Practical Presets

Presets are great for a number of reasons. Easy to get a look, Easy to preview using the Navigator, and repeatable would be high on the list. It's wonderful to get a look and save it as a preset. But sometimes, you apply that to another image and.. Ugh.. it's terrible. Why?
Well if you did a lot of work to get to that point, the base settings may be too much for an ordinary image.

For presets to be universally good, there are some basic things we need to understand. First off, presets for Raw and JPEG/TIFF that use all the settings need to be different. Lightroom applies +50 Brightness and +25 Contrast to Raw files by default, while JPEG/TIFF is left at 0. This makes a big difference in the look, requiring different presets. There is another option of course, and one that I think is the universal way to approach preset creation.

For every look you want to create repeatably, start work on an image with the exposure and colour corrected. When you want to save the preset, only save the the settings that create the look, but not the settings that fix the exposure and colour. For example, let's say I add +0.5 stops to my exposure and then take 500 degress off my temperature to correct an image. I then do some split toning and add a tone curve to create a cross processed look. If I then save this as a preset with all settings on, and then apply it to an image that is corrected take, then the look will be brighter and cooler than wanted. So instead I save the preset with Split Toning and Tone Curve only selected. This means the look can be created independently of the original images exposure issues.

For ease in finding the correct exposure, make a folder of presets that have different exposure levels in 1/3 stop increments. When you save these presets, make sure only Exposure is ticked in the New Develop Preset box. This way you can simply hover over the exposure presets in the left panel and see which one looks correct for the image via the preview in the Navigator.

Only choose the necessary setting when creating the preset

This can also be done for White Balance Temperature, allowing you to get a rough White Balance visually (assuming you haven't used a colour chart or gray card).

A final option is to have a series of contrast curves saved with only Tone Curve selected when saving. This method of building up looks means you can quickly find a combination of presets to give you a final look for your image in Lightroom.

Smoke Presets

I was messing around the other day doing the good old internet cliche of taking off camera flash shots of smoke. In true Chromasia fashion, I hand created some Lightroom Point Curves and put them in as presets for you wonderful folks. These 3 variations make the shadows into highlights, force the midtones down and retain the normal highlights.

To handle downloads on this I've set it up as a donationware product on e-Junkie. If you feel these are useful, feel free to buy me a coffee via donation!If not, don't. No obligation. For free downloads, e-Junkie will ask for name and email, this is so you can get the download link emailed to you.

Anyhow to install these presets, open Lightroom Preferences (in Lightroom on Mac, Edit on PC), Click the Presets Tab. Click on the Show Lightroom Presets folder. Open the Develop Presets folder and unzip the smoke.zip file into this folder. Restart Lightroom. In the Presets panel of Develop, there should now be a folder called Smoke Presets. Click on the preset to apply it, or hover over it to see a preview in the navigator.



Enjoy!

LRB Dragan presets

My LRB Dragan presets are now up on Lightroom Exchange. These free presets give a very stylised look and were originally posted to Inside Lightroom as individual presets. I've packaged them here as a set, as much to have them together as anything, but just to see how many people download them :).

My favourite is the cross processed version. A tweaked version of the preset won me the SWPP International Family Portraiture and Groups Photographer of the Year 2008 award. Enjoy

LRB Grads updated to version 2

My Graduated Filter Presets have been updated to version 2. Version 2 of the LRB Grads contains an extra folder of Sunset filters, along with a middle filter for each of the types and strengths.

There are 2 zips in the archive: One with the original Colour Strength Position naming, and one with the new form Position Colour Strength.

The new version makes for quicker previewing in the Navigator.

To install the new filters right click on a preset and click Show in Finder/Explorer. If you are updating and want to use the new names, delete the older presets first. Delete the LRB Grads folders (there are 6 in V1).

Unzip the file gradsV2newnames.zip file in this folder for the new names, or gradsV2original.zip for the original naming scheme. Restart Lightroom.

Your original download link will still work for these. I'll be updating the original page shortly, along with the new product page, based on that page. If you have used all the downloads: tough.. Nah, I'm kidding, reply to the original downlaod post including the contents of the post and I'll reactivate your download.

Product Page: http://lightroom-blog.com/lrbgrad

The Rename

I'm in the middle of the tedious process of renaming the Grad presets. So how am I naming them? I've gone with:

Position Colour Strength.

But I will place the original named presets in the pack too, so you can choose between them. I'll announce them here when done.
They will replace the current download then, so you can just use the download link to get the new versions. Please note that these use the same internal names, so if you do choose the new names, you will have to delete the old ones!

So how do you want the Grad Filter presets named?

I've expanded the range of the current LRB Grad Filter presets. When I upload them after a little voting here, there'll be an additional Middle to go with each Top third and Bottom third, and 9 new Sunset Presets.
Current they are named by:
Colour Strength Position Hardness Orientation e.g. Blue 0.3 Top Hard Landscape (or an abbrev, thereof)

Matt K argues that 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 should be replaced with -1, -2, and -3. While it is indeed accurate, my naming is based on conventional Resin filters, which carry the notation 0.3, 0.6, 0.9. In fact Cokin calls them ND2, ND4, ND8 instead.

Which is the more critical for you the user?
And which order?

Strength Position Colour
Strength Colour Position
Colour Strength Position
Colour Position Strength
Position Strength Colour
Position Colour Strength

(The hardness and Orientation are the filter folders anyway, but are needed for Lightroom to distinguish them)

Each has advantages.
The last option for instance groups the Tops together, then individual colour, then strength of that colour. Or is Strength more important here than colour?

Previewing Camera Profiles.

The new Camera Profiles are really great for getting a good look quickly. But you want to preview them to see what suits. Well, changing them in Camera Calibration will let you see them, but it's a bit tedious. The obvious answer is much easier than you might expect: Create a batch of Presets!

Open your image and go to the Camera Calibration tab in Develop. Option/Alt click the tab to switch to Solo mode if you want to see only this tab.

The Camera Calibration tab in Develop. ACR4.4 is the default profile for the 40D

In the Profile section, select a camera profile. Here I've selected the Landscape profile.

Right click on a presets folder and choose New folder. Name it for the camera. In my case I've called it 40D Camera Profiles.

Now use Shift Command N (Shift Control N on PC) to call up the New Preset dialog. Name the Preset to match the Profile name. Select the Preset folder you just created. Click Check None and then Camera Calibration to make sure only the Camera Calibration settings are saved.

Repeat for each Profile. When done, you will have a folder of Presets to hover over and preview the look in the Navigator panel.

As a treat to fellow 40D owners, you can download the presets I created for this tutorial here. You need the Camera Profiles installed for these to work. Update: These seem to work for any Canon camera. The preset seems to just take the appropriate profile for the camera to preview, which means any Canon camera should be previewable from these presets. I'll check with Eric Chan on this.

Update 2. I notice that the Camera Standard, Neutral, Portrait and Adobe Standard also work on Nikon Raw files also (D3 and D70 are the Raw's I have).

Update 3. Here's a set for Nikon users.

LRB Graduated Filter Presets for Lightroom 2

While I provide a lot of free tips, tutorials, and even galleries to users, sometimes I do a little that requires some return on my time.
To aid users in selecting the right look for their landscape images, I've created a set of over 70 Graduated Filter presets to get you started with making creative choices for your images. Covering both landscape and portrait orienations, as well as hard and soft line filters, these filters come in 3 standard colours: ND (Grey), Blue and Tobacco. As is also standard, they come in strengths of 1 stop (0.3), 2 stops (0.6) and 3 stops (0.9). It was a bit of work to create this, but I'm not charging a whole lot for them, just €5.00 (about $7.75). Obviously you can tweak the settings once applied. In fact I positively encourage it!

Why should you pay for these, when you could create them yourself? Well the fact that it takes a bunch of time to put them together is the best reason. Probably more than €5 of your time. Also by running down through the Presets panel on the left of Develop, you can preview them quickly to see how they look with your image. Much quicker than mucking around with sliders.

You can see some of the presets in sample form here: Download Sample Grads

To install these presets, drop the Sample Grads folder into:

User/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Develop Presets on OS X,
C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom\Develop Presets on XP-Note that Application Data is a hidden folder,
C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Develop Presets on Vista,
where User is your login name.
Or you can click on Preferences>Presets>Show Lightroom Presets Folders to open this folder in Finder/Explorer. Then open the Develop Presets folder from there.

The full version folder contains 4 Sub folders, place these folders in the Develop Preset location mentioned above.
You can also Right click on a preset or folder and import them from within Develop, which is fine for a small amount of presets, but for folders, manually placing them and restarting Lightroom is quicker.

The 4 folders are:
Grads: Hard-Landscape
Grads: Hard-Portrait
Grads: Soft-Landscape
Grads: Soft-Portrait
Hard Grads have a tight transition, which Soft Grads user a wider transition. Landscape and Portrait Grads need to be separate as they don't rotate. The 3 colours (ND, Blue and Tobacco) come in 1, 2, and 3 stops varieties, equivalent to 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 in standard filter terminology. Also as most Landscape photographers use the Rule of Thirds to compose, each type is set on the bottom and top third, allowing you to choose the nearest one quickly. To change the filter, click on the pin to select it (Press M to activate Grad Filter in Develop, if it's not open). Drag the pin to move the centre of the grad, and the outside lines to make it softer or harder. Finally click the colour chip to change the tint. The Blue and Tobacco colours I've chosen are simply ones I like. You may prefer a redder Tobacco, or different blue. Actually then ones I have look similar to the Cokin set I own, so I was trying to get close to them.




To Download, add them to the cart. Payment is Paypal via E-junkie, but can also take Credit Card. Once Paypal sends notification, an email will be sent with a download code.
Windows user that experience security issues related to downloaded Zip files should try an alternate decompressor such as 7-Zip.
Update: On the advice of Richard Earney, I've rezipped with BetterZip to remove Mac related components. Please let me know it you're still experiencing trouble after redownloading. Also rather than clicking on the link in the email, copy and paste it into your web browser. This works fine for me using XP under boot camp.

Update #2: I've found one of the presets had an incorrect value which has been fixed and the packages reloaded. Please download again. Apologies. I did check them before I posted, but somehow missed one.

Update #3: A few people commented the Portrait grads were upside down. Well, they're not.. They just shoot upside down! Seriously though you should turn the camera so you shoot with the shutter button up. It makes the camera more stable. Anyway for those that shoot upside-down, I added another 36 presets, duplicating the normal ones, but upside down. In fact they probably got more love!

A look at the sets:



Here's roughly how they look, first the hard set, then the soft.

Please note that VAT is charged in the EU

Lightroom @ Outdoor Images

David M Knoble has been popping in and out of Lightroom Forums.net recently and a recent answer of his led me to his blog. Wow, what a busy guy. Using recently published figures for wavelengths of the sliders in HSL (from Chris Brandon), David created some Black and White presets that are available for download. Along with those, he also has been a prolific poster about Lightroom over the last few months. Well worth a look.

Adobe Lightroom FREE Presets

Heather Green has complied a list of Adobe Lightroom FREE Presets

It's quite comprehensive and includes Inside Lightroom and of course, Matt's presets from Lightroom Killer Tips. Also included are presets from users, as well as the free WOW! collection from onOne software.

Well worth a look.