Why I edit with Colorvale Presets
As a portrait and wedding photographer one thing that takes up a large majority of my time is editing. I actually love editing just as much as I love shooting. It's like painting an unfinished canvas and editing allows you to put the finishing touches on your art. In the beginning of my career I had no idea what I was doing, lets face it my early work was horrible. And that's largely due to the fact that I wasn't getting it right in camera first off. I didn't understand lighting, white balance, exposer, I was faking it until I made it. As the months and years went by I practiced over and over again until I knew all of the ins and outs of shooting manually like the back of my hand. But then I had to tackle the challenge of being consistent with editing my images. Which lead me down a path of spending lots of money on Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets. I probably spent a small fortune on actions and presets and all of them left me disappointed and frustrated. Therefore, took me weeks to edit a wedding or portrait session. I found other presets over processed the image, gave it a horrible green or orange tinge, and left my skin tones unnatural. To be quite honest, I did buy a very popular preset collection (that is not cheap) from a different company. And I was so excited to use them because I had heard good things about those presets. So I saved up to buy the presets and as soon as I applied them to my images I was sorely disappointed. I cried, I'm not trying to be dramatic but I did indeed cry when I used those presets. I was devastated that I had spent hard earned money on something that was not a good fit for me. The reason I am not naming that popular preset collection is because I don't want to bash them and this isn't about trying to take them down. Lots of other photographers love those presets and use them and I'm happy for them. But for me, for a lack of a better word, I hated them and I was so mad at myself for wasting my my money on them.
However, one day in a Facebook photography group that I'm apart of I saw a post that featured Colorvale Lightroom Presets and I visited the site and thought, "Well I've never tried these before, they reflect the editing style I like, and they are reasonably priced. . .I'll give them a try." I bought my first set and fell in love. Not only were they really easy to use they were easily adaptable to the image no matter what lighting situation was in when I shot the image. I have almost everyone of the Colorvale preset collections and I do have my favorites and ones that I use on a regular basis. For my editing style (a combination of light and airy along with rich deep color) I have found that the Visionary set to be my go to presets. And you will find that a lot these images I am sharing are edited with that set.
If you are looking for a Film Inspired preset collection then getting the Visionary set is what I recommend.
If you are more a dark and moody editing style then the Dirty Little Secret or Uninterrupited collections will be a good fit for you.
If you like a classic and clean look to your images then check out the Classically Done set.
Here are a few before and after edits using the Colorvale Presets. And just so everyone knows, I was not paid to write this blog post or asked to feature these presets. This post is one from my heart and I am truly a fan of Colorvale!
Settings :
1/160 sec
5.0 f
250 iso
Edited with Colorvale Visionary Set - Dainty
Settings :
1/200 sec
5.0 f
160 iso
Edited with Colorvale Visionary Set - Polished
Settings :
1/125 sec
4.0 f
2000 iso
Edited with Colorvale Visionary Set - Ablaze
Settings :
1 / 200 sec
6.3 f
200 iso
Edited with Colorvale Visionary Set - Glossy
Settings :
1/125 sec
5.6 f
640 iso
Edited with Colorvale Dirty Little Secret Set - Cryptic
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Settings :
1/125 sec
4.5 f
1000 iso
Edited with Colorvale Visionary Set - Radiant
Settings :
1/200 sec
4.5 f
320 iso
Edited with Colorvale Uninterrupited Set - Abiding
Settings :
1/160 sec
4.5 f
250 iso
Edited with Colorvale Uninterrupited Set - Dependable
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