Lightroom 5 Presets

Lightroom 5 Preset: Behind the Scenes

Posted on March 9, 2013April 13, 2017 by Sam Kornstein in Lightroom 5 Presets, Photography

It’s been a while, but here’s my seventh free Lightroom 5 preset, Behind the Scenes. I’ve gotten lots of positive feedback on the first six, so thanks to everyone who’s given my presets a try. This one is actually quite similar to Speakeasy, but it brings out quite a bit more detail in the shadows, which is great for wildlife shots. Here’s my first example, a bird landing in the water: Some monkeys doing monkey things: And a tree in Boston’s esplanade: Here’s the download: Lightroom 5 Preset: Behind the Scenes To install it in Lightroom, simply right click any preset, select import, and then select the downloaded preset file.

Lightroom 5 Preset: Speakeasy

Posted on January 26, 2013April 13, 2017 by Sam Kornstein in Lightroom 5 Presets, Photography

Here’s my sixth free Lightroom 5 preset, Speakeasy. This one adds some slight enhancement, mostly sharpening, contrast, and vibrance, without changing the overall look and feel of the photo. It’s quite versatile, and I use it on a wide range of photos, usually when I’m not looking to get too creative, but want to remove haze and liven up a shot a bit. One thing I often tweak after using the preset is the exposure, especially if I want to get more contrast in a shot with some sky. Here’s the first example of the preset, a boulder on Mt. Cardigan: A dog on a street: A parrot up close: And a beach landscape taken in Puerto Viejo: Here’s the download:

Lightroom 5 Preset: Joshua Tree

Posted on December 30, 2012April 13, 2017 by Sam Kornstein in Lightroom 5 Presets

Here’s my fifth free Lightroom 5 preset, Joshua Tree. I’ve been very surprised by the positive responses I’ve gotten to my first four presets, which can be found in the ‘Lightroom 5 Presets’ section of my site. Thanks to everyone for downloading them. If any readers want to share either their own presets, or examples of presets I’ve posted, I’d be happy to include them in a post. This one has a bit of a vintage old photo tint, adds a vignette, and reduces the saturation while increasing vibrance and clarity. It’s fairly versatile, and I’ve used it on a wide range of shots. Here’s an example, which inspired the name, from Joshua Tree National Park: And here’s another. A horse drinking some

Lightroom 5 Preset: Silhouette

Posted on December 17, 2012April 13, 2017 by Sam Kornstein in Lightroom 5 Presets, Photography

Here’s my fourth free Lightroom 5 preset, Silhouette. It’s a fairly straightforward black and white preset that works especially well for partial or whole silhouettes. Depending on the starting brightness of the photo, you might want to adjust the strength of the silhouette effect by adjusting the ‘blacks’ control in the develop panel. Here’s the first example, a shot of a former Fidelity colleague’s son jumping into a pool: And here’s a second, a buffalo in a field I snapped while driving through Custer State park in South Dakota: Here’s the download: Lightroom 5 Preset: Silhouette To install it in Lightroom, simply right click any preset, select import, and then select the downloaded preset file.

Lightroom 5 Preset: Vintage Rajasthan

Posted on December 9, 2012April 13, 2017 by Sam Kornstein in General, Lightroom 5 Presets, Photography

Here’s my third free Lightroom 5 Preset, Vintage Rajasthan. My first two are here and here. I developed this one when editing a photo I took outside a temple in Udaipur, India. I was there working on an MIT research project, and got the shot on my way to a market in the early afternoon. The preset adjusts the color balance to add a vintage photo effect, and works well on shots that are vibrant with lots of colors. The original photo was bright and overwhelming, which to me was distracting, taking attention away from the the facial expressions. Here’s the photo with the preset: Here’s a second example: And one final: Here’s the download: Lightroom 5 Preset: Vintage Rajasthan To

Lightroom 5 Preset: Bright Eyes

Posted on December 3, 2012April 13, 2017 by Sam Kornstein in Lightroom 5 Presets, Photography

I had an encouraging response to my first lightroom preset posting last week, Burlington Northern. So I’ve decided to keep it up, and try to post new presets a couple times a month. Here’s my second posting, Bright Eyes. It’s a landscape effect that works particularly well around sunrise or sunset. It brings out the sky a bit, adds some highlight color, and enhances the sunlight’s reflection on grass and trees. I originally came up with it when editing the below photo of a tree in a field outside a Fidelity Investments office in Smithfield, Rhode Island. I used to work there on occasion, and the tree reminded me of the tree in the Shawshank Redemption, up in Maine where

Lightroom 5 Preset: Burlington Northern

Posted on November 24, 2012April 13, 2017 by Sam Kornstein in Lightroom 5 Presets, Photography

Over the past few years I’ve developed dozens of Adobe Lightroom presets, and I’ve recently begun to consolidate and organize them. For any readers who are unfamiliar with Lightroom, it’s a professional photography workflow application used to organize, edit, and publish photos. As part of the editing process, you can save collections of changed settings as presets so that a group of edits can be reused on other photos. When editing, I rarely use just a single preset — I’ll generally start with a preset that’s close to the look I’m trying to achieve, and then I’ll tweak the photo from there. But presets are an extremely useful tool, both to save time and to capture creative edits. I’ve decided to start posting some of