Most wedding photographers use Lightroom Presets. In fact, of all of the different genres of photographers, wedding photography probably has the highest percentage of photographers that use presets. Why? Because they have to process thousands of photos quickly. A second or two saved per image can translate into hundreds of dollars for each wedding; and the faster they can post-produce, the more time they have to focus on other aspects of running a wedding photography studio like marketing, hiring, shooting, and more.
This is why many companies out there have made wedding photography presets for all types of styles. One of the most recent sets released is Visual Flow’s Wedding Lightroom Presets and we were able to test them out ourselves. See our thoughts below:
Table of Contents
We love the systematic approach by Lighting Condition
The first thing you’ll appreciate about the presets is the systematic approach. The process goes like this:
Step 1: Select the pack (i.e. the style)
Step 2: Select the preset based on the lighting condition (i.e. hard light)
Step 3: tweak the white balance, exposure, and other adjustments you need to finalize the image.
The settings on your final image should sync effortlessly across all of the images that were shot in the scene with similar settings. This is the “magic” of their system. Photo editing in Lightroom by lighting conditions should save wedding photographers a ton of time.
The lighting condition included in each pack is Soft Light, Hard Light, Tungsten, Tungsten Mix, HDR, Green Tint, Backlit, Flash and Black and White.
We love the Retouching Toolkit
The second thing you’ll like is the retouching toolkit. The toolkit lets you dodge and burn in Lightroom, add color and pop to the skies, and more. These artistic and creative refinements that you can do in Lightroom (without opening up Photoshop), add to the power of the entire Lightroom Preset system. Note that the Retouching Toolkit is a separate purchase.
We love the clear organization
The third thing you’ll like is the clear separation of the styles and looks. They have three different packs as of the time of writing this article: the modern pack, the pastel pack, and the crush pack. These “packs” are essentially styles, with modern tackling the vibrant, editorial look, pastel being the filmic, light and airy look, and crush as the high contrast, ultra-vivid look. My favorite is the Crush pack because it’s the most unique and different from the other wedding Lightroom Presets on the market right now.
In contrast, sometimes you’ll find presets with unclear naming and styles that are all over the place. That can add to the learning curve and make it less useful when it comes to consistency and workflow.
Before and after image with the Tungsten Lightroom Preset in the Modern Pack.
Conclusion
For the reasons listed above, we can say that these are some of the best Wedding Lightroom Presets on the market. They aren’t necessarily cheap though, so this may only make sense for working wedding photographers who are busy and need tools that speed up their workflow. Also, as with all Lightroom Presets, you CAN create similar styles all by yourself. Actually, creating Lightroom Presets is pretty simple. Refining them and making them a system is the tough part, which Visual Flow has done for you with this system.
