Utilizing Presets for Consistency
Learn how to use presets to streamline your editing process and create a cohesive look.
Presets are one of the most effective tools in a photographer’s editing toolkit, helping to save time and maintain a consistent style across images. A preset is essentially a pre-configured set of editing adjustments that you can apply to a photo with a single click. These adjustments might include changes to exposure, contrast, color balance, sharpness, and more, depending on the specific look you're aiming for.
Why Use Presets?
Using presets allows you to create a cohesive aesthetic across a series of images, whether it’s for a single photoshoot or for your overall photography brand. By applying the same preset to multiple photos, you ensure that they all share a unified tone and feel. This consistency is especially important if you’re delivering a collection of images to a client or curating your portfolio.
In addition to saving time, presets help you maintain efficiency in your workflow. Instead of editing each photo from scratch, presets allow you to achieve a polished look with minimal adjustments.
Customizing Your Presets
While presets offer a great starting point, they aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Each photo is unique, so after applying a preset, you may still need to tweak certain aspects, such as exposure or white balance, to match the lighting and subject of the individual image. Customizing your presets to fit different lighting conditions or creative styles will give you greater flexibility while maintaining a consistent look.
Creating Your Own Presets
Once you’ve developed your own editing style, you can create custom presets tailored to your unique vision. In Lightroom or Photoshop, you can save your favorite combination of edits as a new preset and apply it to future images, ensuring your photos always align with your creative brand.
Final Thoughts
Whether you’re using pre-made presets or creating your own, presets are a powerful tool for photographers looking to streamline their editing process. They allow you to maintain consistency across your work, save time, and focus on the creative aspects of photography. With the right approach, presets can become an integral part of your workflow, helping you deliver polished, cohesive images with ease.