Lightroom + Free Presets

I am completely addicted to Adobe Lightroom. If you don’t know what it is and you love photography, you have no idea what you are missing. To be completely honest, it took me a while to like it and to use it for my scrapping. I was used to editing my photos in photoshop WHILE I was creating my scrapbook pages. It was hard to learn to edit something and then create a layout around the end result, but now I know it is totally worth it.

I have learned a lot since I started really using in January, and I would like to share what, IN MY OPNION, is worth doing:

• Increase {exposure} (unless your photo is really over exposed) but if you plan to printing your photos, they will look much better (what you see on screen rarely reflects the printed result)
  If you lose detail, such as clouds in the sky, etc, because of higher exposure, increase your {recovery} and that should help.
• Increase the {black} in your pictures to boost your photos colours. Increase {exposure} and sometimes {fill light} to compensate the darkness, it is well worth it.
  If during editing your photos become too colourful, decrease {saturation} until it is dull enough and then increase {vibrancy)
• Keep an eye on the {temperature} of your photos, increase it to avoid a bluish tint or just to fake and afternoon glow and decrease to get rid of crappy artificial lighting (perfect for indoor nigh time shots).
• Most importantly, PLAY!

So, if you are new to Lightroom I don’t expect you to jump in straight up. I also recommend using presets if you are pressed for time. Kelsey Smith has some greats ones, you can find some of my favourites at Inside Lightroom. Having said that, I would like to share my own! A lot of people have asked what I have been doing to my photos; mentioned that the colours are great, etc. So I have saved my go to presets and put them in a neat package for you guys (sorry, cute model not included):

And it is free ;) (I am getting addicted to giving free stuff LOL) HERE is the link!
Let me know if you like it.

I have saved the first two (the jpg ones) when I was first playing with my photos. I started shooting in RAW last month and noticed things work completely different in RAW images, so I am still finding my way around and discovering the difference {I am loving it}. Either way, no single preset will ever be the perfect post processing solution, it is always good to do some extra tweaking, but presets sure are a great starting point :)