Richard Earney has an excellent pdf guide to everything preset related over on his Inside-Lightroom website. Richard does a far better job than I did of explaining the structure that underlies Lightroom’s preset model. The 14 page pdf can be downloaded here. The explanation of the Lightroom configuration file start on page 5.
Richard’s site also acts as a fantastic resource for keeping track of all the free Lightroom presets that are out in the wild.
I am a big fan of the Lightroom Preset model. It was one of the reasons I switched over from Apple’s Aperture. In one click you can apply a series of develop settings to one or multiple images, making your workflow extremely efficient.
There is also the artistic side of Lightroom presets. A number of vendors and fellow enthusiasts have found some “secret sauce” settings to save as presets which give some really nice effects.
But what do you do if you purchase or download a free preset that doesn’t quite give you the effect you require?
For instance, I am a user of Gavin Seim’s Power Workflow Presets for Lightroom. I really like one particular effect but would like to reduce the Black level that is applied. Perhaps in your case you find a preset adds too much saturation, too little vibrancy, or it does an auto white balance which you don’t like. Well surely it’s easy to fix? - you simply fine tune the develop settings and save it as a new preset. Well you could but how do you know what actual settings are contained within that preset?
As hinted at in my previous post, one of my favourite photoblogs can be found at Chromasia.com.
This multi-award winning site features the work of David and Libby Nightingale who are based in Blackpool, the well-known seaside town in the North West of England. David and Libby commonly feature various Blackpool landmarks in their daily photoblog and being in their area at the weekend
I was inspired to try and emulate one of my favourite images, and also to make an attempt at a “Chromasia-look” preset in Lightroom.
Today’s image is an “infrared” version of “River Spirit”.
“River Spirit” is a sculpture by the world-renowned Scottish artist Andy Scott. This sculpture was commissioned by Clackmannanshire Council and resides on the Collylands Roundabout between Alloa and Alva close to where I live.
Andy’s works of public art, which are made from individually welded pieces of metal, have appeared all over the world.
Andy has recently revamped his own website and I’m very proud to have an earlier photograph of his work included on the site ( click on “works”, “more works” and then the bottom right icon for “River Spirit” ).
This new “infrared” image was done using Gavin Seim’s Black and White presets collection - this is “Infrared Velvet Dark” and in my opinion, turns a colour image into what I believe is a striking monochrome photograph. It’s certainly a lot easier than buying an infrared filter and trying to do it in-camera (that’s assuming your camera is up to it - sadly the D200 has too strong a filter - the D50 is an ideal candidate for those that have one).
Gavin Seim, professional Wedding and Portrait photographer and producer of the “Pro Photography Show” podcast, has updated his very useful “Power Workflow” presets for Lightroom to version 1.7.
The update provides an additional “mirrored” set of presets which will now operate on JPEG files as well as RAW. Previously applying the presets to JPEG files could give inconsistent results - whereas Gavin has now fine-tuned the presets to properly support JPEG as well as RAW.
Existing users, like me, will already have received an email from Gavin providing a free upgrade.
For new users the package of presets represents good value for money at $29.99 for a suite of over 60 presets.
You can read more about Gavin’s presets here.