Blogging Tips: Presets – What Are Presets and Do You Need Presets?

Not long ago, I told you what I use to take my photos and my favorite photo editing apps. I’ve also discussed how to find a good location for your photos and how to find your style. So today, I thought it would be fitting to talk about presets. What are presets? Do you need presets? Where do you get them from?

What are presets?

Presets are photo edit settings that are saved in Adobe Lightroom.

To help you understand… In apps, you call edits filters, but in Adobe they are called presets. Presets are pre-saved edits that can be applied to any photo. In addition, presets are also able to be manipulated significantly more than basic app filters. Lightroom gives you the tools and control to edit the light, color, detail, optics, effects, and geometry. If you create an edit you like and save it, you now have a preset!

You can 1. make your own preset or 2. purchase a preset.

Lightroom is an image organization and manipulation software made by Adobe. This is where your presets live essentially. You can either pay to have the full Lightroom software on your computer or use the app on your phone. I use both.

Some presets will require you to have the Lightroom software on your computer to install, others will not.

Do You Need Presets?

My personal opinion is, well, maybe. If you’re looking to elevate your photos then yes. If you like an uncurated minimally edited look, I think photo editing apps are fine. I’ve shared my favorite editing apps before if you want to know what I like!

For me, purchasing presets helped me figure out how to edit my photos in Lightroom. By downloading a few from Etsy (it’s so long ago now I don’t even know which ones I ended up liking) I was able to teach myself. As I pasted the presets I took a look at what they did to the photo in each of the settings (light, color, detail etc.). And I figured out what I liked/didn’t like.

I’m going to start selling my press in the coming weeks and they’re also going to come with a Lightroom Pro course as well. I find that presets are the most helpful when you understand how to manipulate them to match what YOU like!

Now that I’m so used to editing my own photos I tweak everything to make them mine. (see below) I’ve also used Aggie’s presets and while I love them, I find them too big a bit oversaturated in color. With Aggies presets I learned that I like the highlights in my photos to below. I’ve also paid for Tezza’s jpeg presets and I didn’t love them.

For the photos in this post, I’ve used The Mood preset and have tweaked it to fit my current feed.

Preset Pro tips

If you want your feed to look cohesive try to keep your skin color the same in all photos. Having one consistent similar color will give your feed that cohesive feeling.

Don’t be a clone. I don’t care how many people use presets – when you all have orange skin and pops of bright red in your photos you look like a copy. There is NOTHING interesting about looking the same. I totally understand the learning curve of using Lightroom and presets (I’ve been there), but please try to edit the photos to make them your own.

Shop my look:

**My jeans are old free people, similar FP + another pair linked below.

The Raybans linked below are exact.

My MCM clutch is old and a bit larger than the one linked below. I do like that the new MCM clutch comes with a cross body strap! 

Boots are LoQ but they are sold out almost everywhere, I linked one pair that’s left below.

Like this look? Then you should check out Winter Items you should purchase on sale now and shop accessories trends for Spring.

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