic Lightroom Effect

You can achieve this look by editing these settings on your own photos, or simply use our Pro Cinematic Lightroom Presets to accomplish the task with a simple click of a mouse!