You’ve applied your preset, but it’s not quite perfect. Here is a beginners guide to help you edit and adjust your Lightroom preset like a pro.
The overall look is good, but the skin may be a little too orange, or the tone may be just a tad too green.
Don’t worry, this is entirely normal. Within a few clicks, you can adjust and edit your image like a pro, so it looks consistent with the rest of your pictures.
Depending on how/where you have taken your photo, the light and colour may differ from one to another.
For quick tips, click on the link below to take you to my FAQs and troubleshooting tips.
How to adjust your Lightroom Preset
Let’s go right back and start from the very beginning. For those already familiar with exposure, temperature and tint then feel free to move onto the next section.
If you’re thinking, what the heck is temperature then stick around, and I will walk you through each setting so you understand what each slider does and how to adjust your Lightroom Preset like a pro.
Light
Exposure
In my workflow, exposure is the first setting I adjust as it has the most significant impact on my images. The exposure determines how light or dark you want your images to look.
I love bright, light and airy photos, so I always boost my exposure by +0.5 to +1.5. I especially need to use this is if I have taken an image on my phone as they quite often come out a little underexposed (darker) for my style.
If the image is overexposed (too bright) or you prefer a dark, moodier look to your pictures, you may want to pull down the exposure until the image looks right to you.
Remember there is no right or wrong – stylising your images is entirely personal so go with what looks good to you.
Contrast
Contrast defines areas of lightness or darkness. You will notice if you pull it to the left, the darker areas become lighter and the picture looks flatter. Pull the slider to the right, and you’ll see that the shadows become darker and it makes your image pop.
Shadows and highlight
Highlights will only concentrate on the lighter areas of your image. Push the highlights up, and it will brighten them, push it down, and it will darken them.
Shadows do the opposite. Push it up, and it will lighten the darker areas of the image and push it down to darken them.
To make your image stand out, pull down your highlights and lift your shadows.
Colour
To white balance your images, you will want to use temperature and tint. This simply means removing an unrealistic colour, for example, if your image looks too green, red, yellow or blue.
You may notice that when you take a photo indoors, the image may look more yellow than if you had taken it outside.
This happens when your camera can’t differentiate between white light (sunlight), cooler blue light (cloudy day) and warmer yellow light (lightbulb).
If your taking images in different light conditions, It’s very difficult to use one preset to make every photo look the same.
Therefore, by adjusting your Lightroom presets using the sliders, it can go a long way in helping you create consistency within your images.
Temperature
Temperature helps to control how cool (blue) or warm (yellow) your photo is.
If your image is too warm, push the slider towards the blues and if it’s too cool, move it towards the yellows.
You only need to make the slight adjustment to have a significant impact on your image, so use this slider lightly.
Tint
Tint, on the other hand, regulates how green or magenta (pink) your image is.
If your image looks green, push the slider towards the magenta and conversely, if your photo is too magenta, move the slider towards the greens.
Vibrance & Saturation
Vibrance and saturation do a very similar job by either increasing and decreasing the intensity of the colours in your image.
There is, however, a very subtle distinction between the two, in that vibrance increases the intensity of muted colours more than the already saturated colours while working to protect skin tones.
As a portrait photographer – this is a really important distinction!
HSL (desktop) / Colour Mix (mobile)
If you apply a Lightroom preset and everything is perfect except one colour is too intense, for example, the skin tone is too orange; you can use colour mix to control each colour individually.
Hue
The hue slider allows you to adjust the shade within the same base range of a colour. For example, you can adjust the oranges to either red or yellow or change blue to either a cyan/turquoise or purple hue.
Saturation
Similar to the saturation slider in the colour settings, the saturation makes the colour more or less intense.
The beauty of this slider is that it allows you to control one colour so that if the skin looks too orange you can decrease the saturation/intensity of the colour.
Luminance
Luminance adjusts the brightness of the colour. If you wanted to
Bonus tip: To make skin look more tanned, push the luminance slider on the oranges to the left or to lighten, slide to the right.
Lightroom Presets
I have created my very own library of preset packs to help you build a beautiful and consistent brand. If you would like to try before you buy, feel free to send me 6-9 images to make sure the preset will suit your brand style.
Lightroom mobile is completely free and is available on both android and Apple phones or if you have an Adobe Lightroom subscription you can install on your desktop.