All Those Preset Offers: If I purchased all the preset offers being sent to me, I'd have to take to a mortgage on my house. Everybody and his brother are selling presets, and I am...

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

If I purchased all the preset offers being sent to me, I'd have to take to a mortgage on my house. Everybody and his brother are selling presets, and I am assuming none of them are worth purchasing. I use presets very sparingly, only a very few of those that come with programs.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

jaymatt wrote:

If I purchased all the preset offers being sent to me, I'd have to take to a mortgage on my house. Everybody and his brother are selling presets, and I am assuming none of them are worth purchasing. I use presets very sparingly, only a very few of those that come with programs.

I don't use presets, I tweak each slider, unique to each image.
Presets are basically exclusive to one picture, they'll only get you in the ballpark with other images.
Unless one wants to have 400 presets, then that'll just get closer.
And one has to decide on which preset... But wouldn't that simply be moving multiple sliders at once?
Nope, no presets.

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

Personally, I can't find any value in presets, mine or anyone else's. Maybe if you shoot portraits or weddings they would have value in providing some uniformity in your shots. I consider my shots to be unique and can't imagine why I would want a cookie cutter approach to my processing.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Curmudgeon wrote:

Personally, I can't find any value in presets, mine or anyone else's. Maybe if you shoot portraits or weddings they would have value in providing some uniformity in your shots. I consider my shots to be unique and can't imagine why I would want a cookie cutter approach to my processing.

Ahhhh..
One for each skin tone/hair/clothes combinations A, B, C, D, E, F, ........ Q, R, .....

Probably still need to tweak.

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

Longshadow wrote:

I don't use presets, I tweak each slider, unique to each image.
Presets are basically exclusive to one picture, they'll only get you in the ballpark with other images.
Unless one wants to have 400 presets, then that'll just get closer.
And one has to decide on which preset... But wouldn't that simply be moving multiple sliders at once?
Nope, no presets.

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

Curmudgeon wrote:

Personally, I can't find any value in presets, mine or anyone else's. Maybe if you shoot portraits or weddings they would have value in providing some uniformity in your shots. I consider my shots to be unique and can't imagine why I would want a cookie cutter approach to my processing.

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

Longshadow wrote:

Ahhhh..
One for each skin tone/hair/clothes combinations A, B, C, D, E, F, ........ Q, R, .....

wrangler5 Loc: Missouri

I print a lot (up to 1,000) of B&W images that go into books as Christmas presents for family. When I switched to Canon Pro-10 printers years ago I found that adding a very slight sepia tone gave a more pleasing look on the Red River paper that I use, so I made a Lightroom preset to do that. (I have never gotten comfortable with the Lightroom sync function, which I gather would be another way to do this.)

But that's the only preset that I've ever made.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

jaymatt wrote:

If I purchased all the preset offers being sent to me, I'd have to take to a mortgage on my house. Everybody and his brother are selling presets, and I am assuming none of them are worth purchasing. I use presets very sparingly, only a very few of those that come with programs.

I have a bunch of presets, all of them obtained for free. However, I don't use them - I'd rather edit on my own.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I accept the monthly free presets from On1.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

DWU2 wrote:

I have a bunch of presets, all of them obtained for free. However, I don't use them - I'd rather edit on my own.

Canisdirus

Presets are useful if you are batch processing...going to individually process 300 images in one sitting?...not me.

Outside of that scenario...I make my own anyways and store them.

Want Leica colors?...you can make it yourself. You can make anything actually.

Why are so many hawking their own presets?...it's a money maker.

Mankind will almost always choose convenience over cost...which can be...problematic.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Canisdirus wrote:

Presets are useful if you are batch processing...going to individually process 300 images in one sitting?...not me.
...
...

ME NEITHER!!!

I only edit the ones I'm going to use, when I'm going to use them.
(Maybe one or two for kicks-and-giggles here and there.)
I don't edit all my images for the sake of having them edited.
Such a waste of MY time. I don't live to edit.
I don't do batch processing, I treat each image individually.

Canisdirus

Longshadow wrote:

ME NEITHER!!!

I only edit the ones I'm going to use, when I'm going to use them.
(Maybe one or two for kicks-and-giggles here and there.)
I don't edit all my images for the sake of having them edited.
Such a waste of MY time. I don't live to edit.
I don't do batch processing, I treat each image individually.

Me too...most times. But there are times I go out and shoot say...my eagle's nest.
I may shoot 300 images in an hour...same day...same light (mostly).
In that case I will use one of my presets made for that scenario...does most of the basic stuff.
Then in just a minute...I have 300 images that are processed...75%.
Then I can see which ones are shining best...and do some finishing touches on some.

It can be a time saver...batch processing.

But if you aren't ripping off hundreds (thousands) of images in the same 'session'...then it's a niche thing to have...and should never pay for.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Canisdirus wrote:

...

It can be a time saver...batch processing.

...

Yes, in an instance like that I can see where it would.

But my shooting, which is very selective, may be a handful of shots at different locations/subjects on an outing.
Batch processing would not help me in those instances of totally different subjects/conditions.