14 guides
Everything we had to learn to build this.
How-tos on Lightroom presets, tone curves, LUTs and colour matching. Checked against current Lightroom releases — where Adobe has moved a control recently, the guide says so, because a confident wrong instruction is worse than no guide at all.
Lightroom
3How to create a Lightroom preset from a photo
A preset is nothing more than a list of Develop settings with a name on it. The hard part is not saving it — it is working out what those settings should be.
5 minHow to install XMP presets in Lightroom Mobile
Lightroom mobile has imported .xmp presets natively on both platforms since 2024. Most guides you will find still describe the old DNG workaround. You do not need it.
4 minHow to install XMP presets in Lightroom Classic
Two clicks if it goes right, and a folder path if it does not. Both are here, along with the reasons an imported preset sometimes refuses to show up.
3 min
Colour
6What tone curves actually do
The tone curve is the most powerful control in Lightroom and the one most people avoid. It is also the simplest, once you know what the two axes are.
4 minWhy your preset looks different on someone else's photo
You built a preset that makes your photo sing. You send it to a friend and it makes their photo look radioactive. Nothing is broken — you have just discovered what a preset actually is.
4 minHow to match the colour of two photos
Your eyes adapt within seconds and will confidently tell you two different images match. The histogram will not. Work in this order and the job takes minutes instead of an evening.
4 minColour grading a photo to match a reference image
You have a reference you love and a photo that is not it. The gap is usually smaller than it looks, and about half of it is not colour at all.
4 minHow to extract the colour grade from a film still
Film stills are the most-used and least-reliable colour reference there is. Here is what is really in one, and how to get the useful part out.
4 minHow to make a preset from an Instagram photo
You can get surprisingly close. You cannot get exact, and the reasons why are worth understanding before you spend an evening on it.
4 min
Formats
3XMP vs DNG vs lrtemplate presets, and which one you actually need
Three file extensions, three completely different things. Only one of them is a preset in any meaningful sense.
4 minConvert a Lightroom preset to a .cube LUT
A preset and a LUT describe colour in completely different ways. Most of a preset converts cleanly. The parts that do not are worth knowing before you are confused by the result.
4 minWhat a LUT cannot do that a preset can
Choosing between a LUT and a preset is not a matter of quality. They are different kinds of object, and half the frustration people have with LUTs comes from expecting preset behaviour.
4 min
Workflow
2How to batch apply a preset in Lightroom Classic
Lightroom Classic has five different mechanisms for this and they behave differently. Picking the wrong one is how people end up with 400 identically overexposed photos.
4 minFree alternatives to paid Lightroom preset packs
Preset packs are not a scam, but they are usually a worse deal than the three free options below — and one of those options produces a preset that is actually yours.
4 min
Bring back a look you already made.
Upload the original and the edited version of the same photo. The measurement takes a few seconds, and exact before/after mode is on the free plan.