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How to install presets for Lightroom Classic CC
Presets are sets of predefined photo editing steps. They work in Adobe Lightroom, but also in other programs. They are easy to use - a single click activates the preset and automatically performs many image adjustments. There are many presets available for a variety of photo genres, such as quick editing of portraits, landscapes, street photos, product shots. You can also create your own preset and save it. Let's have a look in more detail in this post and learn how to install them into Adobe Lightroom Classic CC.
Presets adjust tonality, contrast, saturation, color, add a vignette, local toning, and many other adjustments for overall enhancement.
There are more general presets, such as warming, softening, or tonal color, and other presets that tune the photo directly into the atmosphere of a particular place or situation. Venice at night, Maldives beach or New York night streets.
Presets - definition
Presets are computer files that you install in Lightroom. They usually have the extension .xmp and in the older versions .lrtemplate. You can find them in the Lightroom in the Develop module on the left side of the Presets panels. Some presets are already pre-installed in Lightroom. There will also appear new presets that you install in Lightroom.
Go to the preset and see the preview in Navigator.
If you hover over the preset but do not press the mouse button at the top left of the Navigator window, you will see a preview of what the image will look like when the preset is activated. If you click on the selected preset, a set of pre-set steps is activated, and the image is automatically edited. You can then fine-tune your edits using the tools in the right panel of the Develop module.
Let's look at how to install presets.
Let's start with older versions of Adobe Lightroom (4, 5, 6 and cc 2017)
After searching the Internet, download the preset to your computer, to any folder you choose. Preset is usually packed in .zip or .rar archive.
- Expand the archive - for example, by double-clicking on its name.
- Open the Lightroom / Preferences / Presets tab at the top of the Lightroom.
- Click Show Lightroom Presets Folder. This will open the disk folder where the Lightroom settings are stored.
- Open the Develop Presets folder in this folder.
- Copy the folder with downloaded and zipped presets to the Develop Presets folder, or just one separate preset - file with extension .lrtemplate
- Turn Lightroom off and on again to load new presets into the menu.
- Done. You can find the installed presets in the Develop module on the left in the Presets panel.
If you copy the entire directory, it becomes a folder.
If you copy the whole folder of presets into the destination folder in Lightroom, you will see folders - imported folders after restarting Lightroom (turn Lightroom off and on again). When you click on the small arrow on the left, the folder will expand.
If you are copying presets to the destination folder - files with the extension .lrtemplate - you will probably find them in the preset list at the bottom of the presets.
Now let's install presets in the latest current version of Adobe Lightroom Classic CC.
Here, the process is even easier than previous versions of Lightroom. The presets are used in zipped form during installation. Here is critical the moment that you do not unzip this file and Lightroom can handle it and unzip it in the background automatically.
Another difference is the format of preset files. Currently, .xmp is used, which is very small and easy to work with.
Open Adobe Lightroom Classic CC and go to the Develop module.
- On the top left side click the “+” sign in the Preset section.
- Click Import Presets
- Now click on the zip file downloaded and saved on your hard disk
- A new group of presets is now prepared, and you can use it.
- So choose your image in Lightroom Classic.
- Go to Develop module and choose any preset – in our case we select one of the SUNSET presets, and it is applied to your image on one click
Now comes an essential part. By applying the preset, you are not finished. You have to make final adjustments because each image is different, has special lighting or color map. So to achieve the best result, you have to make some final adjustments in Lightroom settings in every single case.
Now comes an essential part. By applying the preset, you are not finished. You have to make final adjustments because each image is different, has very specific lighting or color map. So to achieve the best result, you have to make some final adjustments in Lightroom settings in every single case.
Final adjustments
What I usually don't put in a preset is, for example, Exposure setting. This parameter is very individual and is set individually for each image. It is also necessary to work very carefully with the "Presence" setting group
Texture, Clarity
The most recent variable, "Texture," allows you to increase the contrast and overall sharpening. If you have the ambition to edit a given image further in Photoshop, I do not recommend using this parameter intensively but rather do sharpening in Photoshop. "Clarity" enhances the general contrast and is useful to use but with sensitivity and very gently.
Dehaze
Also interesting is the "Dehaze" function, which is useful if you have a picture that is taken during the day when there is a haze. This causes a reduction in contrast and a specific nebula present throughout the image. And just the Dehaze parameter is trying to remove this nebula.
Vibrance & Saturation
As for Vibrance and Saturation settings, I personally only use Vibrance. I usually do the Saturation setting when processing an image in Photoshop. However, if you are processing a photo with the final output from Lightroom to display on the web (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, ...), you can also use the Saturation enhancement right here in Lightroom.
Another interesting group of parameters is HSL (Hue, Saturation, Luminance).
With Hue, you adjust the shades of individual colors and change them the way you want the colors to appear in the resulting image.
For example, if you want the shades of yellow in your image to be more on the greener side than orange, move the slider to the right.
The Saturation parameter does not need to be explained separately. You increase the Saturation of colors you need to highlight.
Luminance is very useful. For example, I use it when I want to achieve more drama in the sky. When you realize that the sky during the day is mostly made up of shades of Bdramalue or Aqua color, I move these sliders to the left and reduce the luminance of these color shades to achieve a separate darkening and thus a higher drama of the whole sky.
Lens Corrections.
In this section, I personally always set the following parameters by clicking: Remove Chromatic Aberration and Enable Profile Corrections. Typically, Lightroom automatically detects the type of lens you used when shooting and sets the entire image to match the lens. This is useful, for example, because it largely eliminates so-called color fringing. It also reduces the distortion of the image, which can be quite significant if, for example, you shoot architecture using a wide-angle lens.
Of course, you can also set Lens corrections manually in the second tab "Manual." This can be beneficial if the image distortion is extreme or if there is a color fringing of a specific color. Then you can use the slider to reduce the color fringing that is most visible in the image.
It is worth mentioning "Vignetting", which I sometimes use to frame frames by pulling the slider gently to the left and it darkens the edges. In this way, I can make the viewer focus on the center or the main object in the picture.
We will talk about other setting groups in other articles.
Final thoughts
Finally, I would like to mention how often I use Presets in Adobe Lightroom. I have to admit that until recently, I was pretty unbelieving about the Presets, but when I tried them, I use them regularly, and I can't imagine my editing workflow without them. Adobe Lightroom presets fantastically save time. For example, if you have thousands of holiday pictures, it is always good to use presets in the first stage and then fine-tune some of the images if necessary. It happened to me that using presets, it was then enough to fine-tune two or three parameters, and the photo was ready and ready to be published on Instagram or even for printing.
It is good to have as many presets as possible and always use which one is most suitable for the photo. As I mentioned in this article, the advantage is that if you edit a specific image is enough if you pass the mouse over the individual presets and immediately see their application to the edited image without having to click the mouse.
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