Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

Holy cow! It's February, and more importantly my birthday month :) It's also preset day and I've got one that's been asked for quite a bit since I started making presets. It has to do with a "grain" effect and it deals with the new Grain setting in Lightroom 3 Beta. BUT WAIT!!! If you're not a LR3 Beta user don't worry. The preset itself still looks cool and still works in Lightroom 2 (it just doesn't apply the grain). Depending on the photo, the settings still bring out a little graininess in the image so its not a total loss. Anyway, take a look at the before and after by clicking below. It definitely is a nice effect with or without grain and I think it looks good on portraits as well as all the other wedding stuff (shoes, dress, table settings, rings, etc...). Let me know what you think.

To install:
1) Unzip the preset zip file on to your desktop
2) Go to the Develop module. NOTE: YOU MUST BE THE DEVELOP MODULE
3) Go to the Presets panel on the left. Right click anywhere in it and choose Import.
4) Select the .lrtemplate files you unzipped in Step 1 and click Import NOTE: DO NOT IMPORT THE ZIP FILE

• Click here to download the preset.
• Click here to see a sample of the preset.

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First off, I hope you had a Merry Christmas weekend. I had a great time with my family and, of course, my kids got way too much stuff. Anyone else have in-laws that, even though you try to moderate how much you buy your kids (sorry, that Santa brings your kids), they still go out and buy crazy amounts of gifts for them? Its all good though and they had a blast which is what counts.

Anyway, its a vacation week for me but I had an idea for a quick article so I wanted to write about it. Its about stealing. Yep, I said it. Stealing! A while back there was a bit of controversy about a little program that let people see what Lightroom settings were applied to your photo on Flickr. If you followed back then, you may remember that my position on it is that its not stealing. So how can you actually steal a Lightroom preset? Its really not hard and I encourage you to try it. Lets look at mine for example (skip to Step 4 for the real education in this whole thing):

1) First install the preset just as you normally would. We'll take the Develop module as an example. Let's say you've installed my Fairytale Glow preset from this past November.

2) Now what happens when most people install some one elses preset is that they apply it and it looks cool, but not quite what they imagined. Maybe its too bright. And maybe the vignetting is too strong.

3) Then they apply it to another photo and ya know what? Its too bright again and they're not crazy about the vignetting.

4) That's your cue that its time for your own preset. All you have to do is change the Exposure setting and/or change the Vignetting setting to something that seems to work better for you.

5) Then right-click on the preset name in the Presets panel and choose Update with Current Settings. First, give it a cool name - you're stealing remember, so you don't want the same name as I use. If you haven't made any other changes to the preset then its fine to just check everything and click OK. If you have made changes then just turn on those checkboxes and click OK.

That's it. You're now a thief :) You've taken something that wasn't yours and made it your own. I'm joking of course. You didn't steal crap did you? You've merely taken a recipe that I use and modified it to fit your own needs. Happy Thievery!

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Its preset time again. This week I've got an one with an edgy feel to it. You'll see it works perfectly for photos like the sample below. Its a little desaturated in nature with some extra exposure and a few other things packed in there. One quick note about the preset that I found was that you'll probably need to tweak the Exposure setting the most. Depending on the brightness (or lack thereof) of the photo, I found the Exposure setting to be something I had to change significantly for just about everything. I left it pretty bright though since that's the whole point of the preset is a very over-exposed look so don't change it too much - just enough so a person's skin isn't totally white. I hope you enjoy it!

To install:
1) Unzip the preset zip file on to your desktop
2) Go to the Develop module. NOTE: YOU MUST BE THE DEVELOP MODULE
3) Go to the Presets panel on the left. Right click anywhere in it and choose Import.
4) Select the .lrtemplate files you unzipped in Step 1 and click Import NOTE: DO NOT IMPORT THE ZIP FILE

• Click here to download the presets
• Click here to see a sample of the preset.

Bookmark It

I want to give a big thanks to everyone who provided some names for today's preset. I'm actually using a combination of two names that were suggested - Fairytale Glow. I'm really happy with the way that this one came out. I find it works best on portraits (hopefully the name implies that) and photos that tend to be brighter in nature (notice the sky is blown out in the before version already). But give it a try on anything. That's the cool thing about presets - they're easy to try and easy to undo if you don't like it. Let me know what you think.

To install:
1) Unzip the preset zip file on to your desktop
2) Go to the Develop module. NOTE: YOU MUST BE THE DEVELOP MODULE
3) Go to the Presets panel on the left. Right click anywhere in it and choose Import.
4) Select the .lrtemplate files you unzipped in Step 1 and click Import NOTE: DO NOT IMPORT THE ZIP FILE

• Click here to download the presets
• Click here to see a sample of the preset.

Bookmark It

Happy Monday folks. I've got two things for you today.

• First, if you're into that whole-spend-money-online-like-crazy thing called Cyber Monday, NAPP came out with some pretty killer deals. Now, remember I work for NAPP so I know what the prices and things normally are. I gotta say, if you're into anything that's on this list then they really are some killer deals so take advantage today if you're thinking of buying anything.

• Next, more presets. I know I've been a little slow on the presets thing lately but I gotta say... coming up with new presets is hard as heck these days. I try to only come up with presets that I use or effects that I have used and I've pretty much gone through my library. That said, I came up with another one that I see a lot lately in wedding and engagement photos. Its got that ultra saturated bright look with lots of vignetting to it. Hope you enjoy!

• One more thing. I've got another preset lined up for next week. Its yet to be named but I figured I'd give you a sneak peak. Any name ideas then let me know :)

To install:
1) Unzip the preset zip file on to your desktop
2) Go to the Develop module. NOTE: YOU MUST BE THE DEVELOP MODULE
3) Go to the Presets panel on the left. Right click anywhere in it and choose Import.
4) Select the .lrtemplate files you unzipped in Step 1 and click Import NOTE: DO NOT IMPORT THE ZIP FILE

• Click here to download the presets
• Click here to see a sample of the preset.

Bookmark It