Welcome to the world of digital photography, where efficiency and style go hand in hand. A Lightroom preset is perfect for editing photos in batches, and it can also help you develop a personal style that sets you apart.
I am thrilled to share valuable insights on streamlining your editing workflow using photography Lightroom presets. Pull up a chair, and let’s get down to business.
What Are Lightroom Presets?
Lightroom presets are your future best pals in post-processing – they are saved settings that apply specific post-processing styles to your photos with a single click.
So they are pre-determined settings or configurations that act like your personal Lightroom photo-editing genies: a simple click, and poof – your raw image transforms into an eye-catching photograph.
My Lightroom Editing Process
A step-by-step video tutorial (25 minutes) showing how I edit my photos in Lightroom
Why Use Lightroom Presets?
Presets are a boon for those seeking to improve the efficiency and coherence of their work. Here are some good reasons to use them:
Time Efficiency
Lightroom presets can tremendously speed up your editing workflow, as you can apply the same settings across a wide array of images or videos, saving precious time that you would otherwise spend adjusting individual settings.
Consistency and Branding
A Lightroom preset offers consistency in your personal photography style, which is vital in creating a good professional portfolio.
Every image adheres to a common theme, sending a message about your unique style. Applying the same presets across all your works creates a unified look and feel, which becomes synonymous with your brand.
This brand identity can then be easily recognized by your audience or clients, thus increasing your credibility and professional reputation.
Personally, I frequently apply one of my custom presets to my travel photos. This helps me maintain a consistent look across all of my photos within a photo book. Here’s an example of a few pages from one of my recent photo books from my trip to the Amalfi Coast in Italy:
Learning and Improvement
Presets can also be great learning tools for beginners. You can better understand the Lightroom photo editing process by analyzing how different settings affect the output.
Room for Creativity
While presets provide a foundation, they aren’t meant to limit creativity. You can tweak them to your liking or use them as a base to create entirely new presets. This can be an engaging and creative process that aids in honing your editing in Lightroom skills.
Batch Processing
One of the most significant advantages of a Lightroom preset is the ability to apply it to multiple photos or videos simultaneously, a process known as batch processing. This can be particularly useful in scenarios such as event photography, where you must edit hundreds or thousands of photos in a similar style.
Creating Your Own Lightroom Presets
Creating presets in Lightroom can be a fantastic way to develop and maintain a consistent aesthetic in your photography. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create Lightroom presets:
1. Select an Image
Open Lightroom and choose an image you want to use as the basis for creating your preset. Ideally, This should be a representative image that shows the look you want with your preset.
2. Apply Your Adjustments
Start modifying the image in the Develop module, which you can find in the right-side toolbar.
Here, you can alter settings like exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, blacks, clarity, vibrance, saturation, tone curve, HSL (Hue, Saturation, Luminance), split toning, detail (sharpening, noise reduction), lens corrections, and calibration.
Your changes will depend on the look you’re trying to achieve. For instance, if you aim for a vintage look, you might decrease saturation, add grain, and tweak the tone curve.
3. Create the Preset
Once you’re happy with your adjustments, you can create the preset. Click on the ‘+’ icon in the Presets panel on the screen’s left side. Then, select “Create Preset.”
Note: If you don’t see the “Presets” pannel, click on Window > Panels > Presets:
4. Name and Organize Your Preset
A new window will pop up. Here, you can name your Lightroom editing presets and decide which folder to use. Consider creating a new folder for your presets to separate them from others you’ve downloaded or purchased.
5. Choose the Settings for Your Preset
You’ll see a list of settings with checkboxes next to them. If you want your preset to include all the adjustments you’ve made, check all these boxes.
Alternatively, if you only want your preset to include certain adjustments (like contrast and saturation, for example), only check those boxes. Once you’ve chosen your settings, click “Create.”
6. Apply Your Preset
You can apply your professional Lightroom presets to any other photo. To do this, go to the Develop module, find your preset in the Presets panel, and click on it. This will apply all the settings from that preset to your current photo.
The Potential Pitfalls of Lightroom Presets
Despite the benefits, I’d be remiss not to warn about potential pitfalls of Lightroom presets.
So applying the same preset to all your photos can mean different results because each image is unique, with its own lighting conditions, color tones, and subject matter. A single preset might not suit all photos, so be prepared to tweak settings when necessary.
A beautiful mountain landscape, dreamy sunrise, and vibrant cityscape – all have different attributes that may or may not be enhanced by a preset. A preset created for the purpose of enhancing sunsets might not work well with a picture taken in the snow.
Therefore, use presets as a starting point, but don’t hesitate to make further adjustments. Your artistic intuition and understanding of each photo’s unique characteristics should guide your Lightroom photo editing process.
Must-Have Lightroom Presets
The good news is that some professional presets for Lightroom seem to defy the norm – Visual Flow Lightroom presets are designed to adapt to diverse lighting and color conditions without tedious adjustments.
So thanks to their unique, patent-pending technology that bases development on lighting conditions, you can quickly achieve a consistent, professional finish regardless of the lighting – whether it’s harsh, multi-colored, or fluorescent.
How to Add Lightroom Presets
Whether you’ve downloaded new presets or created your own, you must know how to use a preset in Lightroom. So here’s how to import Lightroom presets:
Add Presets to Lightroom Classic:
- Open Lightroom Classic.
- Go to the “Develop” module (located in the upper right corner).
- On the left side, you will see the “Presets” panel. Click on the “+” (plus) icon and choose “Import Presets…”.
- Navigate to the presets that you have downloaded. These could be in .lrtemplate or .xmp format.
- Select the presets and click “Import.”
- The presets will appear in the Presets panel under “User Presets.”
Add presets to Lightroom CC (Desktop version):
- Open Lightroom CC.
- Click the edit icon (three sliders) in the upper right corner.
- Next to “Presets,” click the three-dot icon and select “Import Presets.”
- Navigate to your downloaded presets, which are usually in .xmp format.
- Select the presets and click “Import.”
- The presets will appear in the Presets panel under “User Presets.”
Adding presets to Lightroom Mobile:
- Make sure that your presets are synced to your Lightroom CC desktop app. If they are, they should automatically appear in your Lightroom Mobile app.
- If not, you can manually add them. First, import your presets into Lightroom CC (desktop version) using the steps above.
- Ensure that syncing is enabled in Lightroom CC by going to “File”> “Sync with Lightroom Mobile.”
- Open the Lightroom Mobile app and navigate to the Presets section. Your synced presets should appear there.
NOTE: You’ll need a subscription to Adobe Lightroom for these steps to work. The exact steps vary depending on your Lightroom version and whether you use a Mac or PC.
Streamlining Your Editing through AI Presets
Lightroom has improved significantly in the last few years. One such example is “adaptive presets,” which help you change different parts of a portrait more seamlessly.
And, of course, we can’t talk about streamlining and simplifying without mentioning AI in editing with Lightroom:
AI in Adobe Lightroom adds a new dimension to managing and processing images. The software’s AI-driven features enable the automatic organization and sorting of your vast image libraries. Features such as automatic keyword tagging, facial recognition, and content-aware search empower photographers to find the desired images effortlessly. These smart features do the heavy lifting for you.
Moreover, incorporating AI-powered presets and effects allows for further streamlining of the editing in Lightroom.
These presets can automate adjustments that traditionally require manual attention and expertise. You can now attain high consistency across your portfolio without spending exhaustive time on individual photo edits.
But the most exciting part is that this is just the beginning!
Wrapping It Up
The age-old adage of working smarter, not harder, holds true in digital photography.
The best Lightroom presets are like secret weapons, offering a blend of efficiency and style, helping you focus more on creating the story. I hope this guide has turned on some light bulbs and given you new tools for editing photos in Lightroom.
However, remember that presets are not a magic carpet ride to perfection. They might turn one image into a masterpiece and another into a disaster, so be ready to tweak and adjust when Lightroom editing. That’s where your creative genius comes into play.
Because photography is not just about capturing light and colors, it’s about capturing the emotion, story, and moment – the very same things we focus on here at OhMyCamera.
Related articles:
- Shooting in Manual Mode: How to Take Control of Your Camera
- An Introduction to Shutter Speed: A Beginner’s Guide
- Getting to Know Your Camera: All About Aperture in Photography
- The Essential Guide to Understanding ISO in Photography
- Mastering Photo Editing for Beginners: Add a Touch of Magic!
- Portrait Retouching: Enhancing Your Subjects in Post-Processing
