The Spring Colors Lightroom preset collection is a part of my 4 Seasons Collection Set. The set consists of Fall Colors, Winter Colors, Spring Colors, and Summerer Colors collections. The 4 Seasons set’s goal is to create a unique treatment for photographs taken in four different seasons of the year.
The Spring Colors preset collection was designed to recover the colors and textures in colorless and often dull spring landscapes.
The Spring Colors Lightroom preset collection version 2 has an entirely new structure and a series of new functionalities. It is drastically different from the original version I released a few years back.
Let me show you 4 main components of the new Spring Colors Preset Collection.
1. Style Presets Collection
The Style presets are the cornerstone of the Lightroom Rapid Editing workflow.
The Style Presets define the “look” and the style of the photographs. For example: cool or warm, cross-processed or natural, contrasted, or soft.
New Structure and Functionality
In the new Spring Colors Preset Collection, I changed the structure and the functionality of the Style presets.
Now, the collection includes 4 generic presets.
/// RESET ALL///
The preset allows you to revert the image to the original, unedited state without impacting the Crop Overlay tool edits and Exposure.
Auto Adjust AI
The Auto Adjust AI preset takes advantage of Lightroom’s artificial intelligence and machine learning, which becomes more effective with every update.
When you apply the preset, the program evaluates the selected image and applies a series of edits from the Basic Panel.
I often use Auto Adjust AI preset to adjust the image’s exposure before starting the editing process. It gets it right in 90% of cases.
First, I apply Auto Adjust AI and next, I click RESET ALL preset.
Another use of Auto Adjust AI is to apply it to images during the import process.
White Balance ON and OFF Switch
It is another automated tool that tries to evaluate the image and set the appropriate White Balance.
It is less effective than Auto Adjust AI.
Style Presets Structure
The significant change in the Spring Colors Preset Collection is that now every Style Preset has its structure.
On top, you can see the Style preset that has a standard functionality. Below, you can find 4 presets variations with the enhanced functionality.
When you apply any of the enhanced presets to an image, you have an additional adjustment found under the Basic Panel.
You can move the slider to increase or reduce the effect of the Creative Profile that is associated with the selected preset.
2. PLUS Preset Collections
One of the biggest limitations in Lightroom is the lack of an Opacity functionality, which is a function found in most editing programs including Photoshop.
For example, if you apply one of my presets to a photo and see that the effect it produces is too strong, you cannot simply dial it down using one slider. Instead, you have to dig deep into Lightroom’s editing tools and change a gazillion different sliders.
To overcome this unnecessary complexity, I came up with a hack.
The hack is very simple. For each preset, I created six additional versions that reduced the strength of editing effects by 10% for each variation.
I call this addition—Lightroom Rapid Editing PLUS.
With the combination of Lightroom Rapid Editing and Lightroom Rapid Editing PLUS, you can create hundreds of variations of the same photo without using any of Lightroom’s editing tools.
New Functionality
Photographers who are familiar with my Lightroom Rapid Editing PLUS workflow will notice the addition of 125% and 150% versions of the presets. The idea here is to make presets to behave more like filters. Now each preset in PLUS collectins has the functionality not only to reduce the editing effects but to amplify them as well.
3. TOOLKIT v2 – Adjustment Presets
The TOOLKIT is the collection of adjustment presets that allow fine-tuning of a photo without altering the style or creating any specific look. The adjustment presets help you to customize the look produced by STYLE presets.
New Functionality
The structure of the TOOLKIT v2 was not changed, but I added new adjustments:
- presets 41-47 (Midtone Contrast) allows you to increase contrast in the photo without affecting the highlights and the shadows. I find that the Midtone Contrasts presets are more effective than traditional Contrast and Clarity.
- presets 48-55 let you change the White Balance.
For example, when editing photos I took during Golden Hour, I often apply the Cloudy or Shade adjustments. The goal is not to fix the White Balance but to make the scene even warmer.
Plus, you have ON and OFF switches to control the Lens Correction.
4. Enhanced Demo RAW Images
The Spring Colors Preset Collection comes with Enhanced Demo Images in RAW format with prerecorded editing steps.
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When you import them into Lightroom, you can access the editing steps I used in the case studies through the Snapshots Panel of Lightroom’s Develop Module.
You can click through each entry to reverse engineer every step to see which editing sliders and tools were used at each point in the process.
Below are 2 Demo RAW images with 10 editing versions and 10 editing formulas recorded as the Snapshots.
