Comments on: Lightroom Presets vs. Photoshop Actions

By: jessie

jessie — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 18:55:25 +0000

hey! Great article, thanks for sharing your knowledge! Which preset is the one in this article with the teddy bear?

By: Headshots LA

Headshots LA — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 06:42:14 +0000

Interesting observations. Learn about how presets effect JPEG & Raw files differently.

By: photokunstler

photokunstler — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:39:10 +0000

Nice to see Shana Rae and Rita here!
Some of my favourite action-people.

And I adore textures, used appropriately, sparingly and well, so it is PS for me!

Thanks Elizabeth, for taking your time to share.

By: Granger

Granger — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:11:37 +0000

If you’re processing a bunch of snapshots Lightroom presets are fine and certainly easy. If you’re really wanting to take control over your picutres than PS Actions are really the better option. I actually found that overusing Lightroom was really limiting the quality of my work because I stopped short of what the photo really needed. If you’ve got some good workflow actions, nothing beats it. Each correction goes on a separate layer and so its fully adjustable. And you have access to all PS’s auto functions in curves, levels, etc. So after using one of my workflow actions, I’ve got my basic adjustments made and can start getting creative. And I can back out most things I’ve done previously that don’t work as I move along in the process because they’re on layers or a duplicated file.
And I do use some of Rita’s excellent presets. Thanks Rita.

By: Rita of CoffeeShop

Rita of CoffeeShop — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:22:20 +0000

Elizabeth, thank you so much for linking my free action CoffeeShop Blog! I personally am a huge fan of actions over LightRoom presets. I like making simple color and B&W adjustments in LightRoom, and for that I use very simple presets. When I want to do something artistic I prefer Photoshop. You really can have incredible creative control with many free actions out there. Plus you can’t use textures in LR. However, if you love presets there are many more free ones out there than actions. Presets are incredibly simple to write.

Almost all of my free actions on my site are incredibly adjustable and work in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. You can adjust most layers by changing the opacity, blending mode, and masking. I also include step-by-step tutorials for most actions where I take them apart so anyone can duplicate my effects easily in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements WITHOUT using the action. This allows people to learn how to use their program and also adapt the action to their own images. No action will look perfect on all photos, just like presets, so it is great to give people tools to do their own tweaking and editing.

I also want to say that there are so many incredible free actions and presets out there that many people will find it unnecessary to buy any unless they have the extra money and want to save some time (or help support a hardworking action writer!), or don’t know anything about editing. It is fun to download free ones, take them apart and see how they work. This is the best way to learn editing, and so much more fun than using a book. I personally have never purchased one action or preset because I know I will take it apart and be peeved I paid for something that I could have done on my own. But then, I am a self-professed geek…

By: Vitaliy G

Vitaliy G — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:09:26 +0000

I assume that the mentioned presets are for Lightroom 2. Will they also work with Lightroom 3, once it is released?

By: Tim A.

Tim A. — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:33:46 +0000

Good to see Florabella get some love. I’ve used a combination of Rebeca Lilly’s presets that are then tweaked by me, then onto PS for Florabella action, sometimes two, and then onto her textures, sometimes up to 3 or 4 at a time. Over processed? Maybe. But it gives the final product that I like.

Depending on the effect, some things can never be done just in LR. And when you bring textures into the equation, you can’t help but go into PS.

By: Zack Jones

Zack Jones — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:42:00 +0000

Is the complete article posted? It is so heavily slanted towards LightRoom that it seems paragraphs covering PSE Actions is missing. I don’t have a preference for one over the other. I only wish Adobe had a scripting language that was compatible across PhotoShop, LightRoom, and PhotoShop Elements.

By: Amy

Amy — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:47:13 +0000

great article! I was just looking around for more presets and actions and this showed up.
many thanks.

By: Elizabeth Halford

Elizabeth Halford — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:39:30 +0000

@spike: aaaah thanks for that clearly need a google 101 course Good to know – will add links.