FamilyTone Workflow Pack
A five-step Lightroom workflow for real family sessions
Stop fighting with one-click presets. FamilyTone walks your images through five simple steps: fixing crunch, mixed light and skin tones before you add your final look.
Soft • Honest • Timeless
These presets bring subtle structure and mood to real-life family moments. Not a heavy-handed colour shift—just thoughtful refinement that lets the people, and the story, lead.
Why one-click presets don’t work!
Most presets online are built for styled shoots and controlled studio light. Real life is different: Various shades of brown in the same frame as fair skin, tungsten and window light, in the same room, phone photos sitting next to full-frame files, and kids who never stay still.
When one preset tries to fix exposure, white balance, skin tone, greens, background and style all at once, something will always break. That’s why one-click edits so often lead to orange skin, neon greens, plasticky faces or muddy shadows.
FamilyTone takes a different approach: a layered five-step workflow. Each step solves one type of problem cleanly before you move on, so your edits stay predictable even when the light doesn’t.
How the FamilyTone Workflow Works
Before diving into the example, it helps to understand how powerful the Preset Amount slider can be. Every FamilyTone preset can be fine-tuned using that slider, which acts like a volume control for the effect. If something feels too strong or too subtle, simply adjust the amount until the image sits exactly where you want it. This gives you full control while still following the guided workflow.
In this sequence, you will see how a beautiful moment starts out with harsh midday contrast, uneven tones and a few distracting colors in the background. Moving through the steps, the image gradually settles into something softer, more balanced and more polished without losing the authenticity of the scene.
The Preset Amount Slider
The Preset Amount slider at the top of the “Develop” panel works like a volume control for every FamilyTone preset. If a correction feels a bit strong or not strong enough, adjust the slider until the image settles into the look you want. This lets you fine-tune each step without breaking the workflow, and it gives you complete control over the final result.
Step 1 – Mandatory Preset
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After
The start raw image straight out of the camera begins with very punchy contrast, crunchy shadows in the grass and bright highlights on clothing and faces. Mandatory presets soften those extremes and remove baked-in sharpening so the image becomes easier to work with. You can see the tones relax just enough to give you a neutral starting point instead of fighting harsh lighting.
Step 2 – Clean Base
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After
Once the foundation is stable, the Clean Base preset brings the whole scene into a gentler balance. Color casts ease up, the bold red sculpture becomes less overpowering and the skin tones land in a more natural, believable range. This step creates a consistent baseline, similar to evening out the light before doing anything more specific.
Step 3 – People
Before
After
With the overall tones in place, the focus shifts to the faces and smaller details. Skin smooths slightly without losing texture, highlights on the woman’s face soften, and the children’s skin tones even out under the mixed light. Shadows under the eyes become kinder, and hands and arms look more natural. This step is all about helping the people look like themselves in flattering light.
Step 4 – Background
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After
Once the subjects feel right, the background is shaped so it supports the story instead of competing with it. The grass becomes less neon, the orange sculpture steps back visually and the busy structures behind the group lose just enough contrast to stay present without distracting. The entire scene grows quieter, which naturally brings the eye toward the central interaction.
Step 5 – Stylize
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After
With everything balanced, the stylizer adds the final mood. The colors shift into a soft, film-leaning palette, the reds and blues in the clothing harmonize and the greens settle into a gentler tone. Nothing feels forced or overly filtered, just polished and cohesive, giving the final image a warm, editorial finish layered over a solid foundation.
What’s Included
A guided preset system for cohesive, film-leaning family galleries — from phones and cameras alike.
Inside the FamilyTone Workflow Pack
- Almost 50 Lightroom presets for Desktop and Mobile, organized into Mandatory, Clean Base, People, Background and Stylize groups.
- A visual stacking map that shows what to click first, what can be layered and what should stay either/or.
- Sample workflows for indoor tungsten, park greens, overcast light and mixed phone+camera galleries, each showing one image as it moves from Step 1 to Step 5.
- A Quick Start Guide so you can start using the workflow in your very next session.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Step 1: Mandatory includes presets like Mobile Phone and Mobile Phone High ISO that tackle crunchy sharpening, baked-in contrast, HDR halos and noisy shadows. Once you run these, the file behaves much more like a normal RAW from a camera.
Yes. The presets were tested on Black, brown, tan, olive and fair skin, often in the same frame. Tools like Skin Bright Tone Fix, Skin Dark Tone Fix and Skin Multi-Tone Fix gently correct undertones without turning people orange or grey. The goal is that everyone in the frame looks like themselves, even in difficult light.
You don’t need to be a power user, but you should be comfortable with exposure, white balance and basic cropping. The workflow is simple: fix the file, build a clean base, correct people, calm the background, then stylise. The Quick Start Guide and sample workflows walk you through real examples step by step.
FamilyTone works with Lightroom Classic, Lightroom (cloud) and Lightroom Mobile. It supports RAW files, phone images (HEIC/JPG) and older JPGs without relying on camera-specific profiles, so you are not locked to a single brand.
You can, and they will still apply a look, but the system shines when you use all five steps. Stylizers are designed to sit on top of a corrected image, not to repair a broken one. For consistent client work, the full workflow is strongly recommended.
They cannot recover detail from blown highlights or pure black shadows, fix out-of-focus images or remove heavy background clutter. Think of them as a smart assistant for tone, colour and mood, not a rescue kit for unusable files.