LR Presets
LR Presets, otherwise known as Lightroom Presets are customised Lightroom settings you can apply to any photo. LR Presets are all completely different as the person who made the LR Presets get to decide what settings are used and to what strength. In this article about LR Presets we will cover what LR Presets are, the best times to use LR Presets, what kind of LR Presets you can buy and, how to install your own LR Presets.
The Lightroom Presets I edit every photo with!
LR Presets
LR Presets are a configuration of Lightroom settings you can apply to your images to achieve a certain style, look, or aesthetic. Not all LR Presets work on every photo which is why it is good to have a large collection of LR Presets for all types of photography. Usually, the LR Preset will work best with the types of photos that they were marketed with. For example, if you bought a pack of LR Presets and they were using a lot of sunset images to show you examples of the LR Presets, then those LR Presets are more than likely going to work best with sunset photos. Don't be discouraged if you buy a pack of LR Presets and they do not work as you had hoped right away, you might just need to change what time you are taking your shots, where you are taking your shots, or how you are taking your shots.
The best time to use LR Presets
As mentioned before, not all LR Presets work with all photos. When trying to get the best results out of your new LR Presets try avoiding these 5 things
- Harsh lighting
- Dimly lit images
- Incorrect white balance
- High ISO
- Incredibly harsh and strong colours
These five things can really affect the outcome of your LR Presets. As it is impossible for the creator of the LR Presets to predict the lighting situations, camera settings and time of day you are shooting in, give the the LR Presets the best chance of working by giving them the best and easiest conditions to work with. This will also improve your photography as learning to shoot with better light and camera settings are always good things to master. If you are interested in becoming a better photographer, we have some photography tips linked here
If you are looking to upgrade some of your photography gear, here is what gear I use to take all of my photographs.
What kind of LR Presets you can buy
You can buy all kinds of LR Presets, ones for landscape, portraits, food, dogs, cats, sunsets, you name it, someone has created LR Presets for it. We recommend purchasing LR Presets that apply to your style of photography and achieve the look and aesthetic you are chasing. Try purchasing some of your favorite creators LR Presets if you are a fan of their work. If those creators are also an authority in their niche, you should have confidence that their LR Presets are high quality and will give you the results you are after.
Here are some good examples for LR Prests doing their job. If you are interested in purchasing these LR Presets, you can do so here
Installing your LR Presets.
LR Presets are simple and easy to install. If you are installing your LR Presets on Desktop it is a much easier and a completely different process to if you are installing your LR Presets on the mobile app. Once you have downloaded your LR Presets you want to unzip the files. If you are running the latest version of Mac OS or Windows, you will have a file unzipper already installed on your computer. If you are unzipping your LR Presets on your mobile device you need to either make sure your phone's operating system has a file unzipper or you will need to download an app from your phone's app store.
The first step to installing your LR Presets on the desktop version of Lightroom is to open the program and move to the Develop tab.
Once at the develop tab, you want to locate the LR Presets tab on the left hand side. There might already be some LR Presets in this tab that you have installed before or from Adobe. These LR Presets from Adobe are very basic and will make minimal changes to your image. We recommend downloading some custom LR Presets if you are looking to take your photo editing game seriously.
Once you are located the LR Presets tab you want to look for the small plus icon in the top right corner of the LR Presets tab.
Click on the plus icon, locate your LR Presets and press import. Lightroom will now import your LR Presets and if they are the correct file type you will be able to use your brand new LR Presets.
Now all you have to do is select the image you want to edit and click on the LR Preset you want to use. If you would like to see what LR Preset will look best on your image before applying it, simply hover your mouse cursor over the LR Preset and Lightroom will show you a preview of what the image would look like with the specific LR Preset.
If you can not get a nice result with your current LR Presets try manually adjusting the colour saturation sliders, contrast sliders, dehaze sliders or the exposure sliders. These four settings are the most common for LR Presets not looking their absolute best. If adjusting those 4 sliders does not give you your desired look, try adjusting the white balance. This can be down manually or automatically and can correct any mistakes your camera made when taking the photo. This should adjust all colours to be accurate, therefore making it much easier for you to get a better result using your LR Preset.