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.
Knowing when to use presets is akin to being a good chef you just need to know when and how much (opacity blend, etc) they should be used.
As others have stated presets on photos from events like weddings, etc are essential for doing some first round editing, any other way and you’d be stuck in front of the monitor forever and probably out of business / divorced.
Haha. This is just another discussion evolution of the film vs. digital, no PS vs. lots of PS, real vs. unreal. And that’s great. It always amuses me how some photographers have such hard-and-fast rules and others feel the need to reveal they only “tweak” in processing. Come on, live a little. Adjustment presets and plug-ins are yet another tool to free and inspire creativity. And some of the presets designers do some really crazy cool photoshop shit that I couldn’t figure out in a million years. I buy/download them, deconstruct them, use them, share them, and of course, throw a lot of them away. It’s all good.
As for the Hipstamatic haters – take a deep breath and chillax a little. Photography should be fun, and for a lot of newbies and right-brainers and even pros, it’s a fun tool that helps them see the world in a new light.
Make pretty pictures. Have fun. Drink beer. Repeat.
Hi
As Aperture is my primary tool ( and often the only post tool I use ) I’ll approach weddings and portraits with the intention of getting through as many of the 1500+ wedding images as fast as I can while delivering the best quality I can achieve. Some images require a lot more processing and more time, lots of images just don’t.
I’ve created my own presets mainly for black and white processing. Colour images I tend to adjust one image then lift and stamp images with similar exposure and lighting values. e.g group formal shots, ceremony shots, wedding speeches etc
What was once a solid week of editing and photoshop is now mostly just over a weekend.
Portraits are much faster !
presets, like many things in photography are just tools that we use to achieve the desired result. Do I use presets, yes all the time! I’ve saved some of my commonly used adjustments as presets and that saves me a fair bit of time. I’ve downloaded some off the web to learn and use as a starting point, and if it is great for what I need, hey, it might be the end point too.
Look forward to your take on this Scott!
I use presets that I have created and ones that I have acquired. They work, they speed things up they help with maintaining a consistent look. I used to feel bad sometimes about the “push the button. the computer does the rest” ease of it all. Like was that creative act or what? Coming from a film background, I had to labor for hours in the darkroom to get “the look”. Presets seem to easy sometimes. But at the end of the day we have to ask ourselves, does the image work? If so, does it matter how we got there?
Just saying.
Yeah buddy! I use my own and tweak it for each photo. Just creating art. Stay true to yourself and create from the heart!