When working in Lightroom do you either...
A. Have a list of actions/presets you run to do all your edits
B. Work each picture separately to get that look you are going for. Manually adjusting each setting (fill light, black level, color correction, etc.)
we've sort of beaten this topic to death recently, but for me it's a bit of both. some sets i apply some universal settings, other images call for individual attention.
I'm really just trying to justify spending the money on presetopia...they have two packages now...one for $79 and the full for $199. I have TRA for photoshop and that does most of my work. I am trying to get away from photoshop and just use lightroom to cut down on my time.
Bastatag: if TRA is your thing they are releasing lightroom presets some time in the near future. Meanwhile, quite a few people here use presetopia and it gets a lot of rave reviews.
why not create some simple ones of your own? then, if you're using them often and getting the effects you desire, and want some that provide a little more oomph, but presetopia? only you can decide if you need presets in your workflow.
I've been playing with making some of my own presets for lightroom that replicates some of the tone curve settings I frequently make, it'll take me a while to come up with a variety but it does help in speeding up the processing. I'm trying to approach it in a manner that uses specific presets to particular types of lighting, ie shaded daylight, backlit afternoon sun, etc.
One thing I really wish lightroom could do is have a way of dialing in how strongly the preset is applied soft of like an opacity slider. It wouldn't really be that complicated when you think about it, they could put a slider in that varies the percentage of change of the preset's affected controls. Some of the stuff with split toning is really cool but depending on some images it can be too strong if there's a lot of contrast in the baseline image. It would greatly extend the usability of the presets.
For batch weddings, I just adjust one and then sync settings. I use my own presets for some special images I like. If that doesn't look good, I will go in and adjust manually.
But for my modeling stuff, I do most of them "all manual".
Lightroom is meant to speed up the process, so why not use presets?
4honor: i love using lightroom as well, especially for stuff in a controlled environment like a studio, i find once you get into a setting with varying light, like a wedding day or an engagement, a lot of the benefits of syncing goes out the window.
I bought Presetopia v1. It was great. More than anything it taught me how to see my work flow. I'll be holding off on the newest update, but mostly because I have setup so many of my own little combo tweaks. Sometimes I setup 1-3 presets that are unique to the session that I am editing at do it that way, making little change on top of the presets, of course. So, it really is a combo.
If you are struggling with finding PP identity, or with Lightroom workflow, I highly recommend Presetopia. It isn't just about the big combo presets, but all of the small tweaks and how they are organized. Spence did a great job there, and it changed the way I looked at my workflow. Give it a shot.
I recently got Presetopia v1 and 2 and that's all I used for my last shoot... Super Velvia + Curvalicious 1 all the way!!!! My post took 2 hours for 250 photos. And for that, I thank Spencer.
