The good people at Sleeklens asked me to have a look at their new Landscape photography Presets and Brushes for Lightroom and I have now managed to write up my findings with a short video example of a workflow using the presets.
I explained to Sleeklens that I rarely if at all, use presets in my image processing but they were still happy for me to give my honest opinion on their products. My reasons for not using presets are mainly due to the fact I feel each image need its own personal attention as it develops and a simple click does not do that for me, in general.
Having now played around with these presets by Sleeklens, I have now realised that it doesn’t need to be just one click. They can firstly be a starting point to work back or forward from. One of the good things about these are the different options, you can go for the ALL IN ONE recipes and work from there or by using the layers options where you can add presets on top of each other without altering the effects of the previous one. You can start from BASE and work through EXPOSURE, COLOUR CORRECT, TONE/TINT, POLISH and VIGNETTE to finish.
ALL IN ONE PRESETS
LAYER OPTIONS
By using the layer option I found that by also adjusting the develop sliders to control the preset effect more to suit my personal tastes before adding another helped make me feel more in control and of having a part in creating the image than I would have had by just clicking the ALL IN ONE and leaving it there.
In my work I try to be subtle in my processing and so loud colour bursts and crazy saturation is not where I take my processing so I would have to reel a few presets back a fare bit if I was to use then all the time. But as is with many things in life, using things like these presets, in moderation and with full control then there can be a place for them in my Lightroom workflow.
Below is a short video of an example workflow using the Sleeklens Landscape presets as well as links to their product pages. I have also included a much more detailed and professional video by Doug Chinnery who gives a review and tutorial of the Sleeklens presets used in Photoshop.
