What's Wrong With Buying Lightroom Presets?

Presets are a contentious topic in the world of photography, especially when it seems that every photographer on YouTube has a pack of film emulations to flog. That said, they do have their place, and the people at Mango Street run you through what to consider when buying and how to put them to good use.

In my experience, it’s not a simple matter of whether presets are something that should be bought or used: it’s all about how you use them, and that will determine whether they are worth buying. In the past, I’ve certainly found some downloaded presets to be little more than blunt tools that deliver exaggerated results through settings that I could easily have achieved myself in the event that I wanted my photos to look like I’d just discovered HDR and the clarity slider. Teal and orange, anyone?

Film emulations have come a long way in the last couple of years, and the Mango Street power couple makes a good point early on in this video when they argue that no one complained of photographers all producing similar-looking shots back when everyone was shooting on film. 

What do you think? Are presets worth the money? Whose presets have you bought and whose presets would you recommend? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Andy Day's picture

Andy Day is a British photographer and writer living in France. He began photographing parkour in 2003 and has been doing weird things in the city and elsewhere ever since. He's addicted to climbing and owns a fairly useless dog. He has an MA in Sociology & Photography which often makes him ponder what all of this really means.

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21 Comments

My paid work is real estate and generally needs to look real and clean, but I’m a big fan of presets as starting points for my fun and family photos. And like the article states, no one complains about classic film or even Fuji X emulations.

I stopped watching after #2 since what she said is true; each photo is different in lighting, color, gradients, etc. I do use presets when I do something like a B&W conversion in Silver Efex Pro 2. Many times, the presets in the plugin programs make for good starting points. But to use them from a RAW image? I've found them pretty much useless.

Having said that, I should create a couple of my own. At least the workflow would be mine and would have a better chance of giving a good jump off point.

Indeed, i did so for Capture One, at least for my b&w works. 3 different presets as starting points.

The only thing wrong with buying Lightroom presets is that it's really hard to come by decent/consistent/coherent ones at a proper price...

I need to get around to creating some for myself to use as a starting point but I never get around to it.

I shoot a lot of film and on many occasions want my digitals to have a similar look and feel to the film results I get. I've found a few favorite VSCO presets that are a good starting point and I've learned how to tweak them to get the end results I'm looking for.

A friend of mine wrote a great review of one of their older VSCO 06 pack.
https://geneoh.com/review-vsco-film-06/

In my opinion, I don't think presets are for everyone. For the most part I find they're for people who shoot across multiple formats and want an easier process to getting consistency no matter what you're shooting on and VSCO has done a decent job of creating collections for each camera major manufacturer's RAW profiles.

"they argue that no one complained of photographers all producing similar-looking shots back when everyone was shooting on film. "

Because there were very few people involved in photography and even fewer claiming pro status. Couple that with the absence of SM and 24/7 marketing schemes and yeah, silence.

I haven’t used any (except for my own), but I’m against them. I much rather just be a good photographer and do minimal post processing. I think it’s better to make your own presets, rather than buy some else’s, because if you buy someone else’s then they aren’t *your* colors. I also like my photos to be a little more real and raw. Just be good at photography and be good at PP so you don’t have to throw your money at some pretentious guy on YouTube.

P.S I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a neck beard, but teal and orange hurts my eyes, it’s like visual pop music.

“I much rather just be a good photographer and do minimal post processing.”

This is such a jackass thing to say. There are plenty of valid reasons to use presets outside of “you’re a bad photographer,” especially depending on what you actually shoot. I do mainly concerts these days, and sure, that doesn’t give me much reason to use some trendy preset, but B&W presets can be super handy (especially if I’m just looking for a quick jumping-off point for editing).

There’s also something to be said about using presets when you’re just starting to learn how deep you can go with Lightroom. I bought some cheap set (and downloaded some other one that was free) when I was starting to get serious with Lightroom and they helped me to figure out some of the features that were less intuitive, just because the preset instantly took my photo to a place I wouldn’t have gone with just starting from zero and playing with various sliders. Hell, my go-to preset for vignettes is from one of those packs, just because I’ve found it to be an excellent, subtle way to darken the edges of the photo without drawing too much attention to the fact that it’s a vignette.

Presets have their place. Don’t be an elitist snob.

You could have easily articulated your points without adding in the non productive name calling. You think anyone will take your point seriously when you talk to them like that?

I should make it clear that I’m not a professional, and that I’m not telling anyone that my way is right (despite my use of the word “you”). Saying this might discredit me but oh well.

No matter how many people disagree with me and call me names, I just can’t get behind the idea. Isn’t it more rewarding to make an amazing edit all on your own, without the help of a preset? My other gripe with presets, which is my biggest one, is where my money is going, I’m sure there are companies that make presets, but I don’t want my money going to some influencer.

They might be helpful for workflow purposes, but then why not just make your own?

As for the learning thing, there’s plenty of YouTube tutorials I’m sure, you just gotta find em’. Or why not not just screw around in light room for a few hours?

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You have a good point with the color thing, though while you could claim someone’s preset as your own colors, is it still your work? Yes the photo you might be using it on is still yours, but even after making adjustments to taste, most of the dirty work is done for you. I guess it doesn’t matter if you’re a professional though.

I stand by my “be a good photographer so you can do minimal post processing” statement. I value getting the lighting and composition right in camera, and I care more about how a photo feels than how it looks. I might use some post processing to enhance a photo’s emotion, and you can argue that you can make heavy touch ups with that goal in mind, but making severe alterations just rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps my view on this will change though.

All I was saying with that is post processing can’t always save a bad photo.

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You do have to get off the “get it right in camera” thing when talking about RAW files coming from digital cameras. There are times when exposing or using a specific color balance in camera is only a starting point for the post processing. You are intentionally messing up in camera to preserve the digital information.

You do need to get it right by a lot in camera when dealing with JPEGs and certainly film. But RAW workflow almost dictates some kind of post manipulation.

And then there is the color thing. No one owns a color. A lot of presets I use attempt to recreate film and the second I move a slider I have altered that look. BTW if you just use the colors your canon camera or whoever provides....aren’t you just using their colors? Along with everyone else who also is??

The only issue with presets is when they are used to make a bad photo good. A bad photo is a bad photo. Presets don’t change that.

Nowt wrong with it if that's your thing.
I've bought some in the past, they're pretty cheap and a good starting point to get look you want for you.
No preset fits all situations though, it's all down to some slider magic and your own taste and feel.

Exactly. I got some free ones and then I bought some really good ones. Both have served me well in certain instances.

What's wrong with buying Lightroom presets is buying Lightroom.

Here are my problems with purchased presets.

(1) My developer of choice already gives me a great starting point based on my camera, lens, exposure index, camera reported scene information, et al, via automated metadata-driven presets.

(2) To do any additional tweaking usually means turning off the modules of the presets first, so that downline edits do not change the image before upline edits.

(3) Film emulation settings are a dime a dozen, so why pay more? (…And they come free in my developer of choice).

(4) Film photographers like me have been spending years trying to get our film to look less like film & more like reality. Why would we now spend good money to make our digital images look like film?

(5) Some film looks can be horrible. Never liked the way Fujifilm rendered greens and blues, and Kodak film was usually way too warm. (Contrary to the popular notion, people have always complained about the look of film/slides/B&W).

(6) If I started by capturing the tones which I wanted, presets become like a shotgun to kill a mosquito. The little bit of tweaking which may be left to do, cannot be predicted for all looks. Even for weddings, shooting a Black bride in a white dress, or a White bride in a white dress cannot use the same presets, even for the “same look”.

(7) The focus has to be on the subject, not the scene. The overall appearance of the scene comes after getting the subject correct.

(8) As a portrait and event photographer, not all clients are looking for the same look. Yes, there needs to be consistency for any given client, but each their own. I create presets for sets of images, not for my entire portfolio.

(9) It is quite possible that a preset package one buys today fails when the developer of choice is upgraded. What happens when Adobe finally embraces a 16/32-bit floating point pixel pipeline? How about when they embrace parametric masking? What about a better technique to do B&W conversion with colour filter adjustments and zone system alterations within one faster, simpler, easier module? US$150.00 presets down the drain (or version lock-in, if Adobe allows you to not upgrade).

(10) They may actually be good as a starting point, but with all that it takes to get to the end point, do they actually save time? If I still have to go into the split-toning module, or the curves module, etc., How much time is saved by the “sliders” not being at system default position?

(11) No one I know of sells presets for the developer of my choice. Probably because users of the developer of my choice understands the first ten points. (No, I don't use Adobe products).

I use them quite a bit, just to get a starting point or vibe. It helps me find a look that I perhaps would not have found that quick, with different vibes in the hue sliders or something like that. It also helps me a little get a similar vibe and style in the images, especially when I shoot a wide range of different types of images.

BUT.. I then go and play with the sliders after that quite a bit to still get my own take on an image. I use it only as a starting point.

what I don't like, is that a pack has like 10-15 different presets, and you end up only using 2 or 3 of them, as I still prefer a more natural look and some are just ridiculously wild. Still, I purchased them also to support the person that created them.. so.. it's fine. I guess..