How to install presets for Lightroom Mobile

Step-by-Step guide on how to install Lightroom mobile presets

Do you like to edit your photographs directly on the mobile phone as you are traveling and taking a picture with your Android or iPhone? Adobe has a free application called Lightroom CC. And this app allows you to use the presets. If you are interested in how to install Lightroom presets and especially for Lightroom mobile this article is for you.

I do usually use the desktop version to apply or edit any preset, but it is a good idea to have it also installed on your mobile phone. Especially when you travel and want to send the pictures on the go.

This guide explains how to use DNG files as a preset for Lightroom mobile and how to install and apply DNG file presets.

DNG is Digital Negative and was introduced by Adobe to bring a standard to raw files from various manufacturers. This format can be used by multiple hardware and software. End-users can use DNG format to store or re-use raw images from camera manufacturers as one standard format.

DNG files can also be used as a medium holding all information of complex settings that can be re-used on other images. So let’s start with the guide:

1. Open Lightroom CC app on your phone

Tap the Lr icon on your mobile phone after you installed the Lightroom mobile CC. This operation requires an Adobe ID, so fist you have to register on Adobe.

 

2. Create a new album

You can create a new album by tapping the "Create an Album" - in case you haven't created one yet. Or tap the + sign and create a new album this way.

3. Give the album an appropriate name

Give an appropriate name to this new album. Bear in mind this album will be the container of a new set of presets. In this case, we will name it "Monochrome presets" as we're going to install 10 presets for monochrome black & white photography effects.

4. Tap on the newly created album to get into it.

5. Now tap on three dots menu at the top right corner.

6. Tap the submenu  "Add Photos"

7. Choose "From Files"

 

8. Now choose the source.

This should be your cloud storage, where you have unzipped all downloaded DNG files–presets. In my case, it is Dropbox.

9. Tap Select Option on the top and select all DNG files

This files ar particular DNG files representing all presets you purchased or downloaded from an author or publisher.

10. Tap Open.

Wait until all files are displayed and placed into the new album we created. This operation could last a little bit longer, depending on the file sizes as well as your connection quality.

11. Now is everything set to use new presets. So select one of presets and tap on it.

Selecting the presets means you find an image (preset) and tap on it.

12. Tap on three dots menu on the top right corner and select Copy Settings and click OK.

13. Now choose your photo you would like to apply the preset to.

14. Tap on three dots menu on the top right corner and select Paste settings and the preset is applied to your image

Summarization.

From the point you installed new presets, you will use the following routine to apply a preset to your photography. That is quite simple:

  • First, check your image and try to visually analyze the overall lighting conditions, color setting, and composition.
  • Go to the library, where you have saved your presets - DNG files.
  • Choose the one you want to apply to your image.
  • Copy  Settings (copy the settings of the preset - source image)
  • Return to your own image and select Paste Settings.
  • You're done

 

So now you have a clue on how to install Lightroom presets. It is a little bit different comparing to presets for Lightroom Classic CC. But fine-tuning after applying the preset is always needed in both versions of Lightroom. You will never have the same picture as the creator of the preset. There will be different lighting, color toning, and so on. Your image was taken at the different conditions comparing to the preset source. There is very often a disappointed customer that is waiting for the exact look as he saw on the preset image presented on the seller's website. Now, you can say what is the preset good for if it doesn't produce the same exact results. Well, you're right, but it saves a lot of time, and in most cases, you will get the desired results by fine-tuning just a couple of parameters.

So let's have a look at what is the most common situation here. 

Exposure 

Exposure is the parameter I never change in my Lightroom presets. Let you analyze your particular image individually after applying the preset and decide whether you need to fine-tune exposure afterward. If so just go to the submenu Light where you will find the Exposure slider and set the desired value by moving it to left or right.

Curve

Curve is a powerful tool allowing you to increase the contrast or even edit particular colors and achieve detailed results in very small detail. Tap the Curve icon and try to create an "S" curve to increase the contrast. Then choose particular color buttons at the bottom and set specific values by changing the curve up or down to increase or decrease the intensity of the selected color.

Color 

This menu allows you to set all parameters of practically every color. Tap the Color menu at the bottom and choose the Color mix submenu. Then you can select all colors and then set three main parameters Hue, Saturation and Luminance. It allows you to not only set all these parameters but will enable you to make creative changes to make your images exceptional. You can give your image attractive bluish color tones to emphasize night scene. Or you can add more golden tones to increase the impact of your sunset landscape photo. For example, if you have grass on your image, you can make it greener by selecting the yellow color and moving the Hue slider more to the right side.

Additionally, do the same with the Green color to achieve even stronger effect. Another tip could be to enhance a nice blue sky: select the blue color and move the Luminance slider to the left side. This will darken all blue parts of the image, which is mainly in the sky.

Vignette.

Let’s start to make final enhancements. One of the most impressive effects is image vignette. You can find it under the menu Effects. It allows you to lead the viewer’s eyes to the middle of the image or to the focused point. By moving the Vignette slider to the left side, you’ll darken the edges of the picture. Midpoint slider takes control of the size of the dark part of the corners and bright part in the middle. Feather slider defines the softness of the gradient between edges and midpoint itself. Roundness determines if the gradient will be rounded or elliptical.

Detail.

In the menu detail, you can set two essential groups of parameters. It's Sharpening and Noise reduction. The two settings stand on the opposite sides and exclude each other. This means that if I raise Sharpening, the level of Noise will also increase, which of course we don't want. And vice versa, if we increase Noise reduction, we will lose detail and generally suffer Sharpening the whole photo. Therefore, it is necessary to adjust these parameters very carefully and always watch if we overdo something

Sharpening.

As for sharpening, I usually am quite cautious because even a small oversharpening can significantly undermine the quality of the whole photo. Use the Sharpening slider to set the Sharpening rate. Typically, I do not set more than 50. We can fine-tune the overall sharpening with the Radius slider. Also, the Detail slider helps to fine-tune the entire photo.

Noise Reduction.

The essential slider is Noise Reduction. If we move it to the right, we increase the noise reduction. Photos usually contain monochromatic noise, but in exceptional cases, they may also contain color noise. This is then reduced or completely removed using Color Noise Reduction.

Optics.

When you use DSLR with the interchangeable lens, you should always have both Remove Chromatic Aberration as well as Enable Lens corrections buttons set to on.

Remove Chromatic Aberration helps many times in situations when you have high contrast areas on your image such as the bright sky and dark parts like trees branches or detailed house roofs and so on. With Enable Lens Corrections, you can remove unwanted picture deformations. A good example is when you shoot architectural photography with a wide-angle lens.

Geometry.

I very often use Geometry submenu mainly for setting the straight horizont using Rotate slider. Then it could happen you will lose part of the image pixels, especially in the corners as a result of rotating. If it is not too much, you can use Scale slider and slightly increase the scale. It will cover the whole area of the original image without substantial-resolution loose.

Selective Edits.

In case you want to make selective changes or enhancements, you can use Selective submenu. As you tap Selective you will be notified at the very bottom of the page you're now in Selective Edits.

Now you have to tap the Plus sign at the right top corner, and then the three options appear. It is the Brush, Radial Gradient, and Linear Gradient. So, for example, tap the Linear gradient and drag the gradient from top to bottom. You will make a mask that will define the area of the following effect to be applied. So if I now go to the Light submenu and try to decrease Exposure slider, you will see how the top part of the image becomes darker. Exactly as the gradient mask was drawn in the previous step. Similarly, you can make selective edits by the brush and brush only the area of the image where you would like to apply the effect.

Conclusion.

So as you can see, installing the Lightroom mobile presets is quite simple but more critical is always fine-tuning the image afterward to get the desired visual results. It is good to apply selected presets to similar pictures as the author of the preset is showing on the before / after example image. And / or fine-tune it precisely afterward. It is, therefore, always good to have more presets to cover various photographic situations and lighting conditions and the process of how to install Lightroom presets you now have described here.

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