Lightroom Editing Presets - Are they good or bad?

By

Chris Ewen Crosby

If you are using Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, Camera RAW, or any other RAW editing application, then you’ve probably heard of presets. Presets are pre-saved Camera RAW or Photoshop settings that can be applied to any other image. It is a quick way to apply settings from one edit to another. They can be a handy tool if you have a set of images that are very similar, taken at the same time, and in similar light. Presets can be created that vary in tone, contrast, color, sharpness and can have many adjustment tools added to create a feel for a photo that can used again on future edits. With this in mind, presets are now sold as a one click solution to editing your photos.

Google Search for lightroom presets with 28,800,000 results!

If you are just getting into editing your photos in a RAW format then I’m sure you have felt the struggle of learning how to use a new application. There are many sliders and it seems that any slider used to an extreme can destroy a photo quickly. When I first started editing I couldn’t seem to get my photos to look like the images that were inspiring me. I watched tons of tutorials on how to improve my editing and considered presets as well. I felt that presets might help me to see how others were editing their photos and in turn improve mine, but after my own research I found them to be almost useless for me.

With the photography boom of the last few years, lots of photographers and cell phone snipers are looking for ways to edit their photos in creative ways. Presets are now sold by companies, photographers and artists advertising to improve your pictures or create certain moods easily. So should you invest in presets? This question I have asked myself and now I’m going to explore with you. Are they really worth if you want to improve your editing? My past stance and personal opinion is that they would be bad for your overall editing and learning. However, after really thinking about this over the last week I think there are some positives and negatives to presets. Let’s lay them out.

The Good

If you are just starting out with RAW files then you are probably searching for the correct way to edit your photos. Even the most basic of functions, such as the basic panel in Lightroom or White Balance, can be a real bother in the beginning. So, purchasing presets from a favorite artist of yours may help you to see how they are using Lightroom to adjust their images. You may pick up a thing or two from going through their presets settings, that’s good right? You may also pick up some more advanced techniques if that’s what you are looking for as well. Depending on the preset, some of them can be quite full of adjustment tools and you may pick up some neat techniques that you might not find anywhere else.

At some point in the editing process there is a creative boundary to cross and once over you are in a realm where creativity takes over and you must improvise and create new things and techniques. Each photographer has some adaptations of techniques that are almost unique to them. Learning these techniques is very valuable to your own editing arsenal and could push you towards things your hadn’t thought of doing. Think of editing like learning how to paint, the teacher can teach you how to hold the brush and techniques, but you must learn how to paint in your mind eye.

One thing’s for certain, presets are a quick solution in many ways. Presets can be used quickly and easily to apply the same edit over multiple files. A great example of this would be if you were a wedding or portrait photographer and had a set of photos that were all taken in the same light and at the similar times. Using a preset in these situations will save a huge amount of time. Whether you create your own preset or purchase one to use on your photos, it will greatly increase your workflow and help you to edit more photos faster. Even a landscape photographer might find this useful when editing photos taken during a trip that are under the same type of lighting.

Presets can also be useful for those that are editing on cell phones. For those shooters that are still using a cell phone only, lightroom mobile can be used on your cell phone to edit your photos using presets. Presets can be very handy in a mobile environment to allow you to edit quickly and easily without too much trouble. If I was editing on a cell phone I would certainly have presets to quickly edit and not have to worry about editing on a small screen

Preset Menu in Lightroom Classic CC via Develop Module

Presets can help you create your own aesthetic. If you don't know what aesthetic is, it's basically like your own editing style or your artistic vision. A definition of aesthetic is “a set of principles underlying and guiding the work of particular artist or artistic movement.” Having a preset can help you to create a more unified gallery with a similar look. When I was first starting to edit as a photographer, I often was envious of photographers that had a good aesthetic on their profile. Purchasing some presets with some good set styles or making your own presets , will help you to create that estetic quickly.

In conclusion there's lots of positives out there for those that can use presets to improve their workflow and you can also learn some techniques that you might not know. However I'm about to make an argument against all of these positives and show you why presets are not something you should invest in if you want to improve your own editing.

The Bad

Okay, so why all the hate for presets? Like I mentioned above I think that presets can be very useful for certain types of photographers, but overall if you want to learn how to edit and create your own style and images then you're going to need to stay away from them. Let’s explore why.

Many of the advertisements that I see out there for presets show a before and after where they've created a fantastic looking image using their preset. The image they are using could have been the image they used to develop the preset and it fits perfectly because that preset was made for that image. While most of these advertisements show a greatly improved images, you must ask yourself, is this preset going to make my image look fantastic? The answer is yes, but you'll need to make adjustments from what you get right away. Knowing what I know now, after years of editing, I can safely tell you that you're going to have to adjust this preset to match your image. Reality is you're going to make the same adjustments that you'd be making without the preset, but the preset does provide a starting point or set a type of color esthetic for you to follow.

I feel that presets aren’t going to really teach you how to edit. You will learn some techniques, but not understand how they are applied and the choices that led to the use that technique. When you see a technique in a preset it was most likely developed on a specific style of photo. How and if that technique is applicable to the photo you have is up in question. You are much better off learning these techniques via a tutorial because you’ll hear thoughts and reasons to use a certain technique from the artist. He or she will most likely explain the range of situation and amounts to use of a technique. You’ll come away with a better understanding of how to apply the skills that you are learning.

The next point I’d like to bring up surrounds an uncreative style and esthetic. If you are purchasing a preset from a popular artist, there are going to be many others with that same preset and your style might start to blend with other artists. I think it’s important to find your own style. While you might get away with looking a lot like other artists, you are much better served in the long run by finding your own unique style. This is difficult to accomplish if you purchase a preset from an artist selling to hundreds, if not thousands of other users. You cannot buy your own editing style, it comes from lots of practice and development of skills though hundreds of edits, as well as, in field shooting techniques. Some say that to be great at something it takes 10,000 hours. You can’t skip over these hours, you simply have to put them in and pay your dues.

Conclusion

Presets can be a handy tool to certain photographers and editing situations, but for unique and stunning edits you’re going to need to learn how to edit without a starting block. Edits cannot be done in one-click and no preset is going to work perfectly to every photo. If you are looking into presets consider what I’ve written above and decide what your ultimate goal is in your editing. If you want to be an artist with your edits then look into other artists skill by way of video tutorials or private editing sessions. In depth tutorials and workshops are the best solution to learning the thought process behind an artists work. I have found my best learning to come from these avenues and I know you will to.

How do you feel about presets? Drop me a comment below and let me know you thoughts. Scroll down to see some tutorials I offer and images edited without the use of presets.

Below you’ll see some tutorials I offer and some images that have been edited without the use of presets.

Milky Way Workflow Tutorial