Free Lightroom Preset Directory: by Gavin Seim. (Updated July 1st 2009)
You’ve found biggest, most updated list of free Adobe Lightroom presets. It’s true you can have too many, but this is the best jump off point for finding new presets. Taste as many as you like, then tell us your favorites. Note that presets don’t work RAW & JPEG files the same. Most sites don’t say which theirs are made for, so play around. For more about this see my article on RAW VS JPEG presets.
Also check my own Seim Effects Presets. There is a freebies category, as well as my PW2 set which has turned top be one of most popular set of commercial presets anywhere. The image above was made using them. Use code PPS at checkout to save 15%.
My Favorite Free Lightroom Presets – How To Install Lightroom Presets:
- Seim Effects Free Lightroom Presets:
My own free presets. Various well refined effects. This is whole category of free presets. Some also have both JPEG & RAW versions. - InsideLightroom.com presets:
Here you’ll find categories, inside of which is a variety of free Lightroom presets with examples of what the preset does. There’s everything from camera calibration presets, to color effects here. You’ll also find a useful PDF Download about using and making your own presets. - Lightroom Presets on the Adobe Exchange
The Exchange has always been a great place to get ad on’s for Adobe products. Keep an eye on it. - LightrooomPresets.com:
A good place to pick up some variety for you free LR preset collection and get some cool effects rolling. - Karin Knowland:
Here’s a nice batch of over a dozen presets that will give you a nice variety of effects. - Sean McCormack’s IR Presets:
Sean has an article here on the Lightroom News Blog talking about Infrared in LR, and he lets you download some of his IR results. - Jack Davis’s WOW Lightroom Preset Collection:
This is a download from our friends over at OneOne Software, and yep it’s free. It’s a large preset collection that is organized in a tidy list. You can drag you mouse over the list and see the variation as they subtly change (low contrast to high contrast for example. Very well put together with lots of effects. - Lightroom Killer Tips Presets:
- Aside from a great LR video cast, Matt Kloskowski from Photoshop TV posts various presets on the site that you can download for free.
This site is not in English, but Lightroom is a pretty universal language for us. This is a set of six free presets that do some cool selective color effects, some general punches, etc (there’s a sample gallery) - Xequals Photography Presets
Once you get past a slightly awkward site, you’ll find a fair variety of free presets over here. - Preset Heaven:
This is a blog where you’ll find a variety of presets. Nice place to get some sweet goodies. - Camera Dojo Presets:
They have a nice free offering of presets covering a broad range of effects. Well worth a look. - Mark Elkins Presets:
Mark has a great set off free presets with a variety of styles. - Laconic Designs Presets:
Laconic has a bunch of presets, many of which fall into B&W/Vintage looks. - BlixPhoto Presets:
A nice assortment of those good everyday effects. Worth a look - Nelli’s Art Presets:
I have not tried these personally so I don’t know how many are good, but this blog has enough presets to keep you busy.
World Renown Effects. POWER WORKFLOW2 Lightroom Presets for RAW & JPEG
Use Promo Code PPS to save 15%
More Free Presets: (Many just have a few)
- Dryor Eyal Presets: A few presets posted ion his blog. Not many details.
- Street Life. A few intense Black and White Presets.
- Presets by Kelsey Smith: A few B&W presets is all she seems to have these days, but here they a
- John Esberg Presets: Johns preset category has a few freebies for a variety of effects.
- Life in Digital Fim Presets: Confusing site, but I’ve linked to the presets category and there are a few goodies there.
- Gantico’s Presets: Various presets worth a look, including some infrared.
- Blixphoto Presets: An assortment of color effects
- Stellar Times Free Presets: A few classy looking tones.
- 640 Pixels free presets:
- Katherine’s Pink preset: Just one pink tone here.
- Scenic World Presets: A couple presets with intense highlights.
- Chrome and New York presets from Vert:
- Really Japans Presets: A collection of various mini preset sets.
- Wonderland: A few samples from their Lightroom Presets collection:
- Simonetta Rossi’s Free Presets: Not a ton here, but a few sky brighteners you might enjoy.
- Cake & Dohnuts Presets: Two vintage looking presets from the Illustrated Journey blog
- Rockstar B&W & Soda Pop presets: from Christopher Bartelski.
- Rebecca Meyers Preset: Just one Faded Wash preset that I can find, but a preset is a preset.
- Phaunt B&W Presets: Three B&W presets here.
- Focus Beauty Presets: Mainly vignettes and selective focus/color point presets.
- Camiel Schoonens Presets: A few vintage analog color tones.
- Joop Snijder Presets: A variety of general use effects (scroll down the page)
- Mike Lao’s “300″ presets: A bit of a legend. Two effects based on the movie 300.
- A Girl In Love Presets: A nice little set of ten vintage tone effects
- Digi Freaks 600 Presets: You can have too many, but if you sift thru and sort them, you may get a few good nuggets.
- Markus Dollinger Presets: Not in English, but you;ll find a presets download link at the bottom.
Free Lightroom Brush Presets (LR2 only) – How To Install Lightroom Brush Presets
- Matt’s Light/Dark Brush Presets: A simple set of brushes for burning and dodging
- Seim’s Free Brush Presets: A brush set for Skin Softening, Burning, Dodging, more.
- Matt’s Enhancer Brushes: Another nice assortment of brushes from Matt Kloskowski.
Free Lightroom Print Presets/Templates:
- Gavin’s Print Layout Presets:
A group of print presets to make quick page layouts. Great for press printed books and albums.
Thank you for reviewing my site, but there are even more Lightroom presets on there. You may have a look here:
http://www.markus-dollinger.de/2007/10/19/3-neue-adobe-lightroom-presets-filmeffekte/
http://www.markus-dollinger.de/2007/09/14/neues-lightroom-preset-pseudo-hdr-kostenlos-herunterladen/
Greetings
Markus
Great work! How about something similar for customised web galleries in Lightroom?
Marcus
Great resource! I have a bunch of Lightroom presets and offer several for free, too! I love Lightroom!
Good Stuff.
I havent been able to get the Nikon D200 preset. I was hoping you could refind the link please. Just starting with Lightroom and the links here are very good.
thank you
thanks alot
Nice collection you got there. Please don’t forget to add the upcoming http://www.presetsheaven.com to your list.
Presetsheaven is a weblog that collects and share all kinds of graphical resources like presets, actions, shapes, gradients etc. All incoming presets are tested and a preview of of them will always be available for easy evaluation before download.
Best regards,
Pierre – http://www.presetsheaven.com
Thanks for reviewing my site
Check my new lightroom presets here http://darkroom.reallyjapan.com/?p=101 ! It’s called Cinematic Kit, I hope you like it
Kim Longs 70’s Set is no longer available for free….
Thanks Patul, took it off the freebie list… Gav
You’re welcome Gav.. Since I’m a regular visitor of this entry, I would like to help this entry to grow and up to date.
I would like to suggest some more free presets:
Analog Photography Preset http://www.camielschoonens.nl/adobe-lightroom-add-ons/
Presets by Matias Blix http://blog.blixfoto.com/journal/2008/8/3/my-lightroom-presets.html?lastPage=true#comment1874693
thanks for adding me to your awesome list.
nate
http://www.wonderlandpresets.com
Sinds kort heb ik ook Lightroom presets online staan. Je kan ze hier vinden: http://www.joopsnijder.com/photoshopfx
I’ve recently started a design blog which will constantly be adding new presets for Lightroom. Absolutely free of course! Feel free to check it out, and check back often!
http://www.laconicdesign.net/blog/index.php/adobe-lightroom-presets/
Thanks a lot, I love playing with presets.
hey – thanks for saying you like the 300 presets over at inside-lightroom!
I was the one who created them and posted them a while back at inside-lightroom. You can also get the presets over at my site: http://mikelao.wordpress.com
also, thanks for compiling all the presets! now i have a lot more to play with!
Hi all,
seems your missing my Site on your free ultimate list. I’ve just come up with something new that may be of interest to some – it’s a develop preset builder and masking tool for Lightroom 2.
Feel me to include my WEB site in your list.
Cheers, Markus
I’ve added you to the list Markus… Gav
Good resource. I have one here will add your’s it.
I have a blog where I distribute my free film emulation presets. Right now it is mostly Black & White available, but I have many color films in the works also.
Its at http://www.lifeindigitalfilm.com
It might be worthy of the list.
Some nice free wedding photography presets over at Dror Eyal’s site.
thank you for sharing them with us!!!
Here are 10 new Lightroom 2 presets for free
http://www.markus-dollinger.de/2009/01/18/kostenlos-10-neue-adobe-lightroom-2-presets/
Have fun!
I have lightroom 2.0 & would love to use it, but I don’t understand why there is such a difference in the brightness & color on the screen vs. when I have same image open in photoshop. Photoshop is much brighter etc.
If I knew how to fix this to match, I would jump for joy so I could start using it. Thank you,
Randy
Thank you so much, for this great List!!!!!
Thanks!!! great list…makes life a lot easier for us.
I have more than 400 Presets on my Blog free of charge to the Download.me are pleased to be taken up. Nelli