One of the questions that people ask me most often, is how I edit my pictures. There’s a 50/50 split between taking pictures on my phone and with my DSLR, but when I do take pictures with my camera I edit them in Adobe Lightroom and I have my go-to presets to make the process quicker. One click and bam!
If you’re not familiar with presets, they are a predetermined set of photo edits that work like a “filter”. As opposed to changing contrast, exposure, saturation etc, each time you entire Lightroom, presets help you accomplish all of this at once and are great if you use a consistent editing style like I do.
I tend to go for a bright, clean and contrast-y look to my images, but I do change my style depending on the subject. For example when I’m shooting cocktails I like my colors to pop – that’s what makes people’s mouth water haha. When I’m editing DIY images I like to desaturate those pictures. Let me insert a disclaimer here that I am by no means an expert on photography and/or photo editing, just a girl who has found what works in Lightroom and wants to share with others.
To use these presets you’ll need Adobe Lightroom, as well as a bit of foundational knowledge on how to use the program.
Soleil
This is by far my most-used preset. It’s a bright, desaturated and high contrast edit and it stars in most of those modern minimalist pictures floating around Instagram. It makes whites very bright and colors very deep, and I really like the clean feel it gives to my pictures. When I shoot objects up close, shoot my calligraphy or my DIYs this filter works best for me. This doesn’t work great for portraits of people though, because it fudges up skin tones. Nobody likes fudged up skin tones.
Brooklyn
Here’s a preset that’s perfect for portraits. I also use this for my travel and lifestyle pictures. It gives your pictures a very rich and warm look because of all the golden tones it has in it. Not to mention how much sharper images look with this preset. I don’t typically use this preset with images that have a lot of white in them because it will sometimes give them an overexposed look.
Croix
For most of my food (and some interior) shots, I use my Croix preset. This filter makes colors pop – much like the Soleil preset – but it is is much less desaturated and cold. It gives images a very vibrant look. I created this preset as an homage to the many beautiful food images on Pinterest. This preset is pretty much in-between my other two so 99% of the time it works for portraits too. Again it all depends on the actual image itself.
What’s a free preset if you don’t know how to use it, right? I got you. Simply click on the button below to download the presets to your computer. Click on the .lrt file for each filter – they will then automatically be installed in Lightroom.
To use – go to the Develop window in Lightroom. On the left panel on the screen you’ll see a list of presets. Click on the one you’d like to apply to your pictures and voila! Still need more in-depth knowledge of Lightroom? This post does a great job of explaining what presets are, and how to install and use them.
Remember to share these presets with anyone you think may benefit from them! Have you downloaded and tried them for yourself? Let me know what you think or Send me a picture of your before/after images – I’d love to see how they worked for you!
