How to Make a Soft Pastel Effect in Photoshop

PHOTOSHOP POST PROCESSING

The Soft Pastel look is a popular effect used by photographers, artists, and designers to add a dreamy and ethereal quality to your photos. The effect is perfect for a wide range of creative projects, from digital art to social media posts. While there are many different ways to achieve this look in Photoshop, today I will show you a very easy method to make a soft pastel effect in a matter of minutes without compromising the output quality of your image. And you can use this effect over any of your photos once we finish and create a preset using the Camera Raw Filter.

Please, keep in mind that every image is unique, so the settings I will show you here should be taken as a basis for all of your images. Yours may require some different values on each of the settings, but for sure will work on most of them.

Step 1

Open your image in Photoshop.

Step 2

Go to Filter > Camera Raw Filter.

Step 3

Expand the "Basic" tab and apply the following settings.

Step 4

Expand the "Curve" tab. Select the "Parametric Curve" and apply the following settings.

Step 5

Still in the Curve tab, select the "Point Curve" and add 4 new anchor points by clicking anywhere on the curve, then apply the following values for the Input and Output of each point:

1. 0-40
2. 25-45
3. 65-65
4. 128-128
5. 190-195
6. 240-255

Step 6

Now expand the "Color Mixer" tab and apply the following values.

Step 7

Expand the "Color Grading" tab, select the "Shadows" option and apply the following values.

Step 8

Next, select the "Highlights" option and apply the following values.

Step 9

Expand the "Calibration" tab and apply the following values.

Step 10

Before closing the Camera Raw window, it is a good idea to save these settings as a Preset for a later use on any other image. To do that, click on the "More Image Settings" icon and from the dropdown menu select "Create Preset".

Step 11

Give your new Preset a name, select the following options and click OK.

Step 12

Now that your new preset is under the "Presets" tab ready to be used with your next image, simply click OK in the Camera Raw window to apply the effect on your image.

A Final Note

The next time you want to use this Soft Pastel Effect on any of your pictures, open your image in Photoshop and go to Filter > Camera Raw Filter. In the Presets tab, select the "Soft Pastel" preset we've made in this tutorial and then simply click OK in the Camera Raw window to apply it.