how to create preset in lightroom - A Beginner's Guide

Learning how to create your own presets in Lightroom is an absolute game-changer. At its core, you’re just saving a specific combination of your edits—all those little tweaks to color, tone, and contrast—so you can instantly apply them to other photos. It’s a simple concept, but it will completely reshape your editing workflow, giving you a consistent look and saving you hours of work.

Why Custom Presets Are Your Secret Weapon

Before we get into the nuts and bolts, let’s talk about why making your own presets is one of the most powerful skills you can learn in Lightroom. Don't just think of a preset as a filter. It's more like a recipe—a saved formula of your unique editing decisions. It’s the DNA of your photographic style, bottled up and ready to deploy with a single click.

This is a lifesaver for photographers who need to deliver a cohesive set of images. Imagine you just shot a wedding with hundreds of photos. Applying a custom preset ensures every image shares the same foundational color grading and tonal balance, which is key to telling a professional, unified story. The same goes for brand photography, travel blogs, or just keeping your Instagram feed looking sharp and consistent.

To get a feel for the process before we jump in, here's a quick overview of what you'll be doing.

Lightroom Preset Creation at a Glance

Phase	Key Action	Objective
Editing	Adjust an image to perfection.	Create the foundational "look" you want to save.
Saving	Use the "Create Preset" dialog box.	Capture all relevant slider adjustments and settings.
Refining	Select which settings to include.	Ensure the preset is versatile and doesn't override key adjustments.
Organizing	Name and group your preset logically.	Keep your preset library tidy and easy to navigate.

This table breaks down the workflow into its essential parts. Now, let’s get into the details of each step.

The Power of Efficiency and Consistency

Beyond just style, presets are a massive time-saver. Instead of manually wrestling with the Tone Curve, HSL sliders, and sharpening for every single photo, you can apply your base look in a second. This frees you up to focus on the little things, like image-specific tweaks to exposure or cropping, slashing your total editing time.

For example, this is the dialog box where all the magic happens. It’s where you bottle up that editing recipe.

This window gives you total control over which settings get included, which is the key to making your presets flexible enough to work on different photos.

Understanding the Lightroom Ecosystem

It’s also good to know how presets work across different versions of Lightroom. The core idea is the same, but the management is a little different:

• Lightroom Classic is the desktop workhorse. Presets here are saved as .XMP files and live in local folders on your computer.
• Lightroom (CC) is the cloud-based version. Any presets you create here automatically sync across all your devices—desktop, web, and mobile—through the Adobe Cloud.

The good news is that presets are now cross-compatible. If you have an Adobe subscription, a preset you create in Classic will sync over to your mobile device, making your custom look available no matter where you're editing.

Lightroom presets are now a must-have tool for photographers and creators everywhere, seriously boosting editing speed and consistency. As of 2025, presets let users apply complex adjustments with a single click, from exposure and contrast to saturation and color balancing. If you want to dive deeper into the world of presets, you can discover more insights on playpresets.com.

Key Takeaway: Creating your own Lightroom presets is about more than just speed. It's the most effective way to define, refine, and consistently apply your unique artistic vision across all of your photography work.

When you really get this, you’re not just learning a technical skill—you're building the foundation for a stronger, more recognizable style as a photographer. Now, let’s get our hands dirty and actually build one.

Crafting Your First Preset in Lightroom

Alright, let's get to the fun part—turning your unique editing style into a one-click preset. Think of this as a mix of art and science. The real goal isn't just to make one photo look incredible, but to build a versatile starting point that works across a whole range of images.

First things first, you need a good base image. Don't just grab your most jaw-dropping shot. Pick a photo that represents the kind of work you do day in and day out. If you're a portrait photographer, use a well-lit headshot. If you’re a landscape shooter, find an image with a solid mix of highlights, shadows, and mid-tones. This choice matters because your preset will inherit the DNA of this "parent" image.

This is all about building a tool that works for you, and the benefits are threefold.

As you can see, creating your own presets isn't just about speed. It’s a powerful combination of saving time, defining your signature style, and locking in consistency across your work.

Making Your Initial Adjustments

With your chosen image loaded up, head over to the Develop module in Lightroom. This is where the magic happens. We'll start in the Basic panel, which is home to the most impactful, broad-stroke adjustments.

A crucial tip: leave the Exposure and White Balance sliders alone for now. These are almost always specific to each individual photo, and baking them into your preset will make it far less useful.

Instead, focus on the sliders that shape your aesthetic. Do you like a high-contrast, punchy look or something softer and more muted? Play with the Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, and Blacks until you hit a tonal balance you love. A classic move is to pull the highlights down a bit to recover detail in bright skies and lift the shadows to bring out texture in the darker areas.

Next, scroll down to the Presence sliders. This is where you inject some character. Clarity adds that gritty, mid-tone contrast, while Texture brings out fine details without making things look over-sharpened. Go easy here—a little bit goes a very long way.

Shaping Contrast with the Tone Curve

If I had to pick one tool that defines the mood of a preset, it would be the Tone Curve. While the sliders in the Basic panel are great for big moves, the Tone Curve gives you surgical control over the relationship between light and dark.

A gentle S-curve is the classic starting point for adding beautiful, natural-looking contrast. Just place a point in the lower third of the curve and drag it down slightly to deepen your shadows. Then, add another point in the upper third and pull it up to brighten the highlights.

Pro Tip: Want that soft, "filmic" look? Try lifting the very bottom-left point of the curve up just a touch. This clips the blacks so they aren't pure black, creating a subtle, faded effect that's incredibly popular.

Fine-Tuning Your Colors

Now we're getting to the heart of your preset's personality. The HSL/Color panel (which stands for Hue, Saturation, Luminance) lets you tweak individual color ranges without messing up the whole image.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Clean Up Your Skies: Lowering the saturation of the Blue channel can make skies less distracting and help whites appear cleaner.
• Shift Your Greens: Nudging the green hue slider toward yellow can give foliage a warm, autumnal vibe. Shifting it toward aqua creates a cooler, more dramatic feel.
• Make Skin Tones Pop: Head to the Luminance tab and gently boost the Orange and Red channels. This can give skin a healthy, flattering glow.

This is where you should really experiment. These subtle color shifts are what separate a generic edit from a signature style. It's no surprise that around 70% of professional photographers either create their own presets or heavily modify existing ones to get their look just right. If you're curious about this trend, you can dive deeper by reading the full guide on flourishpresets.com.

Saving Your Preset and Choosing Your Settings

Once you’ve dialed in an edit you love, it’s time to save it. Over in the left-hand panel, click the little plus icon (+) next to the Presets tab and select Create Preset. This brings up the New Develop Preset dialog box, which is the final—and most important—step.

You'll see a long checklist of every possible adjustment you can include in your preset.

The secret to a great preset is that what you uncheck is just as important as what you check.

For a preset that you can use on almost any photo, you need to be selective. Here’s my go-to setup for maximum flexibility:

1. Give It a Good Name: Make it descriptive so you know what it does at a glance (e.g., "Moody Forest Base" or "Clean & Bright Portrait").
2. Group It: Start organizing from day one. Create a new group for your own presets to keep things tidy.
3. Check Your Settings:
   • Definitely Check: Tone Curve, HSL/Color, Presence (Clarity, Texture, etc.), Sharpening, Noise Reduction, and Calibration. These are the core ingredients of your creative style.
   • Definitely Uncheck: White Balance and Exposure. These need to be set for each individual photo. Also, uncheck any local adjustments like masks, gradients, or the healing brush.
   • Probably Uncheck: Lens Corrections and Transform. Unless you're creating a preset specifically for one lens or to fix a common distortion, it's better to leave these off and apply them manually when needed.

By leaving out those photo-specific settings, you create a preset that only applies your style. You can then set your exposure and white balance for each new photo without fighting against the preset.

Click Create, and your new preset will pop up in the group you assigned it to, ready for you to use and test out.

How to Test and Refine Your New Preset

Creating a preset is only half the battle. The other, more important half, is making sure it's a reliable tool and not just a one-trick pony. A preset that only looks good on the exact photo you built it from isn't going to save you much time in the long run. The real test is seeing how it performs in the wild—across a whole range of different images and lighting conditions.

This process of testing and refining is what separates an okay preset from a truly versatile workhorse. Your goal is to build a foundation that gives you a consistent look but is flexible enough that you aren't spending five minutes fixing what the preset broke. A solid preset should get you about 80% of the way there, leaving only minor, photo-specific tweaks.

Putting Your Preset Through a Stress Test

To really get to know your preset's strengths and weaknesses, you need to throw a diverse set of images at it. And don't just pick your portfolio highlights! The best test subjects are often the problematic shots—the ones that are a little bit off straight out of the camera.

I recommend creating a temporary collection in Lightroom and filling it with a variety of challenging photos. Here's what to include:

• Underexposed Photos: See if the preset crushes the shadows into a muddy mess or introduces a ton of noise when you try to recover them.
• Overexposed Photos: Does your preset completely blow out the highlights, or does it help retain detail in bright areas like skies or a white wedding dress?
• High-Contrast Scenes: Apply it to photos taken in harsh midday sun. Check if the contrast becomes way too aggressive, making shadows too dark and highlights too bright.
• Portraits with Different Skin Tones: This one is non-negotiable. A preset isn't truly robust until it renders a variety of skin tones naturally and beautifully, without making people look orange, gray, or oversaturated.
• Low-Light and High-ISO Images: Look for how the preset handles digital noise. Does the sharpening or clarity just make the grain look worse?

By running these tests, you aren't looking for perfection with a single click. What you're doing is gathering intel on how your preset behaves, which is the key to making it better.

Identifying and Fixing Common Issues

As you apply the preset to your test images, you'll start to notice patterns. Maybe that moody landscape preset you made makes skin tones look sickly, or your bright and airy preset clips the highlights in every sunny photo. This is totally normal and a core part of the process.

To help diagnose what's going on, I put together this little checklist. It's a great way to systematically see where your preset might be falling short and what you can do about it.

Preset Testing Checklist

Test Scenario	What to Look For	Potential Refinement Needed
Portraits	Unnatural skin tones (too orange/red), overly sharp features	Adjust the Orange/Red sliders in the HSL panel; lower Clarity or Sharpening.
Landscapes	Clipped highlights in skies, muddy shadows in forests or mountains	Lower the Whites slider; adjust the Tone Curve to lift the shadow point slightly.
Low Light	Exaggerated digital noise, loss of detail in dark areas	Reduce Sharpening or Texture settings; adjust Noise Reduction sliders.
Mixed Lighting	Inconsistent color casts across the image	Re-evaluate the Color Grading (Split Toning) or Calibration panel settings.

This table should give you a clear path forward when you see something isn't quite right.

Key Insight: The goal isn’t to create a magic bullet that works perfectly every time. The goal is to create a predictable starting point that requires minimal, consistent adjustments from photo to photo.

Updating Your Preset with New Settings

Once you've spotted a recurring issue and figured out how to fix it, it’s time to update the preset itself. For example, if you notice your preset is consistently crushing the blacks too much, just select one of your test images, apply the preset, and then lift the Blacks slider or the shadow point on the Tone Curve to fix it.

After making your refinement, right-click on the preset in the Presets panel and choose "Update with Current Settings." This opens the exact same dialog box you saw when you first created the preset. Just make sure the same boxes are checked as before and click "Update."

This simple action overwrites the old preset with your new, improved version. This iterative cycle—testing, finding flaws, and updating—is exactly how to create a preset in Lightroom that becomes a truly powerful and time-saving part of your workflow. Repeat this process until you're happy, and you'll have a preset that's a reliable starting point for the vast majority of your images.

Organizing and Syncing Your Preset Library

Once you start creating presets in Lightroom, your collection can quickly spiral from a few handy tools into a chaotic, jumbled mess. A well-organized preset library is just as critical as the presets themselves; it can transform your workflow from a frantic search into a smooth, creative process.

Without a system, you’ll waste valuable time hunting for the right look. A messy library can actually slow you down more than just editing from scratch, which completely defeats the purpose of having presets in the first place.

Establishing a Logical Naming Convention

Your first line of defense against preset chaos is a smart naming convention. Let's be honest, vague names like "Preset 1" or "Cool Edit" are completely useless when you have dozens to sift through. The goal is to create names so descriptive you know exactly what a preset does without even clicking on it.

A great approach is to build the name from its core components: the style, the subject, and any unique characteristics. This method creates an at-a-glance system that’s instantly understandable.

Here are a few practical examples to get you started:

• Style + Subject: "Moody Landscapes – Forest Greens" or "Bright & Airy – Indoor Portraits"
• Lighting Condition: "Golden Hour – Warm Glow" or "Overcast Day – Soft Contrast"
• Creative Effect: "Vintage Film – Faded Tones" or "Black & White – High Contrast"

Adopting a system like this lets you navigate straight to the right preset for any photo, making your selection process intuitive and fast. This is a foundational step in learning how to create a preset in Lightroom that serves you well for years to come.

Using Preset Groups for Better Management

Beyond just naming, Lightroom lets you organize presets into collapsible folders called Groups. This is, hands down, the most powerful organizational feature you have. Instead of one massive, scrolling list, you can neatly tuck away presets into categories that match how you actually shoot.

For example, a wedding photographer might create groups like:

• Getting Ready – Low Light
• Ceremony – Outdoor
• Reception – Flash
• Portraits – Golden Hour
• Final B&W Collection

Pro Tip: Don't be afraid to create subgroups for even more granular control. You could have a main group for "Client Work" and then nest subgroups for "Weddings," "Family Sessions," and "Corporate Headshots" inside it. A tidy library is a fast library.

To create a new group, just select "Create New Group" from the dropdown menu when you first save your preset. If you've already got presets floating around, you can simply drag and drop them into the group folder you want. Easy.

Backing Up and Sharing Your Presets

Think of your custom presets as valuable creative assets. Losing them to a hard drive failure or a computer crash would be devastating, so backing them up is non-negotiable. Lightroom presets are saved as .XMP files, which are tiny, portable files that hold all your saved settings.

Exporting is super simple:

1. Right-click on a single preset or an entire preset group.
2. Choose "Export" from the menu that pops up.
3. Pick a safe location, like an external hard drive or a cloud folder in Dropbox or Google Drive.

This creates a clean copy of your .XMP files that you can stash away for safekeeping or share with other photographers. If you're working on a project with a team, you can send your exported group to a colleague, and they can import it directly into their own Lightroom setup.

Syncing Presets Across Your Devices

One of the best things about the Adobe Creative Cloud ecosystem is how it syncs your work so seamlessly. When you create a preset in the cloud-based Lightroom (Desktop), it automatically syncs and pops up in Lightroom Mobile on your phone and tablet. You don't have to do a thing; it just works.

For Lightroom Classic users, the process is just as easy, but you have to make sure syncing is turned on.

• Head to Preferences > Lightroom Sync.
• Make sure the "Sync with Lightroom" box is checked and you're logged into your Adobe account.

Once that's enabled, any presets you create or import into Lightroom Classic will be pushed to the cloud and onto your mobile devices. This means your signature look is always in your pocket, letting you maintain a consistent style whether you're editing at your desk or on the go. This unified workflow is a massive advantage for any modern photographer.

Creating Mobile Presets Using the DNG Method

Syncing presets from Lightroom Classic to your own phone is a breeze, but what about sharing them with others? Specifically, how do you get your presets to someone using the free Lightroom Mobile app? Since they don't have a paid Creative Cloud subscription, they can't sync the standard .XMP preset files.

This is where the DNG method saves the day. It's the go-to technique for photographers who sell or share mobile presets, and it's surprisingly clever.

Essentially, a DNG file acts like a Trojan horse for your edits. It’s a RAW photo file that carries all your editing instructions—every single slider adjustment—embedded directly within it. When someone opens this special DNG on their phone, Lightroom Mobile can read those instructions and save them as a brand-new preset.

It’s a simple workaround that makes your edits accessible to a massive audience of mobile-only creators.

From Desktop Edit to Mobile DNG File

Everything starts in the desktop version of Lightroom. First, pick a photo and apply the edit you want to turn into a mobile preset. The actual content of the photo doesn't really matter, though I find a simple, clean image works best. It keeps the focus on the edit itself without any distracting elements.

Once your masterpiece is ready, the next move is to export it—but not as a JPG. You'll be exporting it as a DNG.

• Select your edited photo in Lightroom.
• Head up to File > Export.
• In the export window, find the "Image Format" section and choose DNG from the dropdown menu.
• You can leave the rest of the settings as they are. Just click Export.

That's it. You now have a .DNG file that holds both the photo and all of your beautiful editing data. The only thing left to do on your end is get that file onto a phone. You can use AirDrop, Dropbox, Google Drive, or even just email it to yourself. Whatever’s easiest.

Saving the DNG Settings in Lightroom Mobile

Once the DNG file is on a mobile device, the user just needs to add it to their Lightroom Mobile photo library. It often shows up as a blank or black square in the gallery at first—don't panic, that's totally normal. When they tap to open it, the image will appear with your edits applied.

From here, the finish line is just a few taps away. With the DNG image open, they’ll tap the three-dot menu icon in the top-right corner. A menu will pop up with the option to "Create Preset."

This screenshot shows you exactly where that button is hiding.

This little menu is the key to unlocking the settings baked into the DNG file and turning them into a native preset.

Key Takeaway: The DNG method works by packaging your edits inside an image file. Lightroom Mobile can then extract these settings and save them locally, making it the perfect workaround for sharing presets with users of the free mobile app.

On the "New Preset" screen, they'll give the preset a name, choose a group for it, and select which settings to include—just like creating a preset on desktop. After tapping the checkmark to save, your preset is officially installed in their Lightroom Mobile app. It's now ready to be applied to any photo with a single tap. This is exactly how to create a preset in Lightroom that anyone can use.

Common Questions About Creating Presets

As you start building your own Lightroom presets, you're bound to run into a few head-scratchers. It’s a totally normal part of the learning curve, and getting these questions answered early will save you a ton of frustration down the road. Let’s tackle some of the most common things that come up when learning how to create a preset in Lightroom.

Can I Create a Preset from a Local Adjustment?

Technically, yes, but I almost always advise against it. Think about it: a local adjustment, like a Radial or Linear Gradient, is usually placed in a very specific spot to solve a problem on one particular photo—like brightening a face or darkening a sky.

If you save that specific mask into a preset, it will show up in the exact same position on every single photo you apply it to. That means you’ll have to move or delete the mask every time, which completely defeats the purpose of using a preset to save time. My advice? Keep your creative color and tone edits in the main preset and apply masks manually when you need them.

Why Do My Presets Make Skin Tones Look Weird?

This is probably the number one issue I see photographers struggle with. If your preset is making skin tones look funky, it’s almost always because the color adjustments are too heavy-handed. The usual suspects are the HSL/Color panel or the Color Grading tool.

If skin is looking off, pop back into your edit and try these fixes before updating the preset:

• Check Your Oranges and Reds: In the HSL panel, skin tones are controlled almost entirely by the orange and red channels. Drastic hue shifts or big saturation boosts here are a recipe for disaster. Back those sliders off a bit.
• Tone Down the Color Grading: Did you add a really strong blue tint to your shadows or a warm yellow to your highlights? That color can easily spill over onto the skin, making it look sickly or unnatural. Try reducing the saturation of your color grading for a much more subtle and pleasing effect.

Should I Include Sharpening and Noise Reduction?

This is a great question, and the answer really comes down to your personal workflow. Baking these settings into a preset can definitely save you a click on every photo, but it’s not always a one-size-fits-all solution. An image shot in near-darkness at a high ISO needs a completely different approach to noise reduction than a clean studio portrait shot at ISO 100.

A more flexible strategy is to create two versions of your go-to preset: one with your standard sharpening and one without. This gives you the choice to add sharpening separately or dial in custom noise reduction for those really grainy shots.

For a general-purpose preset, including a moderate amount of sharpening (somewhere around 50-70) is usually a safe bet.

What Is the Difference Between XMP and DNG Presets?

Getting a handle on the file types is crucial, especially if you plan on sharing or selling your presets. It’s actually pretty simple.

File Type	Primary Use	How It Works
.XMP	Lightroom Classic & Desktop CC	This is the standard preset file for desktop software. It’s a tiny file that just contains the editing instructions, which you can import directly into any desktop version of Lightroom.
.DNG	Lightroom Mobile (Free Version)	This is a clever workaround. It's a RAW image file that has all your edits embedded in it. Mobile users open this "photo" in the free app and use the "Copy Settings" and "Paste Settings" function to save it as a new preset.

The bottom line is this: .XMP files are for desktop editors and anyone with a paid Creative Cloud subscription that syncs to their phone. .DNG files are the universal key for sharing with the massive community of photographers using the free Lightroom Mobile app.

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