Scott here. Many of you know that I’m the primary retoucher here around the Chase Jarvis studio. I was surprised to get into a fairly spirited debate the other day with some of my co-workers. The topic? Adjustment presets and plug-ins in Aperture or Lightroom or Photoshop.
I’ve got a strong opinion on this, but this experience has once again reminded me that there are a thousand ways to skin a cat and that my way is just that, my way.
Instead of letting a debate rage inside the office and then fade out, I figured, why not make it public? I want to hear from you.
Do you use presets for the post production of your images?
Do you make your own, or download them from other users online?
Do you use them for initial inspiration, or to create your final files?
What are your favorites and why?
I’m interested to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Don’t be shy. For those of you who give a rip, I’ll follow up this post with my personal take and we’ll all be a little more informed.
Shaahin Cheyene
Oooh, I love both of those. Which would you be more comfortable in? I know that you love wearing tights and those types of tops, but the maxi would be very summery!
Hi Scott, first of all i answer you from Italy, i always follow yhis site and try to catch a lot of inspiration, so… thank you very much for your and co worker job 🙂
A) I use it, but just for bring “the base”
B) Make by my own on 60-70%
C) Like the A answer 🙂
D) IN Lightroom 3 my favorite is “HOT POTATOE”, give me a specific tone of green in a lot of mine picture
Great article, Thank you again, Alberto.
Look at all the beautiful poems, sonnets, plays, and other works of literary art that exist in the English language. They are all unique and beautiful, and all done using 26 “presets” in the form of letters. Each one does a specific role over and over, which makes them easy to use. If everyone did their own thing for language, there would be no way for anyone to read everything out there.
Thant’s not a perfect alalog to the photo world, but I think it starts to shed light on my personal view. I have a small pile of presets that I can call on time after time. They stremline the workflow and allow me to quckly apply some basic stuff so I can focus my true creativity into the detail work more rapidly.
To me, that’s the big thing about presets: you can’t just end there. To use yet another analogy, presets are like the interstate system. They’re fast, efficient (usually!) and they get you just about anywhere you want to go. But how often are you able to drive off the interstate and immediately park and get out? Not very often. Presets can get you to the right neighborhood, but you still have to use your artistic ability, taste, and experience to navigate the last few blocks of the journey. Just like the Interstate rarely gets me to my final destination, a preset rarely delivers my final product.
I do 99% of my editing in adobe photoshop RAW because I shoot in RAW, and all my effects are done by hand, no presets 🙂