Updated September 2026
When scrolling through Instagram or browsing through your favorite photographer's portfolio, you might notice a consistent style or aesthetic that catches your eye. It's not just the quality of the camera or the subject of the photo, but the editing style that makes the images stand out. The secret behind many of those gorgeous, consistent aesthetics is Lightroom Presets.
In this guide, we’ll explore why Lightroom presets can take your photo edits to the next level and how you can achieve polished, professional-looking results with minimal effort — even as a beginner.
What Are Lightroom Presets?
Lightroom presets are pre-defined sets of adjustments (like exposure, contrast, saturation, and color grading) that can be applied to your photos with a single click. These adjustments are designed to help you achieve a specific look or feel for your images, whether it’s bright and airy, moody and dark, or rich and vibrant.
Presets can be created by photographers, professional photo editors, content creators, or anyone who develops an editing style they want to save and reuse. Professionally designed presets are often refined and tested across different images and lighting conditions to create more consistent results. Anyone can use presets, regardless of skill level, to enhance their photos quickly and consistently.
What Are Presets For?
Adobe Lightroom presets are super handy for both beginners and professional photographers who want to streamline their editing process. Presets transform an image with minimal effort, applying everything from color grading to exposure adjustments. They can help you create polished edits without needing to master every Lightroom adjustment first.
Are Lightroom Presets the Same as Filters?
Lightroom presets and photo filters can both change the appearance of an image, but they are not exactly the same. A Lightroom preset applies saved adjustments to Lightroom's editing controls, which means you can continue changing exposure, white balance, contrast, color, highlights, shadows, and other settings after the preset is applied.
This makes presets especially flexible because the edit is not locked in. You can use the preset as your starting point and then customize the final result to fit your individual photo.
Why Use Lightroom Presets?
Using Lightroom presets can make your photo editing process much more efficient and consistent. Lightroom presets help you save time, simplify your workflow, and keep every photo beautifully consistent.
Whether you’re editing for personal use or building your brand, Lightroom presets offer more than just convenience — they bring consistency, creativity, and confidence to your workflow.
Benefits of Using Lightroom Presets
Consistency — Create a cohesive, professional look across your entire portfolio or feed. Every photo feels connected, whether it’s for Instagram, client galleries, or your brand.
Speed — Speed up your workflow when editing large groups of photos. With batch editing and saved preset settings, you can spend less time adjusting the same sliders and more time creating.
Professional Results — Achieve polished color tones and balanced edits without needing years of editing experience. Presets make advanced editing styles more accessible to beginners while still allowing experienced photographers to customize every detail.
Creativity — Experiment with mood and style effortlessly. From soft, airy tones to rich film textures, presets let you explore your artistic vision and develop a signature aesthetic that’s uniquely yours.
With presets, every edit feels intentional — helping you define your photography style while keeping your workflow fast, flexible, and consistent.
Who Are Presets For?
Presets are a game-changer for content creators, bloggers, influencers, photographers, and everyday photo lovers. They help save time by allowing you to apply a specific look or style with just one click, helping create consistency across your images. Whether you're editing for social media, a blog, client work, or just your everyday photos, presets help streamline the process and make it easier to develop a consistent aesthetic.
Presets can be especially helpful for beginners who may not yet be familiar with Lightroom. They allow you to experiment with different styles without needing to know every detail of Adobe's software or app. For professionals, presets can be used to quickly apply a signature style across a group of images while maintaining consistency.
Are Presets Worth the Money?
For many photographers and creators, presets are worth paying for because they give you a professionally developed editing style without requiring years of experience learning how to build that look from scratch. A good preset can also save time, create more consistent results, and give you a strong starting point that you can customize to your own photos.
Do Professionals Use Presets?
For professional photographers, presets are much more than just shortcuts for editing — they can be important tools that contribute to the artistic identity and workflow efficiency of a photographer.
Presets help photographers develop and maintain their aesthetic and evoke mood and emotion in their images. They can also streamline the editing process, saving time while helping maintain consistency across a full set of images, which is important when delivering a polished, cohesive final gallery.
Can You Adjust the Strength of a Lightroom Preset?
Yes. Current versions of Lightroom include a Preset Amount control for compatible presets, allowing you to increase or decrease the overall strength of the preset after you apply it.
This is especially helpful if you love the style of a preset but want a softer effect on a particular photo. You can adjust the preset strength and then make small changes to exposure, white balance, or other settings as needed.
How Do Presets Save You Time?
Lightroom presets are a game-changer when it comes to editing efficiency, and batch editing is one of the most useful ways to speed up your workflow.
For Desktop Lightroom: after editing one image, you can select the photos you want to apply similar settings to and use Lightroom's syncing, copy and paste, or batch editing tools depending on the version of Lightroom you use.
For Lightroom Mobile: you can edit one photo, use the Copy Settings option, select additional images, and paste those settings onto them. You can then make small adjustments to individual images if the lighting or exposure changes.
What Do You Need To Use Presets?
You’ll need Adobe Lightroom Classic or Lightroom (cloud-based) for desktop computers. Both versions allow you to import, edit, and apply presets to your photos.
Lightroom Classic is used primarily by photographers who work with larger local photo libraries and want more control over file organization and a traditional desktop workflow.
Lightroom (cloud-based) is ideal for users who want a streamlined experience with cloud syncing for photos and edits across devices.
Lightroom Mobile is available for iOS and Android with both free and premium features. The app lets you use presets on the go, and Adobe Creative Cloud users can also sync compatible presets and edits across devices.
You can download the free Lightroom App here: Download for iPhone or Download for Android
You can download a free trial of Adobe Lightroom here: Download Lightroom Free Trial
You can download a free trial of Adobe Photoshop here: Download Photoshop Free Trial
Best Place To Buy Lightroom Presets?
Lou & Marks has been creating Lightroom Presets since 2013. Our presets are created by professional photographers and photo editors, and we also collaborate with influencers and creators to develop editing styles designed for both photography and social media. With over 500k+ happy customers and photo reviews from real users, you can see how our presets perform across many different photography styles.
You can shop Lou & Marks Presets: Shop Lou & Marks Presets
Options For Best Websites To Buy Lightroom Presets?
1. Directly From A Creator
Purchasing presets directly from an experienced creator or preset company gives you a better idea of who created the presets and what type of photography they were designed for. Lou & Marks Presets has been designing Instagram and photography presets since 2013. We are a team of professional photographers and professional photo editors, and we also collaborate with Instagram creators to design and curate collections for social media and photography.
You can shop Lou & Marks Presets here: Shop Lou & Marks
Our best-selling presets to start with are: Golden Boho, Kodak Portra, Light & Airy, Kodak Gold, Creamy Moody, The Starter Bundle and our Skin Smoothing Presets.
How To Avoid Buying ‘Bad’ Presets?
To avoid purchasing low-quality presets that may waste your time and money, here are a few things to look for before you shop.
1. Only Shop Trusted Sites Or Trusted Creators
When you purchase from a trusted site or creator, you know who you are purchasing from. If you are unsure who the creator is, check the About and Contact sections of the website. Look for photography or photo editing experience, examples of their work, and information about who actually created the presets.
2. Look For Reviews With Photos
Check whether the website has verified customer reviews. Photo reviews are especially helpful because they allow you to see how the presets perform on images outside the creator's own examples.
3. Check Their Social Accounts
Established creators and businesses often have a presence on social media where you can see more of their work, examples, tutorials, customer results, and current activity. Check the Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or Facebook accounts linked from their website when available.
4. Ask Questions
If you are unsure what presets to purchase, contact the creator and ask for assistance selecting presets that will be right for your photography or style. This can help you choose a collection that better fits your photos and editing goals.
Presets can be a valuable tool for developing your style as a content creator or photographer. They are useful for photo enthusiasts at every level, from beginner to professional. Presets help speed up your workflow, allow you to experiment with different editing styles, and give you a polished starting point without needing to build every edit completely from scratch.
Make sure you are purchasing your presets from a trusted website or creator. To shop Lou & Marks Presets you can browse all our Preset Collections here: Shop Lou & Marks Presets
Installation & Usage
Now that we've gone over what Lightroom Presets are, why you might use them, and where to purchase them, let's go over how to install and use them.
How To Install Lightroom Presets On iPhone
1. Importing Your Preset Files To Lightroom
Open the Lightroom mobile app and open one of your images so you can access the editing tools. Tap the Presets icon at the bottom of the screen. Go to the "Yours" section, open the options menu, select "Import Presets," and choose the preset files you downloaded.
2. Using Your New Presets
The presets will now be available in Lightroom for you to use on your photos. Repeat this step for each preset collection you downloaded. To use your presets, select a preset to apply the edit to your photo, make any small adjustments you want, and then tap the checkmark to save the edit.
You can also view these instructions as a video on YouTube Here
How To Install Lightroom Presets On Android
1. Importing Your Preset To Lightroom
After you download your presets, open the Lightroom App. Open one of your images so you can access the editing tools, then tap Presets.
Go to the "Yours" section, open the options menu, and select "Import Presets." Choose the preset file or ZIP file you downloaded and follow Lightroom's prompts to import it.
Once Lightroom confirms the presets were imported, they will appear in your preset library.
2. Using Your New Presets
To locate your new Presets, go to the section titled "Yours." Scroll through your preset groups and locate the folder containing your Lou & Marks Presets. Select a preset to apply it to your photo, make any small adjustments you want, and tap the checkmark when you are finished.
Repeat the importing steps for each Preset Collection Zip File you downloaded.
You can also view these instructions on YouTube Install Video
How To Install Lightroom Presets On Desktop
I have full instructions for desktop users in another blog. For Lightroom Classic LrC & Lightroom Lightroom install guide
To install your presets in Photoshop Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), see our Photoshop install guide
Still have questions on presets? Need help finding the right presets for your style of photography or your editing goals? I'm always happy to help with any questions. You can fill out the contact form here: Contact Lou & Marks Presets
Now that you understand what Lightroom presets are and how they can elevate your editing, you can use them as a starting point to create a consistent editing style while still customizing each photo to fit your own look.
The Takeaway
Lightroom presets are one of the simplest and most useful tools for photographers and creators. Whether you’re capturing everyday moments, growing your brand, or building a cohesive portfolio, presets help you edit with more speed, consistency, and confidence.
Explore the Lou & Marks Preset Collections to find your perfect editing style and start transforming your photos today.
