Ready-made eff ects Is it worth creating your own presets in Lightroom to save processing time?

Q1

I think so. Anything that can be done to save a bit of time on post-processing is a good thing in my book, and presets definitely do this. Lightroom comes with a series of its own presets, which are worth exploring. You might find one or two hidden in there that you like, so you can change the look of a whole image without any major effort on your behalf. However, if want more control and have a particular look or style that you’ve created, then saving it as a User Preset allows you to retain the settings to apply to all those other images. For example, if you want to create a special black-and-white look for a whole series of images, creating a preset that can be applied to each one will take your developing time down from hours to minutes. The alternative is to go through the same processing stages on 50 different images.

The only thing to remember is that simply because you applied one fixed set of development parameters to one image, it doesn’t automatically mean they are going to work perfectly with every single image in the set. You may well still need to work through the images and make some additional adjustments, or tone down some of the adjustments you’ve made.

By the way, Dave, if you’re thinking you need to apply the preset individually to each image in a set, you don’t. Simply highlight the group of photos you want to use in the filmstrip at the bottom, then click on the User Preset you want to use, and it will apply the changes to the whole group.

There is no doubt that presets are handy. If you get organised, you will save yourself a lot of time. Just don’t think they will apply perfectly to every image in a set. Go through the images carefully once applied, and adjust as necessary.