Making the Most of Presets
When I first started to take photo editing seriously, I came across all sorts of folks selling presets (and still do, of course - including me). At the time, I didn’t think anything about it, because I wanted to create my own looks and not “copy” someone else’s style. So I never bought any. I felt like if I got their presets, I would lose control over my edit. But I was wrong, and I did things the hard way for a long time. Nowadays, I think presets are a great way to start editing, and a great educational tool as well. That’s why I offer so many free presets, and sell packs in my store. Let's get into it!
If you are new to a program, or new to editing in general, presets can be super helpful. They can give you a starting point for your edit, and in some rare cases they can even get you a true “one click” result. But that is rare, and I don’t think that is always the best way to think about presets. Generally speaking, after using a preset you will need want/need to fine tune the result. But still, getting a solid start is always useful, especially if you are new and are not sure how all the tools work.
Even if you aren’t new to editing, a preset can give you a sense of direction for your edit. It can launch you down a path that aligns with your vision, and in some cases it can even launch you in a new direction that you never considered, and likely wouldn’t come up with on your own. This is the fun part of using presets - sort of like discovering new roads to travel down in a foreign place. You never know what you will find at the end of them! You can “audition” them quickly and easily to get a good idea of which one to use.
Another great reason to use a preset is to help you learn the tools, by taking advantage of someone else’s vision and experience. They create a preset, you use it - and then you can go look at the individual tools/sliders that comprise the preset and see how it was made. It’s like a professional chef handing you a recipe. You get a peek inside the mind of another user who has possibly been using the tool longer, or doing things with it that you haven’t yet discovered on your own. It’s a great assistant to your editing journey as well as your own educational growth.
Here are a few tips for getting the most out of presets:
Experiment with lots of presets by previewing them. This is step #1 and will give you a wide variety of options to view. This is the “window shopping” phase and I think it's critical. All you are doing is auditioning looks to see what might get you excited. It’s like walking by the buffet to see what’s on offer today. You have a lot of choices.
After selecting a preset, the next step is to dive into the tools. This is where the learning really begins. I recommend you open each of the tools used in the preset, and then move the sliders around a bit. This will show you exactly what each slider did to the photo, which is how you can learn them. Pay close attention to all the tonal areas. Pay close attention to the color shifts. Experiment by moving the sliders to extreme levels, just to make the changes more visible. Then ratchet them back to more agreeable levels, once you know what you are looking for. You can’t screw things up here. You can always reset the image to its original form and reapply the same preset to start over, if you need to.
Turn on/off each tool to see the impact. Once you have completed the previous step, turn off each tool, one at a time, so you can see the overall impact it had on the photo. This is similar to the last step, but different. The last step was about looking closely to see where the slider is impacting the photo, and how. This step is “backing up” and taking a more global view to see how the slider has changed the overall look of the image.
Save your own presets. Take whichever preset you like, make any necessary customizations as per the above, and then be sure to save it under a new name. You can name them anything of course, but it may be helpful to just take the name of the original preset and add “adjusted” or “update” or “version 2” etc. That way you know which preset it’s based on, in case you care about that. Over time, you may not care, but early on it may be helpful.
If you want some free presets to experiment with, you can subscribe to my newsletter below and you will get quite a few presets for Luminar Neo. I also offer a number of paid packs in my store if you are interested.
Thanks for checking them out and I hope you found this helpful!
