
Creating your individual presets in Lightroom is a good way to hurry up your cell enhancing and obtain a constant look to your cell phone photographs that may set your social media feed aside. Realizing create and use presets is an important talent that may dramatically pace up your enhancing.
Preset packs are in the stores all around the web. Some are higher than others in consistency; some simply make you surprise what on Earth went mistaken along with your picture?
I consider the perfect technique of utilizing presets is to create your individual. It helps you develop your individual signature model (as an alternative of emulating a typical “look” that many others should buy and apply), and should you do resolve to buy a set, you’ll have a greater understanding of how they work so you will get the look you need (once more, making it your individual).
How one can create cell Lightroom presets
This technique is feasible within the free model of Lightroom for cell (Android model right here, iOS right here). The steps are tremendous easy:
- Edit a photograph along with your desired settings.
- Click on the three-dot menu after which Create preset.
- Identify your preset: I strongly recommend giving it a reputation that describes the settings concerned, relatively than one thing imprecise. For instance: “Distinction +10 HL -100 Black -60” is extra logical than “Dramatic distinction.” This helps you later when making use of a number of presets to know which settings are being focused (see extra under).
- Choose the Preset Group to avoid wasting your preset into. The default right here is “Consumer Presets” however you’ll be able to (and may) think about creating totally different teams for various functions. Possibly you could have one search for your Instagram photographs and one other for Fb: group them collectively for ease of entry. One other technique of grouping could be to place all of your “device” presets collectively (see under).
- Choose the settings you need included in your preset. This part by default has Instruments, Geometry, and a number of the Optics settings deselected. That is excellent for many presets (once more, extra on this under).
- Click on the tick mark to avoid wasting your preset.
Step 1: Edit picture with desired settings
Step 3. Identify preset and Step 5. Choose settings.
Step 2: Click on Create Preset
Step 4. Group your presets
After getting created your preset, open a brand new picture, scroll proper to the Presets button and select your new preset from the listing. You’ll be able to change the group from Consumer Presets with the drop-down arrow.

The presets will sync along with your desktop model of Lightroom, and vice versa, for any that you simply create on desktop.
Working with cell Lightroom presets
Now that you’ve the essential course of down pat, let’s look at extra intently how presets work and greatest make the most of them in your enhancing.
Initially, no single preset can ship a constant look to each single picture in your digital camera reel. Because of this business preset collections include 4, six, 10 or much more variations on the identical “look” to account for the slight lighting and coloration temperature modifications between pictures.
When you find yourself constructing your individual presets, additionally, you will want to regulate for various situations. Experiment to seek out the perfect settings for direct solar, shade and indoor with synthetic lights, then save these as new presets.
Once you apply a preset, solely the settings you chose in Step 5 above shall be modified. That is extraordinarily helpful. It means you can have totally different “device” presets that concentrate on totally different edit settings.
For instance, you would possibly create a set of presets that solely modify the Colour Mixer (in earlier variations referred to as HSL for hue, saturation, luminance) for various functions: Shifting colours towards orange for a fall look, or darkening inexperienced for a lush look. These device presets might be utilized one after the opposite (clicking the tick in between) with solely these settings focused by the preset being modified (and every little thing else remaining unchanged). That is the place utilizing a logical naming conference (see Step 3 above) turns into very helpful, so you’ll be able to inform which settings you’re concentrating on with every preset.


Even after accounting for various lighting situations by creating quite a lot of presets, I’ve discovered that publicity and coloration temperature don’t play effectively inside presets, so I’ll typically deselect these when creating presets, and modify them manually.
My course of is: Apply my commonplace edit preset, modify publicity and coloration temperature to get pores and skin tones wanting proper, then apply any device presets I feel are wanted (like noise discount, or a Colour Mixer adjustment for styling).
Utilizing cell Lightroom presets on a number of photographs
When you’ve utilized your preset and tweaked it if obligatory, you’ll be able to then copy the settings and paste them to different comparable photographs (search for copy and paste within the three-dot menu). For subscribers to the premium model, you’ll be able to paste to entire batches of photographs within the gallery view (relatively than single photographs solely within the edit view).

Usually, when you end up making the identical modifications to a number of photographs, or copying the identical settings again and again with out making any tweaks, take that as your cue and create a brand new preset. For those who’re enhancing photographs from just one digital camera (e.g. your telephone’s again digital camera) in Lightroom, you’ll shortly work out the vary of presets that you should cowl each totally different lighting state of affairs you shoot in. Once you add one other digital camera into the combination, chances are you’ll have to create a brand new set of presets to hold your model over.
Getting the sunshine/darkish steadiness and coloration temperature constant throughout all of your edited photographs is vital to creating your individual signature model as a photographer.
You’ll be able to consider the preset as a place to begin. It will get your settings into the ballpark of the place you need them, however you’re unlikely to be fully achieved with out tweaking. As you develop your enhancing eye, you’ll know when your {photograph} “feels” like your model, and with time, you’ll have the ability to obtain consistency with ease.