There’s something magical about pastel colours - they bring a soft, dreamy quality to any photo, turning ordinary shots into gentle works of art. In this step-by-step guide, we’ll dive into the editing techniques that will transform your photos into a prolific pastel masterpiece.
Pastel colours carry a certain je ne sais quoi, making other colours pale in comparison or perhaps the reverse, as we’ll explore shortly. While the process of creating pastel shades isn’t particularly complex, the results are undeniably rewarding. These soft hues are widely used in crayon sets, home décor, fashion, and paintings - valued for their gentle and appealing aesthetic.
In photography, pastel tones can transform the mood of an image, evoking a sense of joy, playfulness, peace, and serenity. We’ll explore how both professional photographers and smartphone users can use pastel inspired filters to bring this subtle yet powerful effect into their images.
The simplest method to explain pastel colours is to take a standard basic colour and reduce the saturation where the colour looks pale but still has a subtle vibrant effect. There are several ways desaturation can be achieved, the most common method amongst painters is to add white to a particular colour which will dilute it and achieve a pastel look. The other method is to mix in an opposite colour which will create a more neutral muted tone.
In photography this effect can be created during editing. For example, to produce a pale blue you would lower the blue saturation slider in Lightroom or Photoshop, then slightly increase luminance to keep the colour feeling light yet subtly vivid. #Jagged Ice
Every colour has 3 values that makes the colour unique - these values are the Hue, saturuation, and brightness. Let's build a pastel colour while discussing and effecting the 3 values at each step.
There are 3 primary colours (red, green, blue) and 3 secondary colours (cyan, magenta, yellow), in total these 6 colours make up the RGB colour wheel as shown above. Every colour has a hue value ranging from 0 to 360 depending where it falls on the hue scale. The hue represents the origin of the colour without adding any tint or shade, let's see what happens with this colour green when we change the saturation and brightness. #Hot green
Saturation represents the intensity or vividness of a colour. Overall we perceive colour through reflected light; For example, a green frog has pigments in its skin absorbing most colours of light but reflecting back green light. If a magenta pigment is added here (opposite of green), it neutralises the green and gradually reduces its saturation until it becomes grey. Similarly, adding white pigments which reflects all wavelengths of light, lightens and weakens the intensity of the green producing a paler shade. What we have done here is desaturated the above green colour from 100% saturation to 22%, now we are left with this new pale colour. #Very light green
The brightness is how light or dark the colour is. The above green is good on its own, however lets reduce the brightness from 100% to 95% to balance it out. #Madang green
This pastel filter brings out the photos colour and joy to the surface
This pastel filter transforms this photo into a gateway of calmness and relaxation
