THE GREAT BENEFITS OF USING ADOBE LIGHTROOM PRESETS TO ACHIEVE INSTAGRAM FILTER LOOKS
Even though Instagram was down seen by many photographers when it started making some noise, many of them actually felt keen about those vintage looks their filters had. That feeling has not stopped since then, and many people have been trying to achieve those looks on powerful image developing softwares like Adobe Lightroom. The algorithms behind Instagram have become so powerful that many photographers have stopped seen Instagram as a crowded place and using the social platform to showcase their work and their portfolios as well.
Emulating Instagram Filters in Lightroom
It all started as a camera app that allowed its users to apply specific filters to achieve vintage looks with a few taps. Instagram has evolved into a huge photography sharing platform that could easily be defined as an efficient social network.
Many people have been inclined and intrigued to learn how they can replicate the peculiar colors from Instagram filters. The reason why people try to do this the hard way instead of just applying the filter to a regular picture is because they want to get the specific filter look in their high quality RAW files from their cameras.
Lightroom’s workflow makes a lot of sense when it comes to developing RAW files; therefore using it for any non-destructive adjustment is a wise choice. Lightroom has the great advantage of working via presets, which allows you to work fast when dealing with various images batches.
The following is a list of the benefits of working with Lightroom to achieve the great looks of Instagram Filters.
You can use your camera
Smartphones have achieved an incredible image quality state as well as other hardware capabilities. Nevertheless smartphones are way more complex than cameras, therefore their prime purpose is far from producing high quality images at extreme conditions and settings. Thanks to Lightroom presets that emulate Instagram looks you can easily use your top of the line high quality RAW files produced by your camera.
You don’t need an Instagram account
Instagram doesn’t allow you to save the final image editing unless you post on the Social Media, and this leads us to one problem, not everybody loves Instagram. Thanks to Lightroom Instagram presets you don’t have to join Instagram to get their looks.Many of us as photographers rather use our own websites or other image sharing platforms to showcase our portfolios. Thanks to the image developing workflow of Lightroom and the preset usage mindset, you can stick to the image dedicated platforms of your choice.
Not everything needs to be a square
Images need to breathe and composing images inside a square format is pretty complex in terms of aesthetics and technique. Finally the people over at Instagram have understood that not everybody loves their classic 1:1 image ratio, and they allow multiple formats now, but they still encourage users to crop in a square format in their mobile app.
Baseline
After applying a preset, your creative choices don’t stop there. With Lightroom you can work way more things inside the developing recipe to achieve that certain look that you desire. Lightroom has become pretty powerful in terms of RAW image editing global and local adjustments tools.
Image quality is preserved
Let’s say you love an image (or many) so much that you will crave some fine printing for them. There is no way you can do this with Instagram final images that are uploaded to the network. The app automatically makes it internet friendly, therefore the image quality in terms of information gets downgraded into a format that looks good on a phone or a tablet, but will not get it done through a decent printing. You can print Lightroom images for sure because their RAW image developing system is non-destructive, so your image gets no downgrades or any other evil price to pay for tweaking it down.
Can I post my work straight from Lightroom to Instagram?
SURE! There is a great tool for that. LR/Instagram is an unofficial publish plugin for Lightroom, allowing you to post photos directly to your Instagram account. Simply install the plugin, add new service in Lightroom Publishing Manager and authenticate with your Instagram account.
So, what are Presets actually?
Presets are specific files with the *lrtemplate file extension. They can be both imported and exported. They can be defined as these small files that keep your image developing recipe if you intentionally save them in Lightroom. You just need to get to the Develop Preset panel (on the left side of the working space) and click the Create New Preset icon (the plus sign at the top, to the right of the word “Presets”). This brings up the New Develop Preset window. Give the Preset a name and select a folder to save it in. Pretty simple huh?
Here is a great tutorial about installing Lightroom Instagram Presets.
Demographics of Instagram Filters
Filters have the power to increase the level of impact of the images’ messages as you can see in this pretty interesting paper here. The message of an image is all about the mood they can achieve via one technique called color correction. Instagram filters have become so popular, that they can be profiled under demographics as you can see in this amazing post.
Some great preset packages
Alright, we have talked a lot but we haven’t seen any presets yet. There is a big offer of Lightroom Instagram presets right now on the market, and we have selected some filters that are exclusively Instagram look oriented.
- ON1 Free Lightroom Presets
- Casey Mac vintage Presets
- Lightgram (Lightroom Instagram Presets)
VSCO
Even though these are not Lightroom Instagram oriented presets, they are accurate film simulation presets. The inclusion of VSCO in our list makes sense because film simulation was one of the things people loved about Instagram back on the days. They have engineered such a fantastic array of presets to achieve real film simulations, that you should consider them as well.
