Nowadays, it seems that every YouTube photography celebrity has a batch of presets that they want you to buy. This begs the question: is it worth handing over your hard-earned cash when you might be better off investing your time rather than your money?
In the six years that I've been using Lightroom, I've never paid for a preset. In the past, I've downloaded a few free packs, clicked laboriously through every preset and decided that they were all useless: blunt tools creating over-edited results and deploying settings that I could easily have achieved myself had I wanted to ruin one of my photos.
"Are paid presets any different?" I thought to myself and started asking a few fellow photographers for their thoughts and experiences. The response from the handful of people I asked was all but unanimous: they're a waste of money; spend your time learning instead. One friend suggested that they're great if you want to create Instagram cliches, but not much use for anything else. And there's some truth to this: in an era when photographic success is equated with the number of Instagram followers, it's no wonder that people want to buy a formula that feels like it's guaranteed to get likes and comments.
My own preset is far left. Two random downloads are center and right.
Photographer James Popsys didn't hold back in one of his videos last year: "If you're buying people's presets, you're buying a shortcut that takes you out of the creative process," he explained. If you like a photographer's editing, you can replicate it quickly by buying one of their presets, but how much are you going to learn as a result, and what are you going to achieve by replicating their look and feel? Sure, you can use the preset as a base from which to start, and you can begin figuring out how certain looks are achieved by digging into the various settings, but that time might easily be spent doing a few tutorials, developing your own style, and establishing a better understanding of the editing process. As a result, your future images will have more potential when you go on to apply your newly acquired knowledge.
Having still not bought a preset, I'm interested to find out about the community's experience. On the one hand, I wonder if there's a clique of well-established YouTube photography celebrities who are flogging their presets to a naive audience in order to generate some passive income from very little work and zero overhead. YouTube comments (never a great source of information, admittedly) suggest that certain photographers are churning out video after video that are more about plugging their presets than they are about offering something insightful or educational. When the first line in every video's description is a link to the photographer's Lightroom preset pack, maybe it's time to unsubscribe.
On the other hand, if there's a style that inspires you, is it worth dropping the equivalent of a pizza and a few beers to get an insight into a workflow and use that as another tool towards mastering Lightroom and developing a personal style? It's also a great way to support a photographer who has worked to carve a niche and share their knowledge. And as much as we try to be unique, we're all simply remixing what's already out there, and while a distinctive style is the goal, paid presets can be a (tax-deductible) means of taking a step towards it.
Check out the poll and leave your thoughts in the comments, please!
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Presets aren't worth the money in my opinion. However I do think it is important to point out that looking at how someone may apply or build a preset can help someone challenge themselves creatively by either trying to replicate it, or just use it as a starting point.
I don't know about the presets put out there by "celebrity" photographers, but I've found Mastin Labs presets to be absolutely awesome... Then again, this is an instance where I'm purchasing presets for a very specific purpose (to emulate certain film stocks) so I guess I'm looking at it from a different perspective.
I bought RNI Films for Capture One and I think they are amazing. At least 50% of the time I use one of the presets like Kodak Gold or E200 as my starting point.(I don't care if they are accurate to the real film stock since I alter them anyway) I don't think I could do all that color manipulation they have done
I agree that most presets I have used have not been that helpful...however, I do like the new creative camera profiles in Lightroom and wish more companies were refocusing their efforts to create those vs. presets. I like that they don't change all my sliders and allow me to increase or decrease the effect. I use this for second options on toning vs my standard edit.
Thank you for this.
You're welcome!
"I wonder if there's a clique of well-established YouTube photography celebrities who are flogging their presets to a naive audience in order to generate some passive income from very little work and zero overhead."
That's exactly what's happening. Easy passive income from people who don't know any better.
Well... you should stop wasting money all together Dave Ramsey would say :)
Just wanted to follow up on this article as I previously posted a comment singing the praises of the Mastin Labs presets. Well, I actually went out and bought a couple of their newer preset packs (even though there are no sample/trial presets to try out first) based on my good experience with their earlier packages. Well, even though I disagree with the absolute premise of this article, it came true for me - I really didn't care for the newer Mastin Labs presets, and ultimately wasted my money ($198 USD to be exact). I did contact them, explained that I was a loyal customer, politely explained my dilemma, but was straight-up denied a refund - no exceptions. I know this is their right as these are digital products, but I've dealt with several other digital product companies who were far more accommodating when I've had a problem or been dissatisfied. As an existing customer of Mastin Labs, I guess I expected better. Anyway, with my previous recommendation of Mastin Labs, do keep in mind, there are no trial presets to try first, and a zero exception refund policy. So, think first before you gamble your money on them.
That's just the unfortunate nature of digital goods such as presets. With the lack of any DRM options, there's absolutely no way for them to verify that you are no longer using them once they have been downloaded so it doesn't make much sense to refund money for a digital download. Of course, if they were somehow able to add DRM, that tends to open its own can of worms with legitimate users suffering far more than people who are cracking and pirating software anyway.
It sucks, but it's the nature of the beast... :/
Out of curiosity, which Mastin preset packs did you not like?
As I said, it's their right, and I understand the nature of digital products. I was just a bit surprised as I've had a much better experience with Lens Distortions and Serge Ramelli when I wasn't satisfied with some of my digital purchases. Refunded, no questions asked, and an apology that I wasn't satisfied. Yes, I suppose I could just continue to use the Mastin presets, but as a pre-existing customer who had already spent money with them, it seems unlikely that would be my tactic. I'm sure the presets are lurking somewhere around the torrent sites if I really wanted to go that course.
To answer your question, I've been using their Portra and Fuji preset packs daily for a couple years now. I decided to pick up the Portra and Fuji pushed packs, plus the Everyday Kodak pack because I loved the examples on the site. Anyway, after painstakingly putting the presets through their paces, it really became apparent to me that I would probably never use the Portra Pushed, and the Everyday Kodak pack (over the other Mastin packs). So, I politely asked for a refund of those two packs and told them I loved the Fuji Pushed pack and wanted to keep that one. So, only asked for a partial return. We emailed back and forth, and they were polite about it, but basically just kept referring me to material on how to use their presets better.
Anyway, this is not to say that Mastin is a horrible, cold, unfeeling corporation. But given that this article is about wasting money, and also given that in a previous comment I gave Mastin a glowing recommendation, I thought I should clarify my experience for any who might have read. I mean, I could have bought a new softbox, a field monitor, new SD cards - countless things that I need and could have used the $198 for.
So, namely the warning to others is that Mastin does not offer any sample presets to download and try first, and they apparently have an absolute no-exceptions return policy. So, if you are interested, just be careful, because it's definitely a bit of a gamble compared to preset packs like Serge Ramelli - who offers a satisfaction guaranteed or refund policy, and stood by it.
I don't think there's anything wrong with using presets at all. You just need to look in the right place. Are there photographers out there trying to make bucks from selling presets that are garbage? Absolutely!! Anyone can tweak sliders around, save it, and call it a preset then go and sell it. If they are somewhat known in the industry or their work is nice then they'll make some money. This seems like a common thing for photographers to make income on. Personally, I have used presets in the past and continue to do so. VSCO remains to be one of my favorites.. I do however tweak all the presets to my liking because every photo is different.
I'm tired of hearing people saying this isn't creative, it's not your style, blah, blah, at the end of the day we are working, making money and pleasing clients, regardless how we get there.
I have many presets and I usually play around with certain ones based on the type of photo that I'm working with and once I find a base look that looking for or a new look that I like I then tweak it from there. I've n never paid for a preset, and I have created a few of my own.
My only issue is all the presets look the same. I have multiple sets, from the big popular ones, and they all do the same thing. Drop the greens, bump the oranges, bump the contrast, then flatten the contrast with shadows and highlights.
They're all just variations of someone else's preset at this point.
You'd be better off just finding free ones on Deviant art.
This article sucks, because while you may have a valid point, you offer zero suggestions of where or how to get educated on mastering Lightroom. The result is just more useless content, clogging up the internet, similar to a cheap photo with a Lightroom preset thrown on top of it.
I know this isn't the topic of this article but I have downloaded brush presets. Mostly because I was to lazy to make all the different preset options that came in the pack. Considering how easy they are to make I have more most of the ones I usually use.
When I was first using Lightroom I did download a preset pack or two that had a ridiculous amount of presets and were a PITA do to how many there were to go through and decide what I wanted, plus I never liked any of the looks. I ended up deleting them and just edit each photo as I saw fit. I see this as a personal choice though.
Photoshop actions I use the hell out of though I mostly create my own. I have probably 4 that I downloaded or followed along with a tutorial but the rest I created myself for various tasks. They work awesome for batch jobs.
BTW, those PS actions are for tasks during the editing process, not the edit whole photo. Let's get real here. 😉
Images taken are so different, how would any preset guarantee any desired look, even roughly?
"No. I bought some presets before and it was a waste of money"
3 days ago I bought 2 presents (bestseller) from graphicriver. My fault. I become lazy. They are useless. I can do better and faster only with a few clicks. It doesn't worth it.
These comments and this article are obviously old at the time I'm visiting this page, but frankly the answer now is the same as the answer would have been then, presets are and never have been a one-size-fits-all product and cannot be regarded as such, ESPECIALLY by a professional. Presets can range from $5 bleached, blown out, desaturated, high contrast nightmare packs on etsy to $300 fully developed processing systems created by talented photographers who design it to be versatile, subtle, and powerful. Then you have free presets, which are usually crappy sets designed by god-knows-who, but sometimes you get really nice simple packs or individual presets given away by pros or created by talented individuals.
If you have never tried them, you can't know whether or not they're worth trying.. There are so many varieties of presets, some are really intense and highly stylized, and some are extremely subtle and delicate. Some are meant to provide mild boosts to different types of imagery such as landscapes or food photography, and some are designed to simplify the basic editing process by developing a system you follow to perfect your tones, wb, sharpening, etc. They can be EXTREMELY helpful for newer photographers, and I've heard so many attribute their thorough understanding of lightroom to certain systems, VSCO being the one I hear most. These people usually don't use them anymore as they're able to do everything on their own and have developed their own unique style and process.
There is absolutely no reason for people to have such a close-minded and snotty attitude about presets, and frankly it's very telling when a "professional" starts whining about these sorts of things. Anyone with a half-decent amount of experience in their field and appreciation for the art would know just how wildly diverse presets can be and would understand exactly why they could be positive or negative in certain contexts, and they certainly would not be putting other artists down for producing that kind of product or for using resources that can benefit them. I mean, it's pretty simple really. Why it's even being posed as a question for an entire article is what should really be discussed 😂
Should creators be pushing presets as some kind of one-click-fix? No. Should they imply that their presets will provide customers with the exact outcome they desire? No. Obviously not. But frankly, I've seen multiple professionals just this past week alone who created videos discussing their personal styles, tips and tricks, and sometimes mentioning their products and they often make a point to discourage that kind of thinking themselves, telling people that their products are only a starting point and will work better with similar styles or environments. In fact, some of the best products from pros are specifically designed to address different aspects individually, such as white balance, exposure, etc, and the primary presets or foundational presets don't adjust these settings as they aren't meant to be universal.