FREE Dark Moody Lightroom Preset
Let’s unpack it together in this photography tutorial.

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FREE Dark Moody Lightroom Preset!
How to give your photos that dark moody look in Lightroom
Todays Friday Freebie is a brand new Free Dark and Moody Lightroom Preset Download. Created to give a dark and moody look to your photos with a simple click. Perfect for giving your photos that moody vibe with a single click.
To get the most out of this preset, make sure to check out our Moody Photography Guide!
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Download Your Free Preset Here
Want to bypass the tutorial and download the free dark and moody preset?
Dark + Moody Lightroom Editing Tutorial
Let’s take an in depth look at how to give your photos that dark moody vibe in Lightroom.
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This Transcript Is Auto Generated.Hey guys Ryan here at signature edits
and today we are going to look at how
you can give your images that dark moody
look in Lightroom let’s do it
[Music]
alright so starting with our raw image
right here we’re going to walk through
how you can get that dark moody image
how do we do it well first we’re gonna
start by making our basic adjustments to
the image as we would with any other
edit so we’re gonna start by just
adjusting our white balance a little bit
here a little bit of contrast everything
looks pretty good that’s a good starting
point now we’re gonna go down to where
the magic happens and that’s the tone
curve HSL calibration so starting with
the tone curve we’re going to go over to
our RGB and just do a basic s-curve this
is kind of a standard for almost every
image just a little bit of extra punch
now to get that dark moody faded kind of
a look we’re going to actually take our
shadows right here our blacks rather and
we’re gonna raise them up so you see how
that’s basically clipping any blacks
that fall below a certain darkness are
being turned to dark gray rather than
black so the more we do that the more
exaggerated and ridiculous it looks but
just by doing that a little bit we get a
nice subtle kind of faded look so here’s
the difference we’re already on our way
now I’m gonna flip over and I’m going to
go to the green Channel I’m gonna do
something kind of interesting here and
make another s-curve
emphasize the greens a little in the mid
take them out up here because I am
noticing that the sky might give us some
issues and then I’m going to fade up the
greens just a little bit in the shadows
as well so we’ve gone from there to
there that might be a little much for
you if you want so if you prefer you can
take that down just a little that’s fine
okay so moving on to our HSL this is
where the real magic happens with the
greens and the yellows in our image and
we can really creatively affect the
tones starting in our hue we’re going to
go to our yellows and our greens yellows
we’re going to take and we’re just gonna
warm them up damn just like that
our greens we’re gonna do something
similar
just not as aggressive and then
generally in Lightroom when I find it
mode justing the hue or the saturation
anything like that I like to be subtle
by if I effect the yellows for instance
I’m going to affect the oranges a little
bit too and the Greens regardless so we
have this kind of nice little curve
happening and it’s not just one color
all by itself I’m going to do the same
thing or something similar in the
saturation I’m going to hop on over and
take the yellow saturation down and then
I’m going to do the same thing with our
greens just like that so we’ve gone from
here to here big difference feeling a
lot more Moody already hey okay so let’s
move on over for now I think I’m happy
with that we could go into our split
toning and add a little bit of extra
mood if we wanted I don’t think that’s
necessary for this image we’re just
going to move on down to the camera
calibration these are the big changes
we’re making first and then we can kind
of finesse things from there so starting
with our shadows I’m actually going to
take these down towards green a little
bit and that’s just going to give us
more mood a little bit more of that kind
of cold feel
not much maybe one or two and then we’re
going to go to our Reds just sort of
play around
take those up a little bit
Green’s will leave alone and the blue is
one thing that highly affects the image
so you can see we pretty much make it
into this very orange and teal look just
by dragging that blue super simple
effective technique if you ever want to
look go for that look or the opposite we
can drag it towards green and that just
looks really nasty I’m gonna settle for
something kind of towards this side
however not all the way kind of around
there and then we’re going to take our
saturation in that area down adding that
mood that vibe that hipster dream so
okay so we’ll take that saturation down
and here’s the difference
and so these changes aren’t huge any one
at a time but when you add them up it
really goes from creating an image that
was a little bit blah a little bit gross
maybe and here’s our finished product
but easy and very very cool so that’s
how you can easily and quickly add mood
to your images in Lightroom if you want
you can just go up to your presets here
hit the little plus button and save it
as a new preset so we’ll call it Moody
forest and then we’ve got it for our
future images so this breeze that might
not work on everything however it will
work pretty well as a starting point to
get you there when save you some time in
the process hey I hope this tutorial was
helpful for you if it was please hit
that like button don’t forget to
subscribe for more great stuff and to
download this Dark Moody Lightroom preset for free check out
the link in the description below
alright take care
[Music]
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Our Image Before Editing:
Moody Dark Photo Edit Step 1: Tone Curves.
Dark Moody Photo Editing Tutorial Tip 2:
Free Dark Moody Lightroom Preset Step #3 – Use the HSL Panel
Moody Forest Photo Preset Step 4 – Desaturation is your friend!
Dark Moody Photo Editing In Lightroom Step 5 – Use Split Toning!
While not totally necessary, adding split toning can be a great way to finesse the tones in your image. We added a little yellow / orange to our highlights to counteract the coolness of the overcast sky. You could just as easily add some blue however if you’re after a more cold moody edit.How To Edit Dark + Moody Photos Step 6 – Camera Calibration

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