Adobe Lightroom CC Tips, Tricks & Shortcuts | Library Module

March 25, 2019 in Lightroom, Photography for Beginners, Photography

Sharing some Tips, Tricks and Shortcuts in Adobe Lightroom CC! Helping you speed up your workflow.

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How to Install Lightroom Presets PLUS Review of Fix The Photo Presets

October 09, 2018 in Photography for Beginners, Reviews, Lightroom

Lightroom Presets. There’s no doubt that you’ve heard of them, maybe tried some of them, and possibly even created your own. Presets can help speed up your workflow as well as help you create a consistent look among your photos. They are relatively easy to use and in this post, I’m going how you how to install new presets into Adobe Lightroom and share my experience using a set of Landscape Lightroom Presets provided by a company called Fix the Photo.

Recently I had a representative from Fix the photo (www.fixthephoto.com) reach out to me and ask me if I would give some of their presets a try and share my experience using them. In the spirit of transparency, Fix The Photo did provide me with a free set of their Landscape Presets that cost $29 on their website and can be found here: Landscape Presets There are also some FREE presets that you can try out here: Fix The Photo FREE Presets

Who Is Fix the Photo?

Fix the Photo (www.fixthephoto.com) is a company that has been providing photo retouching services and professional photo editing since 2003. They have a wide variety of services to offer that include things such as portrait retouching, wedding photo editing, photo restoration, product retouching to name a few. Check out their website to see all of the services they offer.

Lets Get to the Presets!

Presets are a great way to get started editing your image. They speed up the editing process by applying specific settings to your image. Many times when editing a set of photos there are some basic settings that we use as part of our image style. Instead of having to select all of these develop settings manually, the preset can apply these settings in one click. From there, I’ll usually make some additional tweaks to an image before I’m finished.

If you’re new to presets, the first thing you need to do is download the new presets. Once you’ve downloaded them, the next step is to get them into Lightroom. I’ll be using Lightroom CC on a MacBook Pro and there are several different ways to import them. Adobe Lightroom has now switched preset files from .lrtemplate file types to .XMP file types for presets and I’m going to show you how to import the .lrtemplate files.

Step 1:

Open Lightroom! Once in Lightroom, select ‘Lightroom’ from the top left of the menu bar. Then select ‘Preferences’.

Step 2:

Next, select the tab that says ‘Presets’. About half way down the window under ‘Location’ select ‘Show All Other Lightroom Presets’. We need to use this option since the preset files we have are in the .lrtemplate format. Finder will now open with the location you need to place the presets.

Step 3:

You should now be in the ‘Lightroom’ folder in Finder. Within that folder, select ‘Develop Presets’. Simply Copy (Cmd + C) and Paste (Cmd + V) the entire folder of presets you want to add into this location. Close Finder after you paste in the presets.

Step 4:

Jumping back into Lightroom, close the program and reopen it. Go back into the Develop module and to the ‘Presets’ tab. Lightroom will likely give you a quick message that it is converting the new preset files from .lrtemplate to .xmp files. It will also copy the new preset file types into the new preset directory for Lightroom CC. When Lightroom is finished, you will see the message that all presets were converted to XMP.

Step 5:

Give the new presets a try! You should now see the folder of presets you added under the ‘Presets’ tab. For me the folder is called Landscape Presets_Fix the Photo_Paid

Using Fix The Photo Presets

My first impression of the Fix The Photos Presets is that they are pretty well organized. They are numbered from 1-30, titled as ‘Landscape’ presets and have a brief description of what the preset does. The descriptions are clear and pretty straight forward.

Screen Shot 2018-10-03 at 10.40.12 AM.png

The best way to try the a preset is select a photo, apply each preset to the photo, then see how it looks. One great feature in Lightroom is the ability to hover overtop of a preset name and then Lightroom will show a preview of that preset without having to apply the preset to the image. This allows you to quickly move through a variety of presets to determine which you like best.

Generally you will find certain presets you like and certain presets you don’t like so much. Maybe you like the faded desaturated look. Or maybe you like the bright airy look. I always look at presets as a good starting point for your images. It helps the image go from flat and boring to having some style to it super quick. Then to make it your own, further tweak the image based on how you want the image to feel.

I tried the presets on a bunch of different photos and I chose several photos to show you here. I kept coming back to the ‘Film’, ‘Cinematic’ and ‘Drama’ presets. Once I selected these presets, I’d go ahead and apply a few more corrections to get the image just where I wanted it.

When using presets, you will find that not all presets will work on all images. Some presets work better on bright sunny photos while other work better on dark moody photos. Trial and error is the only what to see what will work on a particular photos type.

If you are looking to give some presets a try, I’d recommend stopping by www.fixthephoto.com and downloading some of their free presets to try. If you like the free ones, trying picking up one of their paid sets of presets. Here are links to both the free landscape presets and the paid landscape preset package that was provided to me.

Landscape Presets Free Bundle

Sunrise Presets Free Bundle

Sunset Presets Free Bundle

Majestic Landscape Presets - $29

I’d like to thank Fix The Photo for reaching out to me and sending me some of their landscape presets to try. I enjoyed trying the different looks on my images. I think they are quality presets that deliver value to any photographer and help speed up your editing workflow.

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Good Kit Lens for Beginners: https://amzn.to/2OgpSsK
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Sleeklens Presets and Brushes Review

March 01, 2017 in Before/After Images, Lightroom

Recently I received an opportunity from Sleeklens to try out some of their presets and then provide my experience using them. I was happy to accept the opportunity!

Who is Sleeklens?

Sleeklens is a company that provides workflows for both Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. Included in the Lightroom workflow are various presets and brushes. The Photoshop workflow provides various actions, overlays and textures. Sleeklens also provides various templates for photographers to use. For example, invites, albums, cards, etc.

On to the review!

On to the review! The workflow I received was called the ‘Through The Woods Workflow’. The presets arrived to my inbox by way of a .zip file. I extracted the files contained in the .zip to my desktop. Within the folder, there were several items. Included were PDF guides on how to install the brushes, the presets, terms of service, the brushes and presets themselves, and a recipe list with examples using the workflow.

Although I knew how and where to install the brushes and presets, I found the instructions easy to follow. Since I’m working on a MacBook Pro, I followed the Mac installation instructions. Installation of the files went smoothly with no problems. After installing the brushes and presets, I was excited to give them a try.

When I first started looking at the presets, I liked how they were set up. As you can see in the partial screenshot, the presets were clearly labeled in a logical order in which they could be applied. Similarly, the brushes were named in a manner that logically made sense as to what the brush does.

Now it was time to start looking at some images. First, I selected a few images to try the presets and brushes on. These are images that I had previously processed using Lightroom without any special presets or brushes. I simply processed them until I liked what I saw. I wanted to compare the original unedited image to my Lightroom edit, then compare both to my edit using the Sleeklens presets and brushes. For the Sleeklens edits, I tried to use only their presets and brushes.

Below are some comparisons of various images. I was impressed with how the Sleeklens presets and brushes worked. They made it very easy to have a good starting point on an image. I liked how some of the presets were ‘add ons’ to the previous presets you may have used. I found myself being drawn to the same several presets fairly often. I think that just speaks to the style that I like. However, each person would have their own preference as to what they like. I thought that each of the presets did a great job of providing the desired effect. Additional manual adjustments may still be necessary but, that is true of any preset. I don’t feel that presets are supposed to be a one click solution for developing an image.

As with any presets or plugins, etc. I think I would eventually settle on a few that I prefer. Then I would be able to quickly select my presets and move forward with more specific edits if the image needed it.

I really liked the brushes as well. I found myself not only using the brushes in the ‘brush’ panel, but I also used the brush presets in the radial and graduated filter panels. I think it is great that Lightroom allows you to use select your brush presets in multiple places and it comes in very handy.

Overall I found the Sleeklens presets/brushes intuitive, easy and fun to use. With a few clicks, it is easy to see an image come to life in the way you envisioned it. This is a great product that has the potential to help speed up your workflow. A big thank you to Sleeklens for reaching out to me and letting me try their product! If you are interested in any of the Sleeklens products, visit their website Sleeklens.com and see what they have to offer!

Sample Images

Image #1

Edit using Sleek Lens Presets and Brushes

Image #2

Image #3

Image #4

Image #5

Image #6

Image #7

Before/After using only Sleeklens 'Through the Woods' Presets and Brushes

To see more before/after photos using Sleeklens presets and brushes, jump over to their website Sleeklens.com! You can also find tutorials on how to use any of the Sleeklens products here: https://sleeklens.com/lightroom-tutorials/.