How To Make Lightroom Presets & Why It’s Better Than Buying

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This post is all about how to make Lightroom presets but before we dive into that let’s start with why making your own presets is better than buying. The first reason…

Its free!

Before you start spending money on presets that might not even work, why not try to see what you like and works for you to create your own? Creating your own presets is also a great way to learn to edit, and discover your style and preferred tools to use. There is no limit, so you can make as many as you want for different needs, different settings, and different lighting!

(Ps. Did you know that Adobe offers a FREE 7-day Lightroom Trial?)

Some links in this post are affiliate links, meaning at no cost you, I will receive a small commission if you make a purchase using the links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This helps cover some of the operational costs associated with this blog, so I’d appreciate the support!

And since you are working on your own images, to your own editing and camera, presets that you create yourself will work much better across your images.

Using someone else’s presets isnt necessarily cheating, but I guarantee you editing on your own will make you feel way more proud of the work you created.

I mean, using a preset is like cooking with quick instant rice out of a box, rather than using natural ingredients. It might be good enough for a meal on a Tuesday night, but if you are inviting people over to show off your cooking skills, would you do that?

First image is edited with a preset, second image is edited manually

How to Make Lightroom Presets On Your Own

The technical aspect of making a preset:

Now to the good stuff – how to make Lightroom presets on your own. Creating a preset is quite simple actually. All you have to do is once your editing is done, is to save it as a new preset.

It’s important to know that things like crop, spot adjustments, and other localized editing, shouldn’t be saved, but once you get into the menu, you will see that these settings won’t be affected.

Lightroom Presets On Your Own

On your develop module, on the left size of the panel, under the navigator, you will find the preset menu. Next to it, click the plus sign and click create preset.

Lightroom Presets On Your Own

A second window will pop up, where you can select your settings to be saved as part of the presets, the name of the preset, and wether you want to put it inside a group.Once you click create, you will find it saved under presets.

The creative aspect of making a preset:

This right here is the fun part!

This is where you get to experiment, play, and create, to come up with a look that you love and that it translates to more than just one image. Editing for presets can take a little longer than just editing a beautiful photo, so don’t be discouraged by the trial and error.

A great place to start with creating your own is using images you love as a reference. I created a FREE Color Grading Class For Lightroom to teach you how to do this!

Here are a few videos where I show you the fun behind the scenes of using a reference image to create your own edits:

Plus, you can create as many presets as you would like, so why not try many different things?

If you have purchased presets in the past, and there are certain things from them, you like, you can copy just that specific setting and add it to your image, so what I mean is that you can use things you like from certain presets and mix them up with some of your own editing, to create your own unique style.

But, If You Are Going to Buy Presets, This is What I Recommend

I wrote a whole blog post about Do Presets Really Work? Why They are Not a One-Click Solution – BUT if you decide to buy presets, my main recommendation is to make sure you are purchasing from someone who shoots the same camera as you do, the same style, lighting, and common settings.

And as I mentioned before, if your goal is to simply unify your instagram feed, these can come in very handy. Keep in mind that presets can be quite pricey, and more often than not they won’t work on the majority of your images, so getting a preset pack is the best buck for your money and the biggest chance of finding one look out of the 70 presets that you bought, that will fit your image.

If you are looking to purchase presets, look for a variety of samples, and for the presets to be tested on different types of images, lighting, and camera.

Don’t buy just based off of an Instagram feed, this can be totally misleading and doesn’t necessarily show off how the preset actually works. Buy from someone who shoots the same camera or same style as you, as this will give you a better chance of a good result.

And last but not least, it might be better to buy your presets from photographers rather than an influencer. Although their images and feed might be beautiful, editing photographs is a skill acquired with time and work. Influencers usually create presets that only fit their one look, style, and purpose, so if you are hoping to produce images for anything outside of Instagram, a preset from a photographer might be a better starting point.

As you might have guessed, I don’t have presets for sale, however, if you are interested in learning the skills to edit your own images, my Lightroom Masterclass might be the right fit for you!