LIghtroom Presets, do you use them?

I tried searching the forum for a thread about this but couldn't find one.

I'm tring to clean up my workflow a bit in LR4 and I was thinking about LR Presets and I thought I'd ask. How many of you out there on POTN use LR Presets and where did you get them?

I'm thinking about doing some newborn photos but I'm hoping to not have to spend hours in LR alone so again the thought of presets came to mind. Is that "cheating"? Any recommendations for LR presets? I looked through SLRlounge and they seem to have a pretty good array but what do you guys use?

Thanks!

There is no such thing as cheating. Whatever produces an image that makes you and your audience happy is legitimate.

Only a few personal presets that I made myself.

I don't use any commercial presets but I have my own that give me a starting point with some added contrast, clarity, sharpening, vibrance, saturation, lens correction, and noise reduction.

Loads of free ones out there to download, and as Mike says they make a great starting point to develop from
I must have 100s in my preset folder, but I reckon only a handful get used regularly

Never, I edit each photo individually never use a preset.

I will sometimes make a preset when I'm doing 300-400 images all in the same batch. If it's less than 100 I'll just sync them.

As for pre-made presets rarely do they even come close to what I want.

Yes, I'll often use the pre-made presets, depending on what I'm doing. Sometimes I'll even use the preset and nothing else. Ha, take that!

Sometimes I shoot shows or live events where the lighting is very low and of mixed color, and I have to do a rapid turnaround so I can't devote hours to each image. In these cases, I'm very partial to Lightroom's included B&W Creative #3 and B&W Creative #5 (I think that's what they're called).

I've also made several of my own presets for the adjustment brush, including a couple of sunburn-elimination brush presets that I recently showed in the "Post your RAW conversions" thread.

The presets are there to speed up your work flow. Even if you don't like the ones that come with Lightroom (I don't think I've ever used those), I'd highly recommend setting some of your own. They're more of just a starting point for me, but definitely a huge time saver. You can also apply your preset when you initially import your photos, which again saves a lot of time. Lastly, once you've made whatever minor adjustments you need to the first photo after applying the preset, you can copy those settings over to the other photos if they were shot under similar conditions.

I use a pre-set that I made that basically just checks the lens/CA correction when I import pictures. That way I don't have to remember to scroll all the way down for each image when I'm in the develop tab.

I have a landscape preset, and a portrait preset, both of which I made, and give a fantastic starting point for me. Many time, a fantastic ending point. its one of the nicest features of LR, in speeding up my time.

kevindar wrote in post #16060814
I have a landscape preset, and a portrait preset, both of which I made, and give a fantastic starting point for me. Many time, a fantastic ending point. its one of the nicest features of LR, in speeding up my time.

+1
Same here

If and when i use them its for a starting point or browse through them when i am at a loss for a starting point.

I have several different presets that I use on occasion. I have one preset that I made just for my race images, and a couple of freebies that I use from time to time. The presets are just for getting me into the general area of where I want to be with an image. I still tweak each one.

Also don't forget that the presets don't perform any magic or trickery behind the scenes
All the alterations are visible in the develop module, and you could copy them and produce the exact same effect yourself without even clicking in the preset list

kevindar wrote in post #16060814
I have a landscape preset, and a portrait preset, both of which I made, and give a fantastic starting point for me. Many time, a fantastic ending point. its one of the nicest features of LR, in speeding up my time.

Me as well. I have a Portrait/Camera WB preset, a Portrait/Auto WB, a Landscape/Camera WB, and a Landscape/Auto WB preset that I've created myself. They all have different parameters in different modules such as Basic, Presence, Detail etc. I've also made different vignettes and split-toning presets.

Exactly like Kevindar said--a fantastic starting point and often ending point. They are far from cheating; cheating is submitting an Ansel Adams print in a competition and claiming it as your own. Presets are tools--and they are put there for a reason. You know that nice trick where you hold down alt/option while you drag the Masking slider in the sharpening section? Cheating because it shows you exactly where the sharpening will occur? Heck no! Amazing tool!

Use them. Create them. Tweak them. Dream about them. They are there to save us from tedious clicking and dragging constantly.