If you’re anything like me, then you’ve probably seen a lot of people talk about how to save presets in lightroom and how to create a preset in Lightroom CC. It sounds complicated, but it’s actually quite simple! In this article we’ll go over the basics of saving presets and creating your own custom preset – so that next time someone asks “How do I make my photos look like yours?” You can answer confidently: “It’s easy!”
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When To Create Lightroom Presets
Before we get into how to save presets in Lightroom and how to create a preset in lightroom, let’s talk about when it would be appropriate.
There are three main times that I find myself digging out my custom presets:
– When editing new photos (new session)
– After importing an old photo collection from my hard drive
– When editing for an ad campaign or a specific set of photos (i.e. landscape, family session)
Below we’ll walk through how to create your Lightroom presets:
Open Your Photo In Develop Panel
– Select the photo you want to edit.
Click on Develop Tab at The Top of Your Screen
The first step is quite simple – click on the develop tab at the top of your screen, which will bring up all sorts of options for editing photos inside lightroom. Make sure that “preset” is selected from one of the options at the top of your screen.
Set Your Profile and White Balance
– Select your profile and white balance first. The “camera calibration” section has a wide variety of colors to pick from, so I typically just try each color until I find the one that matches my photo best. You can also click on other buttons within this option – such as “auto tone”. Sometimes it works great, sometimes it doesn’t!
Remember that if you don’t like a preset’s settings after applying it to a particular photo, you can always modify them later.
If you shoot a variety of genres or styles, or if you simply like many Profiles, consider setting up presets for each one!
Apply Profile Corrections
Lens aberrations are inevitable in almost every shot. The specifics depend on your lens, which is why Lightroom includes profiles for a large range of lenses: This can be done by going to the Lens Corrections panel and checking Enable Profile Corrections: If Lightroom has a profile matching your lens’s manufacturer and model – and it almost certainly will! – the profile adjustments will be applied automatically. I’d also recommend turning on Remove Chromatic Aberration, which will eliminate any fringing and is always a smart idea.
Click The Preset Button
Next, you’ll hit the Preset’s Plus icon in the Presets panel.
Select Settings For Your Preset
After you hit the Preset’s Plus icon, a new window should pop up, where you’ll give your preset a name and then select a folder to save it in.
To create a new preset, go to the menu at the top of the screen and choose “Presets.” Then pick your preferred settings to save as your custom preset. If you’re creating an editing preset like the one I described above, check all is fine; but if you’ve decided to make a more targeted one, only select certain options.
Hit The Create Button
After all of your settings are selected, you’ll simply hit the create button at the bottom of the panel to create your preset.
Applying Your Preset Settings When Importing Photos
To apply the prepared preset to your photos upon importing them, open the Import window: Then go to the Apply During Import section and choose a Develop Settings menu from the correct preset: (This is when utilizing many presets saves time because you can select the best preset for each photo.) Then, when you click Import, Lightroom applies the settings from your selected preset!
