Photography 101 - Creating Presets (Patreon)

One of the most powerful features of Adobe Lightroom is the ability to create presets. Presets allow you to copy attributes and settings of one photo, to any other number of photos you desire all with one simple click. 

Think of presets as "filters" for lightroom. Do you have a distinct style that you like to re-create for certain shoots? It's as easy as making a preset and then simply tweaking to your needs!

To get started you'll first need to edit a photo to give it a look, here I've edited a darkly lit photo to proper white balance, as well as some color calibration to really make it pop! You can see the original on the left and the finished product on the right.

Once you've gotten your look down it's time to create your preset! On the left panel scroll all the way to the top and click on the plus symbol to the right of the word "Presets"

On the dropdown menu click "Create Preset" and you'll be presented with the following menu

On this menu be sure to name your preset, then you can select a group for it to fall under - I have mine separated into black and white presets followed by color presets, but of course organize these however you wish. 

The checkboxes determine what settings will be applied to the preset. Be very careful here with settings such as "Lens Corrections" for if you use multiple lenses and cameras it can get screwed up when pasting to photos using different lenses. 

After you are happy just click create and you are done! Now you can apply your preset in two ways.

The first way is within the develop module, on the list to the left simply hovering over a preset will show you a preview of what it will look like if it is applied to your photo. If you click on it, it applies itself instantly!

The second method is to apply the preset to multiple files at once, to do this, switch back to your library view and highlight the photos you wish to apply the preset to. On the right hand side under "Quick Develop" you'll see a dropdown for "Saved Preset" Click here and select your preset and it will instantly be applied to all of your selected images!

The thing about presets though is that they aren't a shortcut to just being finished editing your images. They are simply a jumping off point in most cases. Once you apply them you will often have to tweak key settings for your given lighting and environment. In this instance, the darkroom setting is off on white balance and exposure, after tweaking those two values the photo is finished and ready for export! It may not be a one click and done solution in all cases, but it will get you a lot further along when editing a photo (notice the before on the left without any edits applied)

One last nice little feature is that once you are happy with a tweak to a preset, you can easily update it by simply right clicking the preset on the left panel and choosing "Update with Current Settings"

So get out there, create some presets, don't be afraid to experiment and tweak along the way!! It won't be long before you have a nice little collection of starting points for your edits, saving you ever so important time and therefore money in the process.