With the introduction of Adobe Lightroom and the Develop Module preset, Adobe unleashed a myriad of potential options for your images. Now I will not get into proper use of presets (what is “too much” etc., as that is almost more of a debate than if you should use Canon or Nikon. On that note, its all about experimentation. Will one preset work for 1000’s of images? The answer is usually “sort of” based on some being terrible and some being great with the majority ending up post processed as just OK? This can be solved by limiting what your preset does to the images then still taking the time per image to tweak them to make all the results that much better.
Presets will save you piles of time, they will give you great effects that take a long time to pull off with just lighting (if they can be done conventionally at all), but they also will transform your photography into being very dependent on the post process vs. ending with a complete result in the camera. It is up to you to make that determination in your own career if that is acceptable or not.
Personally I love presets, add-ins, plugins, etc. They are all tools in my photo toolbox. Some are expensive and others are free. The beauty of most presets is they are not only free but you can easily tweak and update settings from a crude starting point or just look at presets you really like and then try to replicate them based on your own eye and needs for your specific photography.
I have been collecting plugins for over a year now, I basically have a folder on my machine I toss them in as I find them on the net and then experiment with them as I am looking for a new look or looking to refresh older images on days like today when its cold and raining. I took these and posted them on my site for download, most as I know them are published as free or open source, if they are not and you think I need to give you credit for it, please just shoot me a note and happily will, many sites out there offer plugins, most are very complicated or ad driven, I just wanted a place I could send my friends to that is easy to use. I am trying to post a sample image with each one but it will be some time before I can accomplish that, for the time being enjoy and allow these plugins to force you to broaden your horizons when it comes to post processing in Lightroom.
Free, Searchable Lightroom Preset Library for all to use and use to create your own presets.
If you would like to add your preset to this library please just email me and I will get it posted up with your credits, description and link to your site.
If you built one of these presets, please let me know and I can update the information.
I can take credit for only a few of these the rest should have proper links to their creators as far as I know them. Sadly most of these are not able to be tracked down but that does not remove their helpfulness when using Lightroom.
brent@blackdiamondproductions.net
The Presets can be accessed via any of the following links:
or the hard link on my site: http://blackdiamondproductions.net/blog/tips-and-tricks/lightroom-presets/
