Lightroom Presets

Adobe Lightroom makes it easy to organize and edit thousands of images and photographs. It’s trusted by photographers everywhere, and a key piece of software to know how to use as a designer. This series looks at how you can use Lightroom presets to create stunning end-results with your photos.

Adobe Lightroom is a go-to tool for photographers and designers that have to edit and manage images. Lightroom is designed to help you edit, organize, store, manage and even share photos across devices.

Because Lightroom is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, it comes with full paid plans or can be used as a standalone app. And there are plenty of presets available to help you make this most of this popular photography tool.

What Is A Lightroom Preset?

lightroom preset

A Lightroom preset speeds up the editing process because you can save an exact combination of slider positions for future use.

A Lightroom preset is a “package” of settings to help create a certain type of look for editing photos. Designers might have one set of presets to use for landscape images and another set of presets to enhance portraits.

A Lightroom preset can be saved and reused in Adobe’s software, and there are plenty of places to find presets for different types of images. The best thing about a preset is that you can change the look of an image instantly, taking a lot of time out of the editing process. (This can be a life-saver if you edit bulk images.)

5 Places to Find Lightroom Presets

lightroom preset

If you really want to save time and get just the right effect, a Lightroom preset is the answer. There are plenty of places to find high-quality presets for projects.

  • Envato Elements is a subscription-based graphic design service and is packed with Lightroom preset options (including the example above)
  • The Luxe Lens has themed Lightroom presets – snow, portraits, etc. – at reasonable prices
  • Filtergrade is a photography site that includes more than 1,000 Lightroom presets for every use you can imagine
  • Creative Market has plenty of Lightroom presets (and preset bundles) that you can purchase a la carte
  • Adobe has a collection of Lightroom presets available for download that are made by other users

How to Add a Preset to Lightroom

lightroom preset

Adding a preset to Lightroom is pretty simple. Here’s how to do it:

  1. After you download the file – don’t forget to unzip it – open Lightroom and the “Develop” tab. Presets will be on the left side of the screen.
  2. Then, right- or command-click anywhere in the presets module to Import new presets. The preset will install in the folder you select in this step.
  3. Navigate to the preset on your desktop or in your downloads folder (or wherever you saved it) and click “import.”
  4. Done! The preset is ready to use.