Using Pretty Presets for Lightroom

Lightroom Presets are an amazing way to save time in editing, but just as importantly, using a preset helps you achieve a consistent look across your images. Pretty Presets & Actions have created hundreds of high quality presets, brushes, and overlays to use in both Lightroom and Photoshop.

If you’re wondering what Lightroom Presets are, jump over to this post before continuing.

As I mentioned in my post, Making Lightroom Work for You: Processing Pictures in Bulk, a preset is exactly what it sounds like – a collection of saved development settings, ready to be applied again and again with a single click.

Presets are a big deal, and a huge time saver.

A quick note about the photo themselves… I asked one of my favorite models to hold my Sigma ART 35mm 1.4 lens while I used my Canon 85mm 1.8 lens for a couple quick shots. He seemed very intrigued by the camera lens!

Almost all photos were taken at f/1.8, ISO 500, and about 1/800 second shutter speed. All the images on the left are SOOC meaning they are Straight Out of the Camera, and no edits have been made to them except converting from RAW to JPG on export.

Click here if you’d like to go through processing an image step by step with me in Lightroom.

Pretty Preset Collections

I actually have almost all of the collections created by Pretty, LLC downloaded into my Lightroom Classic… but for these photos I pulled from the following collections:

• Pretty FILM: Pastels Collection
• Dark & Moody Millennium Preset Collection
• The Luminous Collection: Bokeh, Sun Flare and Haze

Bubble Tea Preset

Bubble Tea is probably the Pretty Preset I use most often. It’s a clean and simple edit, but still gives me the film feels, so I gravitate towards it often. You can find this preset in the Pretty FILM: Pastels Collection.

In this first example, I used Bubble Tea without any tweaks just to show what a clean and simple preset it is. For the second two images in this set I will show you the adjustments I made in Lightroom after applying the Bubble Tea preset.

The initial edits I made to this second set of images, were a slight exposure (-0.53) and highlights (-67). What really changed the feel was when I changed the white balance and set it on Auto.

The only adjustment that I made above was to switch the white balance from “as shot” to “auto” in Lightroom after applying Bubble Tea by Pretty Presets.

rose lace

This is another preset from the Pretty FILM: Pastels Collection… I wanted to show off another simple film look that I personally find nostalgic.

nightengale b&w

The last preset from the Pretty FILM: Pastels Collection I’ll use for this collection is a black and white preset. There’s something timeless about black and white photos, and I wrote this post about how you can take stunning black and white portraits with your iPhone (and I actually used several Pretty Presets while editing those images as well).

Milk & Honey

This preset comes from a collection that is not currently offered, it was called Summer Limited Edition… but there are some fabulous presets in this collection so I didn’t want to leave it out!

Reverie

Reverie comes from the Dark & Moody Millennium Preset Collection and if you are in the Pretty Presets for Lightroom group on Facebook, you’ll know this is absolutely the preset that is most discussed and posted. It is everyone’s favorite!!! And you’ll see why here:

The only tweaks made to this image were: changing the White Balance to the “Shade” preset in Lightroom, increasing the exposure by 0.5, pulled down the clarity to -15 and changed the texture to +9.

Again, only slight adjustments made here: increased exposure to 0.56, the green luminance +27 and White Balance to Shade.

With this last photo in the Reverie set, I did quite a bit more adjusting:

• Exposure +0.43
• Highlights -79
• Shadows +65
• Custom White Balance
  • 7,450 temperature
  • +37 tint
• Clarity -34
• Texture +16
• Dehaze +4
• Orange Saturation -39
• Orange Luminance +24
• Luminance Smoothing +12

Golden Glow

You can have some real fun with these presets from The Luminous Collection: Bokeh, Sun Flare and Haze Collection. I’ve included one just so you can see what that looks like!

As you can see from the above comparisons, Pretty Presets can be used without any tweaking, or with as much as you’d like! If you’re looking to up your photography game, I highly recommend using Pretty Presets & Actions. Check out their website and Facebook group, they also have tutorials and you can follow them on Instagram to see what their presets, actions, brushes and overlays look like on other photographers’ images!

SEE MORE OF MY LIGHTROOM PRESET POSTS HERE.