I have previously written about the use of presets in Adobe Lightroom. With presets, you can just scroll your mouse over the name of the preset in the Develop Module and get an immediate idea of how the image might look if treated in a certain fashion, such as black and white, cyanotype, sepia toned etc.. The preview one gets is not necessarily how the finished product would look, as the application of a preset serves only as a starting point, but it does give a very good idea of whether it is going to be worthwhile following a particular creative route.
With the winter being quite dreary where I live , I recently bought some lilies to photograph, and the results, I think, give another nice demonstration of how presets can really guide one down a path. Here was my original image of a yellow lilly, which I thought was somehow lacking, but yet seemed to have some promise:
Copyright Howard Grill
I felt that it just needed 'something else', and so brought it into the Develop Module of Lightroom and quickly scrolled through a number of my presets. I became intrigued by the look of the image both sepia toned and done in a cyanotype appearance. I ultimately decided to go with sepia toning and after applying the preset and tweaking a few of the settings ended up with this image, which I personally like quite a bit more than the original:
Just another nice example of the benefits of Lightroom, which I use in conjunction with Photoshop. Need to get some presets? Try here and here.
5 comments:
I completely agree with you. I have recently posted some images on my blog that I knew I liked but was not sure how to get to what I saw in my head. I tracked down a few presets that got me close to my vision. I was then able to tweak them to what I really wanted. Your likes show the best ones I have found, though Kelsey Smith has some other very excellent presets. There are also some nice ones from Gavin Seim
Gostei muito desse post e seu blog é muito interessante, vou passar por aqui sempre =) Depois dá uma passada lá no meu site, que é sobre o CresceNet, espero que goste. O endereço dele é http://www.provedorcrescenet.com . Um abraço.
Beau, I will check out the other sets of presets that you mention...I think more varied starting points are always a good option.
As to Crescenet, I feel like I might be going out on a limb a bit as I don't speak the language that the comment is written in nor can I understand the linked blog....so if anyone can translate it please feel free to do so! I can only assume it is appropriate!
Howard
The preset area of Lightroom truly is a photographer's playground!
hey Mark...I hadn't noticed until today that you also did a recent post on Presets. Anyone reading this should have a look here:
http://grafphoto.com/wordpress/2007/12/09/presets-and-playgrounds/
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