POLL: do you use presets?

what say you?

I use presets but they are ones I made.

Simply installing a preset you found on the net and using it without knowing what it did and why is pointless even if it has a nice result.

+1 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

ok well lets assume we all know how LR and PS work and understand how presets work

and ide rather not sit there make 200+ presets when i could just DL them. thats just me tho

But then you have to spend ages clicking through them to find the effect you want. If you make your own you know which one does what you want.

ehhh yeah if you just download a bunch of randoms. and usually you get ones that pretty much do the same. im not against making them, i have made some myself. my question was more whether you use them at all or just go 'manual' all the way through the post processing

ive gotten some really useful ones, that have like 200 or so simple presets all labeled as to what they do and like 10 or so variations of each thing, so you really get a wide variety of just simple adjustments for different applications (it will be labeled, sky_01 or skin_03 or WB_01 or Tint_warm-07 or Tint-cool-04) so basically its labeled really easily, and all the other random ones i have aquired (the more extreme ones that produce weird effects) are also named appropriately so its not really hard to find anything that you want, i find that easier to do than doing the actual work. plus, in LR at least, you can just mouse over the name of the preset and get a live preview.

even when i find one i usually go about doing other changes, there is no one preset that can do everything magically. but i do find they have helped me save some time and even helped me save some shots by looking at all the different things i can do to it. The live preview helps alot in that regard, if you found an image but think you could make it look better some how, maybe BW or w/e the adj be, just scroll through and see the live preview.

i guess it also depends on what your doing

I use actions, scripts, and a few "presets" I made myself or adjusted.

Some presets can be nice to get an idea of where to take an image.
The way I see presets used mostly however is as a "pre-cooked sauce" thrown over each and every image "because the effect looks cool". People sometimes forget that after a while all you see is "the effect"...

Oh: by the way: Lightroom presets thread
Edit: And: Plug-in for Lightroom/PS CS/PS Elements