10 of the Best Free Lightroom Presets

Adobe Lightroom offers great tools and can help you automate the workflow and add creativity to your library of photos. In Lightroom you can add a photo style by using presets to one or more images in your library.

As the popularity of Lightroom has increased we’ve seen a lot of presets that can help you enhance and modify the look of your photos. Whether you use a PC or a Mac, Adobe Lightroom is a non-destructive image editor. This means that you can try numerous presets without ruining the original photo. It’s a lot easier to edit your photos without having to constantly make back-ups of your images and makes experimenting with different kinds of effects a breeze.

We will show you how to make your own preset and also present some of the best free presets for Lightroom.

Creating Lightroom Presets

It’s very easy to create a custom preset in Adobe Lightroom and there are only a couple of steps you have to take in order of making one. The first thing you have to do is to press “D” on the keyboard in order of entering “Develop” mode. You can also click on “Develop” at the top right part of the window.

The next thing you have to do is use the settings from the panel on the right side to apply settings to a photo. You can adjust black levels, curves, exposure and even apply some custom color effects. There are more options, however, including a lens correction feature.

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The options in the “Develop” mode offer all sorts of features needed for you to change the way your image looks until you are satisfied with the result.

After you applied settings to your image and you’re happy with the outcome, you have the foundation set out to create a custom preset. Any settings you applied to the photo are now ready to be added in a preset.

On the left side of the window you will see a panel called “Presets”. In order of creating a new preset, you just have to push the “+” button. A new window will appear which will allow you to adjust the settings you want to include in your preset. Each of these effects can be either unchecked or checked in order to add them into the preset.

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After you push the “+” button, a window with a list of options will pop up. This shows the settings you’ve already applied on your image as the foundation of the preset. By unchecking options in this window you will exclude them from the new preset. After deciding on what settings you want on the preset, give it a name and click “Save”. There you have it! Now you have a new preset that you can apply on all your photos.

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Installing Lightroom Presets

After you downloaded some presets, you need to install them in Lightroom to use them. It’s very common for presets to come in zip archives. The first step to install these presets is to unzip the archive in a folder.

After you’ve extracted the preset you will want to right click the “Presets” panel in Lightroom and create a new folder for all the presets you’ve downloaded if you want to keep them organized. After creating the folder for all your presets, all you need to do is right click on the folder and select “Import”.

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A window will pop up and you will have to point Lightroom to where you’ve extracted your presets. Select the presets you want to add in Lightroom. You can also select multiple presets by pressing “Shift” or “Ctrl” on your keyboard. Click “Import” once you are satisfied with your selection. There you have it! Now your presets are ready to use.

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10 Free Lightroom Presets

We’ve searched the web for some of the best presets for Lightroom out there. Here are our favorite Lightroom presets that you can download for free. Click on the title of the preset for the download page. Enjoy.

1. 8 Epic Lightroom Presets for Weddings

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This is a collection of presets for people who are interested in wedding photography. With the help of Lightroom and these presets you can really enhance the way your wedding photos look in just a few minutes.

2. Vintage Lightroom Presets

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With the help of these presets you can add a vintage look on all your photos to get that nostalgic feeling. They work great on pictures of old cars or old timey cafés and work wonders on your photos in just a few moments.

3. Bad Ass Film Look

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These are great for people who want their photos to look like they’re film. We gave them a try and we can honestly say they are pretty impressive.

4. HDR Style Lightroom Presets

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There are a lot of people who love HDR photography. Even though HDR looks really cool you might not think about it until you’ve actually taken the shot. And while that look cannot be completely copied by using just one photo, you can use Lightroom to get a similar look. These are some great presets with the help of which you will get that HDR feel on your images.

5. Polaroid Style Presets

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Back in the day, Polaroid was used to get a pretty picture instantly whether you used it to shoot portraits or landscapes. It’s a shame that in 2008 Polaroid announced that they would no longer produce instant film cameras. However, you can get the same look by altering your photos digitally. These presets will help you modify your pictures to look like Polaroid photos in just moments.

6. Silky Smooth Skin Preset

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This preset will make your portrait look amazing. This will soften even the harshest of skins to look like that of babies. It’s a very useful preset and works really well on all skin types.

7. Black & White Infrared

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This is a great preset if you want to simulate black and white infrared photography. This preset converts a regular image to look like it’s been shot through an infrared filter. And it does so in just moments of your time.

8. Intense Heaven Preset

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This preset greatly intensifies the skies in your photos as well as other elements. It truly does make photos look like they’re part of heaven.

9. Post-Apocalyptic Preset

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This preset features a very grungy look filled with warmth and contrast. It’s a great way to alter your city landscapes to look as if they are part of a post-apocalyptic scene.

10. Pencil Drawing Preset

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This preset will turn your photos into black and white images that look like pencil drawings. It’s a great preset and the results are quite nice.

 

So there you have it. This was our list of 10 free Lightroom presets.

Images source: tutsplus.com