Shutter Sisters

sunday school: lightroom presets for night owls

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It’s probably obvious to most people who know me well (virtually or in the flesh) that I am a creature of the night.  This is partly due to necessity; I work full-time 30 miles from home in a corporate office setting, and therefore, especially during the winter, my daylight hours of freedom are quite limited.  Fortunately, I live in a big city that stays brightly lit long after the sun has gone down, and since I’ve always been a night owl, I have no problem claiming the title of streetlight photographer.

I’ve done quite a bit of night photography on the streets around Chicago these past couple winter months, so I created a set of Adobe Lightroom Develop Presets specifically for processing photos that were taken under streetlights or other kinds of orange-ish (tungsten) artificial dim lighting. To see larger photos of these examples, you can go to this gallery of images and click on any thumbnail on that page to see a larger version.  To download a zip file of these presets, click here.  You can view instructions on installing presets here. 

These presets will not impact exposure and brighness, so you’ll want to adjust those setting either before or after applying the presets to get the results you want.  Also, since these are specifically for night-time shots that may have required a high ISO, the noise reduction settings will not be impacted by the presets, as you will want to adjust those yourself depending on your personal tolerance for noise.  And while these presets were developed for RAW (uncompressed) files, most of them should work for JPEG files as well; you’ll just need to tweak a little more here and there.

Night photography can be challenging, but it’s also a boon for those who like to get creative in the digital darkroom.  Do you have a night image that you processed in an interesting way?  Please share your tips and links to images.  Or if you happen to try out any of these presets on a night shot collecting dust in your archives, please do show us your results.

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Edited To Add: These presets are for use with Adobe Lightroom 2.  Unfortunately, these are not actions and can’t be used in Photoshop.  You can download a trial version of Lightroom here to try out for 30 days.

Comments

  2. Thank you so much!! I’m heading to Vegas in two weeks. I’ve never been, and my friends think it strange that what I’m most excited about during the trip, is spending hours behind the lens. These presets will be awesome!!!

  6. I’m with Marcie – I love that Puppetbike preset. Such interesting contrasts and hues… that warmfade is pretty awesome too. LOVE the night shots.

  11. Thank you so much! I loved your first set of presets and can’t wait to play with these. I’m in the same boat as you, as far as not being available much during the day in a northern city. I end up taking lots of low light shots, both outside and in. Can’t wait to give these a test drive.

  12. Loved that shot when you had it on your blog not too long ago. It’s amazing how much a preset can change the looks of the image. I really like the looks of Cool Fade, Izzie, and Newspaper. Was Izzie the preset used on your blog shot? Thanks for these, Sarah. You rock!!

  15. Thanks a lot for those presets. I’ve just started Lightroom and freebie presets are a great start to play with my pictures… not that they are beautiful but they become so much better after a Lightroom "bath" LOL

  17. These are so inspirational! I am going to the Berkshires for 1 week to take fall leaves pictures then heading to Boston for a week for more photos and r&r. I hadn't even thought of getting out at night to take shots because I am not a night owl, but now it will be number 1 on my agenda when we are in Boston. Thanks so much for the motivation.