Lightroom Presets – Capture Monkey

Ripping Photoshop Express presets

14 September 2013September 14, 2013jarnoh

Few months back, I posted how to load Adobe Revel presets into Lightroom.

Since then, Adobe has revamped their mobile Photoshop Express application, it is now based on the same photo processing pipeline as Revel is. Most of the settings are compatible with Lightroom, and the presets are still stored as XMP files inside their application bundle.

Loading develop settings from XMP isn’t supported by Lightroom, but Preset Ripper plugin gets the job done.

There were about 20 interesting presets in addition to Revel presets and non-Lightroom stuff. Following is the list of Lightroom 5 renditions of those presets. (Here’s the original). Looks like “Bright” and “Cinematic” are very similar to each other.

Once again, you can load any of these presets into your own photo using the Preset Ripper plugin, either by opening the original XMP files, or by downloading any of these JPEG files below (right click, save as) and opening it in the Preset Ripper plugin.

PSX60sTVGrab

PSXBright

PSXCinematic

PSXClassic

PSXColorful

PSXGlow

PSXGrain

PSXHighContrastBW

PSXInfrared

PSXOrange

PSXOrton

PSXPinhole

PSXSepia

PSXSepia1

PSXTheBlues

PSXTwilight

PSXVibrant

PSXVingetteBlue

PSXVintageII

PSXWarmVintage

PSXWhiteMist

Adobe Revel presets applied in Lightroom

3 January 2013January 3, 2013jarnoh

In addition to semi-pro Lightroom, Adobe also ships more casual photography package called Revel. While it is not terribly exciting for Lightroom users, it is interesting to know that it actually has the same processing engine as Lightroom 4. You might also consider revisiting it, because it has been recently updated with free subscription model.

What is quite interesting from Lightroom point of view, they have stored all the built-in presets as XMP files inside the application folder (on Mac, the path is /Applications/Adobe Revel.app/Contents/Resources/looks/ In order to access it, you need to right click Adobe Revel.app folder and select Show Package Contents)

XMP files contain the development settings and while Lightroom cannot directly load these files, my Preset Ripper plugin can! It reads XMP settings from JPEG or XMP files into develop preset values and uses plugin API to process the image to new settings.

Here’s a list of all presets I found there; the names are not the same ones shown in the user interface but there are some hidden presets as well (31 in total)

You can “rip” any of these presets into your own photo using the Preset Ripper plugin, either by opening the original XMP files, or by downloading any of these JPEG files below and opening it in the Preset Ripper plugin.

Atlantic

Austell

Bueno

Carson

Corona

Mason

Moreland

Murphy

Olympic

Parker

Porter

Prospect

Savin

Shelby

Spillman

TestBlackenedRed&Green

TestBoldDessert

TestBrandon05

TestBrandon10

TestBrandon11

TestGlowMirror

TestHotMidnight

TestLilac&Lime

TestPalestSummer

TestPinkGreenPale

TestRedSoft

TestRedux

TestSunshine&Rain

TestTinType

Venice

Willowbrook

These photos were developed using Lightroom 4.3.

Film Perforation 2012

11 October 2012October 11, 2012jarnoh

Here’s a modernized, Lightroom 4 and Process Version 2012 compatible version of the LRPAD Film Perforation Preset. The preset emulates film sprocket holes by painting black rectangles on top of a photo using adjustment brush.

This preset is based on adjustment brush, but it is stored as a preset. Nice hack, when you consider that you can’t store adjustment brushes into presets using Lightroom’s user interface.

In addition to changing Exposure to Exposure2012, this preset has two layers of perforations, meaning that it can underexpose the film sprockets by over 8 stops, which should help with the bleeding problems experiences with the LRPAD’s preset.

Download

Download CaptureMonkey_Film_Perforation_2012.zip

Experimental noise texture layer for Lightroom

17 February 2012February 17, 2012jarnoh

Lightroom does not have layers, and sometimes I’d really like to have noise textures applied on my photos. I figured out that although it is not possible to create presets with brush adjustments from user interface, it is possible to create preset with text editor that contains brush adjustments.

With handcrafted preset file, I can create a spot noise texture, like this (applied on a square 80% gray image). As you can see, the effect is very subtle here, but you can adjust layers parameters using the standard Lightroom brush adjustments.

Here’s the preset applied on a processed photo:

And here’s the same photo, but without noise texture layer. You really can’t see the noise texture, unless you know that it is there. I think this technique is useful, it adds a bit more character to some photos.

Finally, here’s the download link to Lightroom preset: CaptureMonkey_Spotty_Noise_Texture.zip. The preset works with both Lightroom 3.x and 4.x.