"Will relying on professional presets hinder my uniqueness/signature style as a photographer?"
The above question is a common concern among photographers when they are researching if investing in presets is a smart business decision. The concern stems from wondering if presets are designed to do all of the heavy lifting for you...where does your signature look come into play? Will your photography look like everyone else's and not stand out?
Today, we are going to take a deep dive into what presets are, how they can save you time, and how investing in the right professional preset can still grant you flexibility to make the presets your own.
We find it important to share that all of the images in today's journal post were provided by photographers in our community. Each photo was edited with one of our collections and tweaked to fit the photographer's signature style. If you click on the photo it will direct you to the REFINED Co. preset collection it was edited with.
What Is A Preset?
A preset is a saved set of editing adjustments that can be applied to a photo with a single click. They are similar to filters but grant you more control over exposure, contrast, color, and tones.
Good professional presets will take over one year to develop and are painstakingly tested on a variety of camera bodies and thousands of shoots by different photographers. This amount of time and care is put in to assure the presets will edit any photographers work as effortlessly as possible. At REFINED Co. we strive for our presets to be as close to 1 click as possible with the exception of some minor tweaks.
What is great about a professional preset versus a filter is that with presets you have the flexibility to adjust the settings slightly to achieve your personal look.
Achieving Your Signature Style With Presets
Sometimes achieving your signature look with a preset is as easy as purchasing the right collection. REFINED Co. has 10 collections to choose from that all offer different aesthetics and edits. From film inspired presets to crisp and clean presets that are easy to tweak to your liking, we are likely to have a collection best suited for you.
That is not to say that you can't adjust our presets to your liking...
REFINED Co. is a company run by photographers and we believe the best way to teach and inspire photographers is by showing you real world examples of what we are writing. Below are photos submitted to us by our community of photographers where we feel they have taken one of our collections and made it their own. Light and airy presets made dark and moody or Fuji film inspired presets made to be sharper more vintage film inspired look.
Let's take a look!
REFINED x KT Merry Presets Edited In Different Ways
The REFINED x KT Merry collection is designed to bring the timeless elegance of KT Merry's Fuji 400H film scans to your digital photography. The collection brings out the best in natural light, creating images with a rich, dynamic range and beautifully rendered skin tones.
Soft, luminous tones and exquisite color balance.
Below are examples of our community using this collection and then making minor adjustments to the exposure, white balance, tint, contrast, etc to make it their own. We've got examples of dark and moody, warm and golden, & sharp and punchy.
REFINED I Presets Edited In Different Ways
The REFINED I preset collection is a masterful blend of modern editing techniques and classic Fuji 400H film inspiration. Perfect for photographers aiming to achieve a soft, filmic aesthetic with delicate pastel tones and creamy highlights.
These presets bring out the best in natural light.
Below are examples of our community using this collection and then making minor adjustments to the exposure, white balance, tint, contrast, etc to make it their own. We've got examples of a low contrast/soft edit with a pull of magenta, punchy golden hour photos, and more!
REFINED III Presets Edited In Different Ways
The REFINED III preset collection is crafted to produce deep cyan greens, warm rich skin tones, and crisp highlights, making your photos stand out with a vibrant yet authentic filmic quality. Bring the rich, classic aesthetics of Fuji 400H and Portra 400 film emulation to your digital workflow.
Ensures consistent, high-quality results with minimal adjustments.
Below are examples of our community using this collection and then making minor adjustments to the exposure, white balance, tint, contrast, etc to make it their own. We have examples of how saturation adjustments can vastly change the look of your edit.
How To Save Time With Professional Presets
So, you have added professional presets to your editing toolkit and now understand how minor tweaks in exposure, contrast, white balance, tint, and more can easily shift the edit to your signature style. The last thing we want to teach you is how professional presets can save you time.
Like we mentioned earlier in the journal post, professional presets can take over a year to make. They are developed and designed to quickly edit your image in just one click. It is important to understand that applying a preset and making a few minor adjustments to it will still save you hours and hours of editing time.
On average our community of photographers save :90 seconds per photo when editing a gallery with REFINED Co. Presets.
When editing a new gallery with presets we recommend making your adjustments to a few images and then saving the adjusted preset to apply to the rest of your gallery. This will allow you to quickly and efficiently edit a gallery to your personal signature style.
Photographers are some of the busiest entrepreneurs in the workforce. From shooting sessions, editing galleries, building your own website, running your social media accounts and overall running your own business, your time is very limited. Utilize the resources and tools available to you to gain some of your time back. Investing in professional presets will save help you gain hours upon hours of your time back.
Interested in submitting a session to the REFINED Co Journal. Email us at hello@refinedco.com
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