Sean McCormack over at lrbplugins.com has recently released his new Lightroom preset pack.  According to Sean, it is a set of 18 presets  “that range from B&W to heavily processed colour looks for people photography. It borrows a lot from current fashion trends, but is equally at home with bands, portraits and fashion. Inspiration for each preset has come from a variety of sources, magazine editorials, lookbooks and from other photographers.”

A disclaimer up front — if you have seen my photo galleries, you know that I am not a people photographer. However,  since Sean is a fellow blogger and a Lightroom expert, I was eager to try them out.   While I can’t say whether they come close to (or improve on) popular looks in the fashion and portrait industries because I don’t follow these industries, I really like the variety of looks produced, and I found that I enjoy some of the presets on landscape images as well.    My favorites are Fashion Two, Ocean, Kustard, Perry, and Grunged, but of course this is subjective. 

Over at Sean’s website you will find a good fashion photo example, which I simply don’t have.  Here are two images that I applied the presets to (without further fine tuning).  Click on the images to see them larger.

Often presets you can find out on the web look good on the creator’s examples, but rarely look good on yours. Sean’s are much more consistent — he has clearly tested them on a wide variety of images, and knows how to optimize them for people photos. Still, no creative preset is going to look good on every image you try.  Experiment to  get to know them, and as with all creative presets, expect to fine tune your image after applying the preset.

You can simply apply the presets and enjoy the effects, but I encourage you to use them as learning opportunities as well.  Presets are not black boxes — they are just saved combinations of Develop settings.  Start with an unworked photo (or hit Reset to return it to its unworked state), click on the preset, and then look at the Develop settings in each right-hand panel to understand how the looks are produced.  If you like the look, but certain aspects are too heavy-handed for your image or not strong enough, just adjust the settings to taste.

Of course I wish there were 40 great presets rather than 18, but then the package wouldn’t be so affordable.   For the variety of quality looks, the creative inspiration that a good set of presets gives, and the learning opportunities they present, I have to say that 10 euros (about $13 last time I looked) make this package quite a bargain.  Check these out, over at lrbplugins.com.

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Sean has given me an extra copy of the presets to give away — for a chance to win, enter your email address below, by 9/22/11:

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