Lightroom Presets | Indoors

It is the time of year around here for snow days and indoor play and  to be honest, it is also the time of year where I find myself dusting off my camera quite often.  I have minimal sources of natural light in our home so find myself very limited for photo opportunities (although I am working on figuring out more options). One of my very favorite places in our home is the Art room.  I have just enough natural light in there to capture the bright colorful images that I love and this is the place where I see my kids imaginations come to life, which I love even more.

I decided to share this post because one of the questions I often get emailed is, “Which One Willow Preset Collection will work best on indoor photos?‘ and another “Why am I getting an orange tone on my photo after I apply a preset to my indoor photo?” (scroll down for recommendations)

All of the images in this post were edited using the Time preset from The Beautiful Things Collection (Raw- Lightroom version) tweaked slightly to suite.  The Beautiful Things Collection was designed with soft tones, so that the presets could be used with more versatility on indoor and outdoor images. When deciding upon which preset to use, I navigated through the presets in this collection using the first image. There were many presets from this collection that would suite but I found ‘Time’ to be the best fit. I applied the preset to that image, made slight adjustments to the Temp slider, Curve tone, Clarity, Fill Light, Shadows in Split Toning and also added in Noise Reduction. I then selected the remaining photos and clicked Sync.  I exported directly into PS and finished with a final sharpen, web re-size, watermark and created the diptychs for the blog post.

This was an incredibly easy edit with only slight adjustments however, there are definitely other factors that contributed to getting good results from the preset on these images.  Here are a few recommendations to take into consideration:

- One Willow Presets (specifically the current collections) are designed for Natural Light images.  The presets will look different on images taken in artificial lighting.  This has to do with a variety of factors but mainly because of the white balance and shadows. If applying the preset to an image with artificial lighting, try adjusting your temp slider to cool down the preset and add in fill light to help correct the shadows. (This is most effective on Raw presets).

- Work at getting the best in camera image possible. This is the most important factor! Presets work best on properly exposed images. One Willow Presets do not adjust your exposure. If an adjustment is needed, it is best to correct the exposure first, then apply the preset. In camera is especially important if you are shooting Jpg, since the flexibility of adjusting your exposure is much less during the post processing.

- White Balance. The flexibility of adjusting the White Balance of a Raw image is why I love Raw so (although I do still try to get the best in camera possible). One Willow Presets do contain WB adjustments but often this will need further tweaking to suite the image (especially on indoor photos).  This slight adjustment can make a HUGE difference on the way a preset looks on an image and is often the cause of the orange/red cast. Also, if you are navigating the presets to find the best option and have already adjusted your WB, be sure to create a snapshot of the image prior to navigating so you can refer back to the original adjusted image.  Additionally, if shooting Jpg, it is very important to get the best WB possible in camera because your range of flexibility for adjusting WB it is much less in post processing than it would be with a Raw image.

- Split Toning. If you are still noticing over toning of your image after making an adjustment to the WB, check the split toning. Often, the highlights and shadows are toned in a preset through the use of split toning.  You can decrease the saturation of these by adjusting the saturation sliders and the balance.  This usually helps with indoor photos because they contain a lot of shadows and the shadow toning is more noticeable. 

The Below image is before the Time Preset was applied.  (camera settings below image)

Lens:  35mm 1.4

Format: Raw

ISO: 640

Aperture: f/2.2

Shutter: 1/160 sec

Hope this helps you apply your presets to indoor natural light photos!  ♥
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One Willow Lightroom Presets- Step by Step

This tutorial will take you through the steps of how I apply One Willow Presets to my RAW images in Lightroom.

This beautiful photo was captured during one of my recent commercial photo-shoots for Wild Olive Tees.  The photo posted below is SOOC (straight out of camera) and captured as a RAW file.  You can see that although the exposure and focus are lovely the photo is dull and drab as a RAW file.

The very first step I do with my RAW file is to make sure the exposure is adjusted.  The image looked good to me and was exposed to my preference so I did not need to make an exposure adjustment. So, while in the Develop mode of Lightroom and using my Navigation panel (on upper-left panel of my Lightroom screen) I will scroll through the various presets (using my cursor arrow and watching the navigation display screen as I scroll) until I decide upon the preset that best suites this image.  For this image I chose the Promise preset from The Beautiful Things Collection. After deciding, click the preset to apply it.

I loved the toning and boost the Promise Preset gave this image but I felt it was still a bit on the cool side and had more of a pink tint than I would prefer.  I also felt that it needed more definition and depth so I made these super quick adjustments to the preset using the Basic panel.  Temp- towards warm; Tint- towards green; blacks- slide to right to increase; contrast- slide to right to increase; recovery slide to right- to recover blown highlights. The below images show the adjustments and the full version after the adjustments were made.

I also felt the blues that were a bit bold on the blacktop shadow (but liked the addition of the color) so I made a saturation adjustment to the blues in the HSL Panel pulling the to the left to decrease saturation.  (this preset contains a blue saturation increase)

My final touches to this image were to use the One Willow Portrait Brushes to provide a few portrait enhancements (more about those later) and to reduce noise and sharpen.  To reduce image noise I applied the One Willow Post- Reduce Noise II from the Beautiful Things Collection (this layers on top of the Lightroom preset) and sharpened to taste using the sharpening sliders.

At last, the before/after…

and the final image exported out of Lightroom (sized for web) and watermarked in PS.  Ta Da! Amazingly fast!

Lightroom Tutorial – Sharpening

Over the past few weeks I have gotten numerous emails asking how to best sharpen images in Lightroom. Unfortunately, in the past, I haven’t found the sharpen feature of Lightroom as my favorite sharpening method BUT it has improved (especially when you use the tip posted below) with the latest version -Lightroom 3 and I am finding the results more satisfactory. As with most editing techniques in Lightroom, I am sure there are more ways than one to accomplish this… posted below are a few before and after screen shots using the Sharpening sliders (in the Detail panel of the Develop module) showing one way to achieve a decent image sharpening.

My very first step to this image edit, was to apply the Chartreuse preset (RAW version) from the Timeless Collection (tweaked slightly to suite this image).

Then I opened up my Detail Panel.

Next I zoomed my photo in close (using the magnify tool) and started adjusting my sharpen sliders.  I find zooming works fine for portraits however many may choose to keep the photo at the normal 100% size and use the small zoom window located in the detail panel… total preference choice.  (below B/A  photo before sharpen adjustments)

A super fab tip for Lightroom Sharpening is to press the alt/option key while using the sliders.  This turns the screen black and white (much like the high pass filter in PS) allowing you to see exactly where you are sharpening and adjusting.  Try this, you will love! (below B/A photo after sharpening adjustments).

Sharpening Sliders Breakdown:

Amount Slider- This adjusts the amount of sharpening applied to your photo.

Radius Slider- This determines the strength of the sharpening outline or how many edge pixels the sharpening will effect. The alt/option key works really well for understanding and seeing where to adjust this slider.

Detail Slider- This controls that tracing effect that can occur around the outlines in your images (sometimes referred to as halo effect).  Again, the alt/option key works really well for understanding and seeing where to adjust this slider.

Masking Slider- This slider masks the sharpening on the areas such as skin while still retaining sharpen on the detail areas such as eyes.  Another slider that the The alt/option key works really well for.

My final adjustments in the detail panel looked like this. (and I bumped up the noise reduction a bit)

The full before/after view. If you prefer a sharper image for the web, you can adjust accordingly.

And just because it’s such a cutie photo… here is the final version (little nose crusties removed..hehe).