Category: Photography

Lightroom 5 Preset: Behind the Scenes

Posted on by 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 by 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:

Continue reading

Lightroom 5 Preset: Silhouette

Posted on by 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 by 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

Continue reading

Lightroom 5 Preset: Bright Eyes

Posted on by 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

Continue reading

Lightroom 5 Preset: Burlington Northern

Posted on by 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

Continue reading

South American Road Trip

Posted on by in Photography, Travel

A very well done South American video compilation. From the artist’s Vimeo site: “Early 2012, we started a journey to Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay and Southern Brazil in our old and rusty Landrover. Once again, we brought our DSLR cameras and some gear to capture every great moment of this trip. Lots of winds, emptiness, pampas, bustling cities, animals, deserts and waterfalls – all wrapped up in just under 6 min. Enjoy the ride!”

My New Photography Website

Posted on by in Photography

Over the past two weeks I’ve put together a new photography website with my portfolio as well as some selected galleries. The site is www.samuelkornstein.com, and it’s now up and running. Here’s a slideshow preview containing some of my portfolio: I’d love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or comments on the site. Hope you enjoy.