I’m a big fan of Lightroom from Adobe for lots of reasons. I’ve been using it to create scroll stopping images for my clients for years.
Lightroom offers users an awesome shortcut for creating an amazing social media presence, as well as delivering best-in-class sparkling catalog photos and polished portraits.
Headshots can be touched up in one or two taps using the Adaptive Portrait setting. With that setting you can instantly: bring out the color of clothing, brighten teeth, soften or sculpt faces, smooth hair and darken eyebrows.
For a while I struggled with getting the right look for my clients. I’d have to start from scratch every time, or try to adapt the look of the Lightroom native presets, which always looked off. The process was pretty frustrating until I discovered purchasable Lightroom Presets.
I’ve stocked up on dozens of them but they all tend to be created for wedding or wildlife photographers. They all need a fair amount of tweaking to get the right look needed for products to have just the right “scroll stopping” look.
By creating my own Lightroom Presets just for beauty products, decor and accessories, I’ve been able to develop an easy to use portal that is totally customized to to my client’s tastes and my own shooting style. Here’s how this has helped me with an overall marketing strategy:
Save money: Lightroom Presets have helped my photos taken on iPhone and off the cuff snaps transform into gorgeous professional looking images. My clients have cut down on photography expenses significantly because I can so easily improve the look photos taken in natural light for them. They also have a richer catalog of images to draw upon for their social media, and website uses.
Consistency: By using a main set of presets for different clients, I’ve been able to keep a consistent aesthetic across each brand’s visual content - this is of course crucial for building brand recognition. By using Lightroom presets as a shortcut I’ve been able to apply the same editing style and color grading to all their photos, which gives each account a cohesive and professional look across their websites, social media, and marketing materials.
Time-Saving: My team and I create an astounding amount of creative material each and every day. We need to in order to feed all the various social media formats and publicity requests that come in daily for the brands we represent. Lightroom presets have helped us to quickly apply complex editing techniques to their photos with just one click, saving us valuable time (and our clients billable hours) and allowing us to focus on creating engaging content rather than getting bogged down in the editing process.
Brand Identity: Every brand we represent has its unique identity and personality. With Lightroom presets, we’ve been able to tailor our editing styles to reflect each brand’s specific tone and vibe. Whether it’s a clean and minimalistic look or a vibrant and bold aesthetic, our presets have helped to translate a variety of unique brand identities into visually compelling images. My Light As Air Lightroom Preset Collection was created especially for natural light photography that was created on a cell phone. It’s designed to turn out lustrous jars, clean glass, and illustrate product texture. Naturally Lightroom Preset Collection shown below lifts without flares and shows the true color of the lipstick.
Professionalism: The quality of visual content directly impacts how audiences perceives a brand. By using Lightroom presets, we’ve been able to elevate the quality of the photos we create, giving them a polished and professional touch that resonates those who see them. Our clients enjoy a greater sense of credibility and trustworthiness as a result.
Adaptability: As brands evolve, so do their visual styles. We’ve worked with several client’s for more than 8 years, and over that time they’ve really evolved their style. Our Lightroom presets have been able to provide the flexibility to adapt and refine our editing so that the look of the photos we produce align with each brand’s evolving identity and messaging.
As I mentioned, we’ve created a new collection of Lightroom Presets for Mobile and Desktop based on the looks and likes that attract the most love for our clients on social media. These can also be used on Photoshop, but of course Lightroom for Mobile is our go-to photo editing app of choice. Our new collection reflects color trends, seasonal shifts, and social media styles. Plus they’re easy to customize, and give all our photos and marketing materials a beautiful, distinctive look.
Carolyn Delacorte is the founder of Boxwood Press — a trailblazing PR + marketing firm that’s served lifestyle brands in the beauty, decor, and baby industries for more than 27 years.