Monday Presets - Dark Web Presets
For those of you who followed Friday’s post, I’m happy to report that the Christmas Tree (yes, I said “Christmas”) tree is up. Casualties: 4 glass ornaments, 1 argument between my wife and I on tree placement, 2 large scratches on my arm from placing the tree (my wife won), and 1 tormented black cat (I think my kids kept trying to poke him with the ornament hooks). 
Now… let’s get to the Monday preset. This week I’m making two of my custom web gallery templates available. I like black. I think it’s sleek and elegant. Lightroom comes with a couple of black “midnight” web gallery presets but they have one problem (OK, a few). The light color areas in them are too bright. Mainly, I can’t stand the cell rollovers on the Lightroom “Midnight” template. Nothing screams loud and obtrusive like they do. Also, it totally turns off the grid. I’m just not crazy about seeing the photos floating on the page like that. I like grid - I’ve embraced the grid - I’ve become one with the grid. Actually, I just think it brings order to the page. Next, the Midnight preset also turns off the Cell Numbers setting so you don’t see any numbers on the cells. I’m all for that except when it comes to client proofing. It makes it harder for some one to tell you which photo they like best. So my version has the numbers the same color as the cells except when you rollover. They become visible (albeit barely) so a client can easily tell you which ones they want. I’ve also included a darker flash template then the one that comes with Lightroom. Again, the default preset was a good start but other areas were just too bright.
Click here to see a sample of the preset.
Click here to download Matt’s Midnight Web presets
Click here to see a video on how to install presets.
Get your weekly dose of the coolest Adobe® Lightroom tutorials, tips, time-saving shortcuts, photographic inspiration, and undocumented tricks with Matt Kloskowski from 
on December 3rd, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Matt, Quick off-topic question.
Do you know why when I subscribe to your podcast in iTunes, I can only see the last 1-2 episodes. It would be great to see the whole archive for easy download. Thanks, Gary
on December 3rd, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Dear Matt,
I to call it a Christmas tree, and most likely always will call it a Christmas tree.
My comment is that since you and others are coming up with all these great presets. Is there a way to store them in a folder or “collections” system? I can see that before long we will have possibly hundreds of presets that we can not live without.
Thank you for all your help in using the second greatest software ever invented. Photoshop being the greatest.
on December 3rd, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Matt:
Thanks for the tip. I have an off-topic but Lightroom-related question. When in the Develop module, if you click the Crop tool you can use ‘O’ (oh, not zero) on the keyboard to change the grid in several different ways. However, in all cases the grid is rather pale and hard to see. Is there a way to make it darker or change the colour or anything?
Thanks,
Mike.
on December 3rd, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Hi Matt.
Watched the video…….. Lightroom shows the files for Midnight web presets are the wrong file type?? Is this an apple vs win thing??
Thanks
jim
on December 3rd, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Hi Matt,
This is off topic, but I see two things at Lighroom does not do (at least I have not found the solution).
1. I have an image that is 13×19 to print in lightroom.When I tried to set it up Lightroom leaves a 6 or 8 pixel border. I found no way to not get this to not do this.
2. There is now a preset web called folioviewer (postcard). Works great, EXCEPT, once there is no way to put BACK TO HOME BUTTON on that preset. If there is a way, I can not figure it out with some sort of programming skills………..
Thought you and your readers would like to know
Kind regards
Ken
on December 3rd, 2007 at 8:05 pm
I get the same wrong file type LR1.3,PC, Windows XP
cooksfriend
on December 3rd, 2007 at 9:07 pm
I’m also getting an error, that says, “The preset file was the wrong type of preset”, so the preset will not install. I’m using LR 1.3, windows XP.
on December 3rd, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Hey everyone,
A couple of troubleshooting tips:
1) Make sure you unzip the file and load the files “in” the zip file, not the zip file itself.
2) Make sure you’re in the Template area at the left of the Web module - not in the Develop module.
Hope this helps.
Matt K
on December 3rd, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Hi Matt
This is off topic, but nobody can answer my question, I hope Matt knows how to do this
Is there any way to change adjustment on scale in Lightroom , to fine movemet using scroll wheel instead of highlighting number and manually inputing number ?
on December 3rd, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Hi George,
Sure thing. I have a nice short answer for you. No.
Sorry…However, you can put your cursor in the box you want to change and use the Up and Down arrow keys. You can also hold Shift to change in larger increments but I’ve never seen the scroll wheel used.
Thanks,
Matt K
on December 4th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Good Morning Guru,
I wonder if you can help? I shoot material for travel publishers worldwide. My images need to correspond to book’s text and I generally submit around 1000+ images for each title from which my clients will select 100 to 200. My publishers need to search specific images to illustrate the text and I would like to find a way of presenting a catalogue or library of lo res images so that they can make a final pick that I’ll then send as hi res. My editors search on keywords or description or location - you get the picture - and I’ve been using iView having previously sent my clients the catalogue reader program that is a free download. How can I do this using Lightroom?
Thanks Matt, I hope you can look into this as you seem to be the man.
Keep up these great tips and look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
Pete.
on December 4th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Hi Matt, first things first…..great job on keeping this blog going. I know it must take allot of time and hard work.
Second… Merry Christmas….it’s still ok to say that.
I visit allot of the podcast and one thing I’ve never seen covered is exporting your images to your hard drive. I don’t print much at home and if you just export you can get some huge files. Could you sometime cover what you really need to do. I know this sound simple, but you really have allot of choices. Say I want to upload some 4 x6 photo’s to a priinting service, if I just export and 300 dpi I’ll get big files. Should I export with the 4 or 6 (or long of short side deminsions) at 300 which would give me a 1600 x 1200 photo. There seems to be allot of gray area here. Thanks, and keep up the good work.
on December 4th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Matt,
Thanks for pointing out that we needed to be in the web module to import the presets. That’s all it took.
Thanks
on December 4th, 2007 at 10:37 am
First off I want to be very PC so Merry Chrismakwanzakah!
I decided to DL my first of your presets. I chose these Midnight Web presets. Since I never have DL’d presets before I thought I was doing something very wrong. Little did I know I wasn’t alone? I feel better now and I will try another preset.
Cheers~
on December 4th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Matt, Thanks! I built my 1st site using lightroom lastnight with this template. Better not having to use just iPhoto. I really liked the black background, thanks for sharing.
on December 4th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Hello Matt,
Do you know if Canon’s Picture Styles can be loaded into Lightroom for use there, like you can using Canon’s DPP? And of course: if so, can you tell me how? Thanks!
on December 4th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Wonderful presets Matt. Glad you are able to share them with the community. I look forward to your podcasts and presets each week. Keep up the great work! Regards to the whole team!
Sheldon
on December 6th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Matt, one thing you will learn is that, regarding tree placement, your wife is always right. The sooner you admit it and move on the happier you will be.
Thanks for the great web templates. Love the grid, love the black. Your site is the highlight of my computer week.
on December 6th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Hey Matt
Have always loved your site. Such useful information. I have so much to learn yet.
Here is some advice that I can pass on to you. My hubby has a few sayings that he follows……………….”Happy wife, happy life”……………or “Do I want to be right or do I want to be happy”? Keeping these in mind usually keeps him out of the dog house.
Keep up the great work.
I’M ADDICTED.
on December 6th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Matt,
Wonderful presets. Thanks.
on December 7th, 2007 at 1:13 am
Hi Matt.
Watched the video…….. Lightroom shows the files for Midnight web presets are the wrong file type?? Is this an apple vs win thing??
Thanks
jim
on December 9th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Matt,
I to can’t install your plugin. I’ve unzipped the files and extracted them. When I try to install them I get a popup saying they are not Literoom files. There is no icon associated with the opened files and no extension except lrtemplate.
Thanks
Shavox