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Lightroom Features

How to get dreamy detail in Adobe Lightroom.

Discover how to make your images look ethereal and dreamlike.

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A dreamy photo of a natural landscape.

Make the real look unreal with dreamy photos.

C Photography doesn’t simply record what’s in front of the lens. Like all media, it can be interpretive and artistic. Photos can show off the vision and perspective of a particular creator, which might involve presenting subjects that are ethereal, magical or surreal.

There are many ways to make a photo look like something out of a dream sequence or fantasy. Here are a few go-to ways to make images look like they’ve sprung from the realm of the imagination.

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A dreamlike photo of a desert landscape.

Dreamlike lighting.

A well-placed shadow can mean all the difference between a dream and the waking world. Golden hour can be a great time for enchanting images and twinkle lights can give images a bokeh effect.

Dreamy locations.

Forests, fields and other outdoor locations can look fantastical, especially in the early morning or late afternoon light. And the right post-processing methods can enhance this look.

A dreamy photo of a forest.
A double-exposure photo of a person and a sunset.

Double exposures.

Dreams don’t have to obey the rules of everyday reality. Two things can exist at the same time, in the same space. Compose double exposures to make that dreamlike juxtaposition.

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Explore otherworldly presets.

Check out built-in Lightroom presets like Vintage or Cinematic to create a dreamy effect. Or try the Lightroom tutorials in the Learn tab to get tips from professional photographers on how to add creative effects.

Every day thousands of photographers — from pros to beginners — share their work in the Creative Cloud Discover module. You can search for dreamy images and use those image settings as the basis for your own spellbinding presets. When you find an image in the Discovery feed that has an eerie quality you like, click Save as Preset. Once you’ve saved it, you can see the settings the creator used and try them in your own work.

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A photo of a tree with an Orton Effect.
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Give images an ethereal look with the Orton Effect.

The Orton Effect is a way to combine two different photos of the same scene. The result is an image with a soft, dreamlike glow that maintains detail. Orton images have lower clarity but still look sharp and well defined. The effect is particularly popular in landscape photography. You can simulate the Orton Effect in Lightroom by following these steps.

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1. Decrease texture.

Decrease an image’s texture to make a photo look more like a painting.

2. Reduce clarity.

Decrease the clarity of an image to reduce contrast in the mid-tones, softening the overall look of the photo.

3. Lower the dehaze value.

Flatten out the darkest darks and lightest lights in the image.

4. Increase contrast.

Boost an image’s contrast to restore a bit of the depth lost when reducing clarity.

5. Reduce vibrancy

Soften colour intensity to add to a dreamlike feel.

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Get dreamy with these tutorials.

There are even more ways to give images an entrancing look with Adobe Photoshop and Creative Cloud. Here are just four of them.

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An image with colourful overlays.

Create colourful overlays.

Take advantage of layers and overlay multiple images to make a dreamlike scene.

Create overlays

Examples of photos that have been turned into a painting.

Turn a photo into a painting in just a few clicks.

Transform photos into watercolours, oils, pastels and more in seconds on your mobile device.

Add brushstroke effects

A portrait photo of a person in a mockup of a poster on a city street.

Create a photo vignette.

With a vignette, you can reduce brightness at the edge of an image to create a mesmerising portrait.

Add vignettes to photos

A photo of a person taken with diffused light.

Diffuse the light.

Cast your subjects in a soft, gentle light by filtering it. Learn how to use diffused lighting in portrait photography.

Explore diffused lighting

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