Presets are one of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’s most powerful features; with them, you can use the same settings over and over again. The most common presets are Develop presets that consistently apply the same edits to any image.
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As well as Develop presets, Lightroom has presets for most of its features. For example, there are Metadata presets, Import presets, Export presets, Keyword sets, Slideshow presets, Watermarks, and more.
While you can make your own presets, there are a thriving community and marketplace of presets made by other people. Let’s look at how to install them in Adobe Lightroom.
Why Use Presets
The big advantages of presets are that they are consistent and quick. If you always make the same few adjustments to an image, a preset lets you apply them all with a single click. This is great for professional photographers who have to process hundreds or thousands of images.
Also, if you’re just starting and you’re not entirely familiar with all of Lightroom’s editing tools, presets offer a way to give your image a unique look while you learn to do things for yourself. It’s a mistake to rely on Develop presets completely, but you can think of them as super-charged Instagram filters.
Finally, some of the other presets make Lightroom’s lesser-known features more powerful. For example, there are presets that let you export time-lapses directly from Lightroom.
