Clean & Classic Lightroom Presets

hey guys Ryan here at signature edits
and I’m excited to take you through our
clean and classic lightroom preset pack today show
you what’s inside the inspiration behind
it kind of what you can expect when
using it across a ton of different
images we’ve got lots of different demos
from different lighting conditions and
different camera types and then we’ll
kind of talk about what goes wrong with
presets how you can get the very best
out of them and what to do when things
don’t go the way you expect so for
starters the name kind of explains it
all. Our Clean and classic lightroom preset pack is designed to
give your images a beautiful natural pop
without really changing and warping the
colors the reason is we want to keep
things looking timeless so without
further ado I’ll just walk through what
we’ve got inside here here’s our base
preset which is really designed to just
brighten the skin tones a little bit add
some pop to the image and of course you
can dial that back and one of the cool
things about this pack is we’ve actually
included and created camera profiles
specifically for using clean and classic lightroom presets.
So what is a camera profile? Well it
instructs Lightroom how to interpret the
colors, but essentially what this gives
you is an effect slider kind of like an
Instagram filter where you can dial in the
opacity. Well you can do that with these
profiles as well and dial in the amount
of pop you want in your image so that’s
really cool and then we’ve got different
variations of this first preset so we’ve
got a skin darken for if the skin is
just too bright in your image we’ve got
one for high dynamic range if you find
that there’s just too much contrast
going on well that preset will take care
of that for you we’ve got one for
desaturating Blues desaturating greens
fixing green skin so here’s the original
preset and then you can see that this
one it’s just going to add some magenta
to the skin and kind of counteract any
white balance issues you might have and
this is really helpful if you’re
shooting wedding for instance and you’re
outside somewhere on the lawn and you
have a lot of green grass green trees
green shrubbery around you it’s going to
reflect onto the skin of your subject
and so that will just counteract that we
can warm up the greens if we like now
we’ve got a more earthy vibes if you
want to have more organic kind of look
to your images well this one is
definitely going to be for you then
we’ve got a bunch of different black and
whites so we’ve got two essential styles
one is a very clean very classic
style and the other is adding some
warmth to your image as well so you can
kind of choose between those and then
we’ve got two intensities so we have a
black and white plus which is going to
just add some more contrast to your
image and black and white warm and black
and white warm plus of course it’s just
going to kind of take that effect a
little bit further and finally in this
bottom section we have a variety of
indoors and nighttime presets and that’s
because indoors and nighttime scenes
tend to have the greatest contrast in
lighting you never really know what to
expect when you’re shooting indoors how
harsh the light is going to be what
level the lights going to be at and what
color those lights are going to be so
these presets are basically meant to
give you a lot of different options so
that depending on the situation you have
something that fits that lastly we’ve
got a sunset preset here which really
isn’t doing much to the colors at all
because when it’s at sunset time
generally we’re just adding a little bit
of a skin bump and making the skin
slightly more magenta but we want to
keep those colors really saturated
really natural because you don’t want to
blow out the sky or make it look D
saturated we want to keep those colors
in the sky so we’ll we’ll show you that
more in context later lastly we’ve got a
couple quick edits so these aren’t
presets in themselves they’ll just add
noise reduction to your image so if I
was finding my image had a lot of noise
in it I could use the noise reduction
preset that’s not going to change the
look of the image it’s just going to
edit to the noise reduction down here
add some of that in there or noise
reduction plus it’s just going to take
that even further if you’re in a really
high noise situation really dark at
night that kind of a thing okay so now
that we’ve gone through the preset Pak
explained what’s inside and kind of how
it works let’s take a look and go
through our demo images so I will jump
back to the beginning here and you can
see that really this preset pack is
designed to enhance the colors that are
already in the image and just add some
pop and you can dial that in so if this
is way too much contrast for you that’s
fine just dial back our profile slider
like that and you’re set all right let’s
keep going so I’ve got this photo here
we’re going to apply our basic preset
you see how things look now right off
the bat you can see that things are
maybe a little bit too intense if we
zoom in one two one here on her eye you
can see that before and after we’ve got
a lot of red being introduced into her
hair which is okay because that was
already there it’s just kind of taking
out the color and exaggerating what
already exists I’m just going a little
bit too far even in the corner of her
eye adding some weird reddy-orange eNOS
why
that well it’s probably because our D
haze is just too high for this specific
photo so this is the one thing with
these presets you’re going to have to
dial in the amount of D haze
occasionally when it’s too much for your
specific situations so just depending on
the photo you kind of gotta do that and
a little bit of contrast just to even
things out here and here’s our before
and our after some nice pop going on if
you want to we can change the hue of our
blues to be a little bit less green
since this was taken around sunset so
maybe we want things to be a little more
pink and if you wanted to recover that
sky the easiest way you could do that is
to zoom out grab an adjustment brush
we’re just going to set it to auto mask
and press o so we see our mask then
click on the sky a couple of times here
there we go and you can see that
automatic is just finding different
parts of the image that align up with
the same amount of brightness and color
great we’ve got a little bit of masking
going on on her hair on her hair on her
face here that I’m going to remove so
I’m just going to erase that and from
there we can press o again to hide the
mask take our highlights down maybe add
a little bit of contrast in there maybe
a little bit of magenta too because it’s
around sunset and so we’ve got some red
in the sky perfect something like that
so here’s before and after let’s keep
going so in this photo right here I
think we’ve already got a preset on
there we’ll reset it we can just apply
our main preset all right we go with a
blue D saturation preset sometimes the
Blues look a little bit too much in an
image like this and you can see that
we’re not really adjusting the colors
extraordinarily we’re just adding some
good lens correction some sharpening
making the image pop a little bit look
at maybe because there’s no people in
this image no skin tones to preserve we
could take our contrast up a little bit
maybe add in a tiny bit of saturation if
we wanted to some other presets that
often work for these kind of shots are
the night earthy and night earthy –
which is just a stripped back version of
that night
earthy you can see that looks really
really nice if you wanted you could also
try switching this profile to clean and
classic warmth and just dialing in the
amount of warmth you want so somewhere
around there I really like take that
back
okay looking pretty good alright this
image is going to be super easy to edit
I can tell you already because the light
is super super diffused from all of
these heavy clouds super nice and flat
so pretty much anything you throw at it
it’s going to look good it doesn’t
matter that much but I’ll just give you
an idea of what’s inside the different
variations we can get with our presets
here so really it’s not about what’s
going to work it’s about which one do I
like the most so it’s kind of nice to
have different options that you can work
with and just select from I think that I
actually like this one the most the
colors are very very true to life which
is nice
we’re just enhancing those greens adding
a little bit of pop and we can move on
so here we have a very beautiful
landscape image we’re going to start by
just adjusting the exposure here and
showing you a couple of the presets the
options that we have now I will say that
cleaning classic is developed to
prioritize skin tones over everything
else we want to keep the skin looking
amazing and natural so it’s going to
work pretty well for a lot of your
landscape photos however it’s not
specifically geared towards landscapes
because landscapes kind of generally
require a really custom tailored
approach where you go in you take your
time and you edit things individually
you do a lot of custom brushing that
sort of thing so what we’ll do is we’ll
find a preset that kind of looks looks
the best with what we got going on I
think that night earthy looks pretty
cool I also think that when we were up
here blue D saturated it looks pretty
nice and pretty natural maybe let’s
stick with that for now and we’re going
to add some custom adjustment brushes so
with our preset pack we actually include
a beautiful set of adjustment brushes
that we haven’t yet installed so let me
show you how you do that
we’re going to start by going up to
Lightroom preferences and this is only
if you’re using Lightroom classic it
won’t be available in Lightroom cc
simply because Lightroom cc doesn’t
support custom brushes yet if that
changes well you might be able to do
that later okay so we’re going to go to
where it says show other Lightroom
presets and depending on your version of
Lightroom this might be in a slightly
different location you can feel free to
YouTube it for your specific version and
we’re going to open this Lightroom
folder and head down here where we have
local adjustment presets then we’re
going to go over to our adjustment brush
presets pack drag that right in here and
restart Lightroom
all right and now if all has went well
perfect you can see we have this nice
set of custom-made brushes and this is
really handy because it saves you a lot
of time not having to dial in specific
settings every time you want to do a
certain thing so for instance I want to
add some texture to this hillside so I
can just select the texture brush and
begin texturing away we’re just going to
emphasize kind of the little grassy
knolls in this hill the darker areas the
areas that just need a little bit extra
pump will do another new brush and will
emphasize this hill here because that is
definitely a focal point of the image
maybe add some whites so that we make it
pop just a little bit more and maybe add
a little bit of texture with our texture
setting here then we’ll brush again onto
this hillside hillside mountainside I
don’t know what you call this but
particularly I’m just following the
ledge here because of what I want to do
is add some D haze and really make that
ledge itself pop maybe add a little bit
more white you increase our contrast
perfect something like that
and then I’m going to brush on top of
absolutely everything here rays are
exposure very very slightly so you can
see I’m really taking my time and
dialing things in if this were something
I was doing just this image by itself
and I was going to spend a lot of time
on it it would probably take me 30 40
minutes of just tweaking tiny little
things doing some really nice masking
but that kind of gives you an idea of
the options that you have and you’ll
have these adjustment brushes that you
can then tweak things from there so
we’ve got everything from enhancing your
image retouching specifically for
portraits and skin special effects we
could even add things like Sun flares
and save blown out skies and add this is
really cool I it’s called the moody D
haze brush so we’re just going to brush
on the sky up here and you can see it’s
really going to add some extra mood to
our image and get rid of those kind of
bright parts of our sky perfect maybe a
little bit too far up in this corner so
we’ll just erase a little bit too much
perfect so here’s before and here’s
after maybe increase our contrast on
this image before after all right moving
on now this image if I apply presets
right away they’re going to look very
very silly and the reason for that is
the white balance is super super far out
you can see how blue everything in this
photo is so first I’m going to take my
temperature and dial it in so that the
white balance looks a lot more normal
probably somewhere around there is more
accurate and you’ll find the number one
way to make your presets look absolutely
crazy and weird is if your white balance
is out so you’ve got to watch for things
like that it might not be that the
preset isn’t working it might just be
that your white balance wasn’t set right
because now you can see that if I apply
my presets things are going to look a
lot more normal now we might need to
dial some things in like for instance
there’s maybe a little bit too much D
haze in this particular image but let me
show you here is the as shot white
balance and here is after we’ve
corrected it so much better
all right this image is definitely going
to benefit from a nice night preset here
I love the night earthy on images like
this it really adds a nice kind of homey
very very warm vibe if we wanted we
could even warm it up more with our
cleaning classic warmth profile and then
just dial it in as we see fit so maybe
somewhere around there
all right just an example of how the
precess look with a portrait now you can
dial in the intensity of course I’m not
going to take too much time doing all of
that we have just different basic
options for for skin tones and for
portraits that’s close enough here’s
another one not a portrait I mean I
guess it kind of is a portrait of this
horse but just an idea of the different
looks that we can get across our
different presets pretty quick pretty
easy okay this one I think is going to
look really good with a more earthy
preset something like that maybe cool
down the shot just a little bit add a
little bit of contrast now this one you
could go a lot of different ways you
could do the clean and classic which is
really just going to give you that clean
pop and that’s pretty extraordinary how
much it just adds life to the image
right it takes it right from being a
kind of flat raw flock raw file to
really adding pop without it looking
super over edited or over contrasty
something like that however if we want
more of an organic feel we could go with
the more earthy and it’s a winter photo
so maybe we want to cool it down
that’s where maybe we could use this
clean and classic ice preset so you can
see you can really dial in the amount of
coldness coldness i’ve cold cold you
want to add to your image so something
like that if you want it to really feel
like a cold winter day well there’s your
ticket likewise if you want to warm
things up you can do that with our
warmth brush warmth brush warmth profile
I’m stumbling on my words here but you
understand my point
okay so cleaning classic looks a little
bit maybe too much for this particular
image let’s try the high dynamic range
so that we can save some
the background here and then we’re just
going to brush on top of her and just do
a very basic brush this is probably my
favorite you know Olive Lightroom it’s
super simple you don’t even need a
preset you just take your contrast down
and you turn your whites up now my flow
was all the way down so you’re not gonna
see that properly let’s try it again so
the nice part is you don’t even have to
be super accurate because you don’t see
brush marks because it’s a pretty subtle
effect we’ve just taken our contrast
down whites up and here’s before and
after you can see that does a really
good job of making her pop out and then
if you want to of course we can go in
and we can just erase clean things up a
little bit perfect so I think that looks
pretty good here’s before and after
again we’re not trying to change the
look of the photo we’re just trying to
kind of bring out what’s already there
if you find that this effect is just too
strong of course I could just dial it
back before after all right this one’s
gonna be pretty simple BAM looks good
now here’s another example of a
landscape photo where the clean classic
pack really isn’t designed for this
specific type of photo it’s more for
photos with portrait kind of stuff going
on we could find one like perhaps let’s
try the HDR high dynamic range and I’m
really not liking the lens correction on
this particular image so I’m going to
shut that off then I’m going to add some
more contrast to the image raise the
exposure a little bit and that looks
okay but again the best thing we could
do is to spend some time and just give
this image individual attention because
it is amazing so we can maybe grab our
texture brush here bring out the texture
of this hillside we could again go to a
new brush and select our water brush
water sky pop I’m going to put on auto
mask and just try and mask out this
Lagoon here
press o to see what you’re doing you can
see that it did a very terrible job of
autumn asking that so I would probably
have to go back in and just manually get
things right it’s funny sometimes
Lightroom is amazing at that sometimes
it just completely misses the boat so
users before and after just bring some
more definition to that water really
enhances the reflection and if you want
to dial that effect back well you grab
your amount and tile it back so here’s
our photo before and after like I said I
would spend more time on this photo to
really make sure all of the details are
enhanced where it needs to be enhanced
and kind of give it that individual
attention that’s going to give you your
best results not just doing a preset and
hoping things will magically look
perfect but for photos that are
portraits clean and classic really can
give you some one-click looks it looks
amazing with just a single click and
we’ve got lots of different options you
can see in the original just our normal
clean and classic preset we’ve got a lot
of blue going on in his shirt and that’s
because the white balance for whatever
reason is probably an overcast day so
things are pretty blue now if we just do
the blue D SAP it takes that right out
of the image likewise we can desaturate
our greens up here or we could warm up
the skin or we can warm up the greens
you’ve got lots of different options
depending on what you prefer what looks
good to you and these night presets
aren’t limited necessarily to just night
sometimes they can look really good
during the day all right this is a cute
dog we’re going to just stick with our
classic preset adjust our crop a little
bit and if you want you can dial in the
amount of pop again with our profile up
here now this is an example of a preset
a place where presets are going to
struggle a little bit and the reason is
if you look at her skin at first to your
eyes it looks totally normal but then if
we actually zoom in and you really focus
on you know put your hand up to the
computer and compare the color of your
hand to the color of her skin her skin
is super saturated super orange super
warm compared to the rest of the image
and that’s because it’s sunset and the
Sun is hitting her face which is great
but what’s going to happen is that the
presets are going to and
that’s what is already there in the
image so what I mean is let’s hit this
and you can see that we’ve brightened
her face and her face is even more
yellow and kind of saturated than it was
before so let’s reset and let’s start by
dialing in our white balance just by
cooling things down to get her skin a
little bit closer to where it needs to
be okay that’s looking all right things
are still a little green around her face
so let’s maybe add a little bit of
magenta and then I’m going to take a
brush here I’m gonna turn off auto mask
I’m going to go to maybe a skin soften
and desaturate and we’re just going to
paint on her skin here being careful to
miss the eye so we don’t soften that
we’ll take the contrast down a little
bit the highlights down a little bit
okay so here so far we haven’t added a
preset we’re just getting ready here’s
before and here’s after see how much no
more normal the skin looks at this point
now we’re at a point where we can try
some presets and see how they look now I
know that our original preset just the
main clean classic is going to look way
too intense
I just know because it’s a very high
contrast image and things just look
funny right even if we dial back our
exposure here that’s still looking
pretty extreme we could maybe add some
magenta cool things down a little bit
but it just looks way way too far we
could try the HDR preset that’ll
definitely do better maybe even add a
little bit of contrast to this one I
think that looks pretty good
here’s before and here’s after or we
could try the more earthy preset I think
this one probably looks the best
once we just for our exposure it all
depends on the vibe that you want from
your image but here’s before and here’s
after and you can really see the
difference in the skin is incredible
there’s maybe a little bit too little a
little bit too little saturation in her
skin here so we’ll add some back but
before and after you can see what I was
talking about we really need to correct
our photo get the white balance correct
before you apply your presets you’re
gonna get way better results again
here’s before if I just added that more
earthy preset by itself compared to this
Mott’s more much more natural skin tones
much better result just by taking a
little time and really focusing on what
the image is like to begin with okay
let’s keep going here’s another nice
landscape here but we’re looking pretty
blue I’m going to warm this up because
her white balance is just not quite
right
somewhere around there and you’re gonna
get a much better effect maybe we go
with more earthy or even our night
earthy preset I think that’s looking
pretty dang nice okay now this is a
great example of where our clean and
classic pink preset can be used our
profile now preset so let’s apply a
basic preset to it we could go with the
clean classic we could just mess around
maybe go with the more earthy vibes I
think I like that one
now we can try our different profiles so
here’s the ice preset kind of its own
look pink is going to be really cool
kind of gives us a nice sunset vibe and
then warmth just going to warm things up
even more than they already are so
here’s before and here’s after and again
before after this image here we can
start by adding our normal clean and
classic
and I’m theme that the skin is maybe a
little bit too bright so we can just use
our skin – preset and that’ll take that
right down now we also have some
alternates of course we could go with a
more earthy vibe if that’s more your
thing and it just feels better for this
image I think that looks really really
nice alternately we can maybe even
desaturate the sky if that’s bugging you
and it’s just too much saturation going
up there in the sky lots of different
options
this one will correct our exposure first
then we’ll maybe crop it so it’s
straight perfect and here’s our normal
clean and classic brush just how it’s
going to look if we want it we can maybe
add a Sun flare up here in this corner
so we’ve already got a Sun flare going
on but we can really easily enhance that
by just going down here to our special
effects go with Sun flare you’ll see
we’ve got a Sun flare we can now move
around and we can dial that back
remember all you have to do is hit this
a little triangle collapse it we can
take our effect and dial it in and then
what I like to do once I’ve dialed
Dinn is at a little bit more warmth and
maybe increase the saturation depending
on the situation so with this one I
think that would look all right
something like that so here’s before and
after easy now I think that maybe we’d
be better off with our night earthy
preset here cool I think that’s nice
and lastly if we wanted to warm it up
even more maybe go to the clean and
classic warmth and you can just dial
that in however you like add a little
contrast to the whole image we’re
looking pretty good so here’s before and
after in just a couple of clicks all
right same kind of situation here lots
of different options I’m not going to
spend too much time on there here’s a
concert photo let’s make sure we’re
reset ok so right off the bat I can tell
you this preset the base preset is going
to really take too much contrast add too
much contrast to the image especially
because if we reset and we focus on his
skin do the same thing I’m gonna zoom in
even more you can see how bright first
off his skin is to the rest of the image
but if you really focus put your hand
next to this green and compare it to his
face
see how much more saturated his face is
see how bright and blown out parts of it
are see how kind of orangie and greeny
his skin is we’re gonna start by fixing
that so we could start with our white
balance if we wanted we could maybe roll
that back a little bit add some magenta
to kind of counteract the yellowness
going on in his skin then I’m going to
take a brush use our skin soften and
desaturate preset again now we’re going
to erase it around his eyes afterwards
and around the chains we kind of
probably want to take the tattoo and
erase that as well because we don’t want
to lose the kind of contrast of that
erase around his eyes and then I’m going
to roll back on the highlights a little
bit roll back on the contrast hit oh so
I can see my mask now I would take a
little bit more time if this were not
such a quick demonstration we’ll just
erase the kind of key features we want
to keep sharp like his eyebrows and his
eyes and this chain here
okay so here’s before and here’s after
we’ve just rolled that back now we can
start applying a preset you can see
things look so much better already from
before and after so this image is now
looking pretty good I could actually
probably just add a little bit of
contrast maybe some vibrance or some D
haze maybe enhance these clouds a little
bit and I would be happy with it you
don’t necessarily need to add a preset
to every single image it’s not always
necessary especially with indoor prease
indoor presets indoor situations where
the lighting is harsh like this it might
be more of a custom brush job than a
preset job but what we can do is go to
another image that we’ve got and just
copy the parts of our preset that we do
want to apply so I still want to apply
sharpening to the image I still want to
make sure that I have my noise reduction
on and my lens Corrections on so I’m
going to copy those as well as my grain
and I’m going to paste that over onto
this image there you go you can see
we’ve just added some sharpening things
are popping looking pretty good here’s
before and after so I don’t think I even
need a preset if I wanted to I could go
and I could try and find the one that
works but again what do you got a really
harsh lighting situation oftentimes
you’ll just be better served by doing
something like this and you can use
these preset brushes okay moving on here
we’ve got a nice photo from I think this
is Turkey or Tunisia or somewhere like
that you can see that pretty much any
preset we pick is going to look pretty
darn good in this scene and the reason
that it looks good is because the photo
itself is really really the light is
balanced it’s not super harsh our
composition is really nice the colors
are nice we’ve got a great color scheme
going on we don’t have a bunch of
conflicting things happening in our
image and so it’s going to be really
easy to get this image to look good even
if we were just to take some contrast
and some exposure and leave it like that
it still looks pretty darn good by
itself right so that’s the thing that
you need to bear in mind as well when
you’re using your presets presets aren’t
going to fix a crappy photo they’re
going to take a good photo and make it
look even better they’ll take a crappy
photo and make it look slightly better
or sometimes they’ll actually exaggerate
the crappiness of the photo depending on
what’s going on so be aware of that
again we’re gonna keep going through
here just grab a few presets that looks
okay I think maybe the earthy would be a
better
for this particular image perfect okay
looks pretty good right out of the gate
again here’s before and after you can
see we really haven’t changed much about
the image we’re just kind of enhancing
things bringing the shadows up a little
bit if you want to really add some more
look to your image we could try some of
our different variations here maybe the
more earthy or the night earthy that’ll
warm things up or maybe even want to do
eight nighttime warm look black and
white I think that’s pretty cool okay
this is another image where we do need
to be aware of the colors naturally
going on so if you look at her skin at
first your eyes are going to just tell
you it’s all the same but then look at
the difference in color between her lake
and her face and even the side of her
face and her arm here compared to the
front of her face we’ve got some kind of
light coming in from the side here that
is very very green this is without any
changes to the image just as it was shot
and that light is hitting her face
reflecting so everything is looking a
little bit green even her hair we’ve got
some weird greenness going on so we’re
going to have to correct for that and
when we a first apply a preset it’s just
going to exaggerate that effect so I can
dial it back and it looks okay but we’re
going to need to even out her skin to
really get it looking the way we want so
I’ll zoom out a little bit here and
we’ll start by just taking our skin
softened desaturate brush and we’ll
apply that to her leg we’re gonna take
the contrast down and the whites up
easiest way to brighten something in the
image and make it not super obvious then
we’re going to match it a little bit in
color by taking the magenta down a
little bit something right around there
so here’s before and here’s after it’s
not totally matching yet but we’re a lot
closer I’m gonna do the same thing with
her hand and her arm so grab that now
this effect obviously is a little bit
too strong so I’ll dial it back so we
can’t really see what’s going on it’s
just very subtle hello and sometimes
you’ll find that that just doesn’t work
because Lightroom is being cranky so
we’ll dial it back manually like this
okay that’s looking better the math
around her arm definitely needs more
work because I was expecting Lightroom
to be better silly me
okay that’s a little bit closer here
maybe the tips of her fingers I missed
okay and then lastly we’re going to do a
bit of a mask on her face and this one
isn’t going to try and declara fie
things we’re just going to try and get
rid of the green tone going on as well
in her hair anywhere that looks green to
me parts of her arm here I’m going to
try and correct that
so we’ll just reset our brush add some
magenta you can see things are looking
way better just by doing that lower the
contrast a little bit raise the whites
very slightly okay
so here’s before and after you can see
there’s a real prominent green tinge
that we’ve gotten rid of now when we add
our presets to the image it’s going to
work a lot better because we’ve
corrected things that needed to be
corrected so our more earthy preset that
looks really really good right out of
the gate we could also try movie the HDR
depending what kind of look you want and
of course if we desaturate our greens
that might actually help in getting rid
of that to begin with
so our green skin fix I’m going to turn
everything a little bit more magenta
that looks pretty dang good as well so
take your choice lots of different
options they all look good we just need
to make sure that we correct things in
camera that a preset isn’t going to
catch those local adjustments we need to
do with the brush okay so here lots of
different options here I think all of
these look good and again a good photo
great composition great lighting nice
and soft
nothing is overexposed we have nice
colors complementing each other they’re
all going to look good doesn’t matter
which preset you choose or even if you
apply it preset so the number one key to
great preset results is using great
photos and getting it right in camera so
again here’s our main clean and classic
preset maybe you want to warm it up make
it a little bit less contrasty you can
do that with our earthy or maybe our
night earthy
lightroom is taking its sweet time for
some reason and showing up but there we
go we got there eventually and with this
one it looks like our lens Corrections
are going a little bit haywire so we’ll
just adjust that ok so here’s before and
after lots of different options all look
pretty good and don’t change the colors
too much here’s a great photo let’s try
our normal cleaning classic looks pretty
good try our sunset you can see the skin
tones are darker intentionally so that
we’re not way too bright in our skin or
we could even try a night earthy that’s
going to really pop nicely we’ll just
want to make this skin a little bit less
green maybe a little less saturated so
we could go in here and manually brush
on something like that
so the presets going to get you 90% of
the way there but it’s the other 10% of
polishing your image that’s going to
take it that extra step so here’s
without the brush and then with the
brush so it’s subtle but it really
cleans up their skin a little bit gets
rid of some of those patchy kind of
areas while at the same time maintaining
the amount of color we’ve got going on
in the background we could have taken
the color down overall but that would
have really gotten rid of the punch of
this beautiful sunset
now I’m gonna zoom in a little bit more
I would probably spend a little bit more
time cleaning up things like this this
red going on around her skin the red and
the shadows underneath his hat we could
fix that pretty quickly and pretty
simply with a second brush take our
contrast down maybe our D haze down a
little bit
that’ll fix that so before and after
those little things that just add the
extra polish to your image it’s going to
be worth it
this shot right here there’s lots of
different options we could use we could
go with our more earthy preset or just a
clean and classic but I am noticing that
the skin is pretty bright in this
particular presets we’ll just lower that
with our skin – preset perfect something
like that looks pretty good okay this is
another example of where we can really
use this pink profile so we can grab our
pink profile once we’ve applied our
preset it’ll look really cool so here’s
our normal clean and classic or if you
want to tone it down a little bit maybe
go with the more earthy depending on the
vibe you want then grab either our
warmth or where our pink would both
probably look cool so here’s the warmth
makes things really nice and golden
delicious or our pink kind of adds that
sunset vibe we just need to make it a
little darker to really get the effect
and we’ve got some vignette around the
corners of our image so we are going to
go where are we here to our lens
Corrections and take that manual vini
adding back off okay that looks pretty
good
here’s another wedding image nothing
super special about this particular
photo just showing you the different
varieties that we can get from it lots
of different options and we can correct
for all sorts of things so here’s a high
dynamic range version if you want things
more soft
we can also desaturate the Blues if it
bugging us we can desaturate those
greens correct the skin a bit warm the
greens up pretty much everything looks
good while at the same time not looking
super over edited keeping those colors
looking rather natural alright just a
few more photos to go here so we’ll just
breeze right through them pretty quick
pretty simple maybe let’s do the HDR
because we’re looking a little contrast
II add a little bit of pop back into our
image that’s looking good now their skin
is a little bit white we could maybe
consider adding some saturation back
into it let’s just go to your saturation
your HSL maybe bring the oranges up just
a bit somewhere around there and then if
I were editing this entire wedding
obviously I would take this change and
I’d probably apply it across most of my
photos so it’s okay to actually tweak
your presets especially if you find you
know you’re using a Sony camera and Sony
for whatever reason one color seems to
be different and you’re consistently
changing it you can grab these presets
adjust it so let’s say that this preset
overall I found was just always a little
bit too contrasty while I could dial the
amount back go to my preset and go
update with current settings and that
would then update it so then normally
when I’m editing my photos I’ll have all
of these presets actually tweaked to fit
me and my camera in my shooting style so
anyways here is our preset base it’s
definitely very cold our white balance
needs to be warmed up here so we could
warm it now the thing is with most
presets you’d have to kind of dial in
the white balance and that’s as warm as
you can get it once I take it further up
things just start to look really really
weird
however the nice part about these
profiles is being able to add that
warmth it does it in a pretty organic
way so here’s before and as we add the
warmth it doesn’t look overly warm I
guess it looks really nice and warm but
it doesn’t look like you’ve taken it way
too far like you’ve over edited it so
here’s before and here’s after that’s
pretty nice alright a couple more for
you so here’s the normal clean classic
dial that back lots of nice pop in this
image or we could go with something a
little bit more vibey
whatever you prefer here’s another
example of where white balance is really
important let’s start with the stock
image if I just go clean and classic it
looks okay but his you see how blue his
shirt is well that’s because our white
balance just isn’t right so if I were to
reset this image tweak our white balance
so that things are kind of more natural
to where we want them to be probably
around there is actually more what the
white balance should have been for this
shot then I add my preset look at the
difference in results it looks so much
better so much closer maybe I’m a little
too warm but I can dial that back it’s
still a huge difference between what we
had here’s a shot and after we’ve
adjusted that white balance here’s
another one from the same shoot again
very very cold but as I warm it up my
preset oh all of a sudden it starts to
look like it actually works whereas
before you’d be like oh that looks super
strange and our exposure of course needs
to be set properly if we don’t have that
the right way it’s not going to look
great let’s darken our skin very
slightly okay something like that looks
good the earthy might look really good
on this as well all depends on the vibe
and Tony are going for ok we’re gonna
adjust our exposure here our preset
doesn’t need to be applied until we got
our white balance right so I’m gonna
take that adjust it now we can adjust
with our different presets now because
this image is pretty contrast II we
might need to dial things back a little
bit the skins may be slightly too bright
something like that that looks pretty
good so use before and after so you can
see we’re keeping the colors intact
we’re just adding some pop adding some
polish to the image enhancing what is
already there this image looks pretty
great just with one click and then let’s
just warm it up very slightly and we’re
done that’s the run-through of our clean
and classic presets I hope this was
helpful for you being able to see me
edit live and just react to different
images see what you should do when
things go wrong it might be your D haze
it might be a specific area of the image
that you just need to tweak with the
local adjustment just different things
remember that presets will get you 90%
of the way there but it’s the other 10%
that can make a huge difference when it
comes to just local adjustments getting
your white balance and your exposure
right dialing
those settings in getting the
Foundation’s first and starting with a
really nice image to begin with are
going to really really magnify your
results so I hope this was helpful if
you have questions feel free to reach
out to us we’d love to respond and help
however we can
and I can’t wait to get this preset back
into your hand so that you can start
editing and making better images all
right thanks so much take care