Lightroom 4 Presets – HDR Effect Part 2
A couple of months ago I released some HDR presets for Lightroom 4 Beta. With some changes in the beta, as well as some changes in the way I’ve been processing photos, I came up with a few updates to them so I figured I’d post ’em here. There’s 3 different versions of it (Light, Medium, and Strong) and each has a few of the new sliders incorporated into it as well as some other settings. You can replace the old ones if you’ve already downloaded these as they’re not meant to sit along side of them. As always, let everyone know what you think. However, I caution you now… if you’re one of those that don’t like HDR photos then you may want to consider staying away from these presets đ I’m just sayin’.
Here’s a quick Before/After (click for larger image):
 Download the presets here.
 Here’s a link to a video that shows you how to install the presets
http://www.hdrsoft.com makes PhotoMatix which has a lightroom plugin but its not really all that great if you want to do a bunch of hdr. Most HDR programs have presets but also allow for fine tuning. I would just use a standalone program. Easyhdr.com is less expensive but works about the same. Both have demos to try before you buy.
HDR most used photoshop, you can try it Bro..
Thanks so much!
LOVE these! Thanks so much! Makes my travel photos look a lot cooler without all of the work that usually goes into an HDR photo
When I use the HDR preset I get really bad black ghosting around parts of the image. I have been using the preset for several months and it just started doing it. I can’t figure out how to fix it or what what wrong. Any suggestions?
Your HDR presets are perfect. Thank you so much!
I love this presets and I do enjoy using this program better than PS. It’s user friendly. Thank you
It seems to me that if the “R” in HDR means “range”, then it should be a measurable value. E.g., If you can measure from “x” (say, the brightest end of the highlight) to “z” the darkest range of the shadows and do that over 3 bracketed images (or whatever number you choose) then you could, indeed have a measurable set of values that would define “HDR” vs what appears to simply be an effect applied to a single image, because that single image would obviously have a smaller measurable range from highlight to shadow. Make sense?
I have downloaded your two sets of presets for LR4 and followed your guidelines. While in the Develop module, right clicking on User Presets, I select Import but when I get to where I have extracted the ZIP files, the presets are greyed out. Not sure what is going wrong?
Wow, I just LOVE these. I started using them almost too much.
Will there be an LR4 update of your “300” presets, which I also tend to like a lot?
I installed the HDR presets, however, it only adds a vignette, it does nothing else.
What’s the deal? I’m in Lightroom 3 on a MAC.
Thanks
Adrian
Same here, only I’m using LR4 on win7.
If you are using a previous version of LR it will not work. Also, if you are using LR4 and you are trying on it on a LR3 filmstrip, it will not work either; you’d need to update your filmstrip to the new LR4 processing by clicking on the exclamation sign displayed to the bottom right of a picture.
hope that helps.
I have Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS3, but Adobe’s creeping bloat has rneutd me off Photoshop, and I have no plans to upgrade to CS4 (nor do many other users, as Adobe’s dismal sales of CS4 show). It doesn’t help that Lightroom is 64-bit on my Mac when Photoshop isn’t, despite being the new kid on the block.The fact Lightroom is written in a modern interpreted language (Lua) rather than C++ is what gives the Lightroom team its agility and ability to deploy new features much faster then the teams stuck in the past with legacy languages and frameworks.
It looks like some of your LR presets no longer work properly in LR 4. For example, the Surreal presets (some of my favorites) no longer produce the same effect. Do you plan to update any of your presets that used sliders that are no longer available in Lightroom? I’m sure many of us would be thrilled if you did! Thanks!
When I click on presets it takes me no where…To a blank URL space
So all those LR3 Presets have to be redone to work with the LR4 rendering engine? Or just the ones from the earlier LR4 Beta?
Very Lovely!
Personally, I like the before better. Sorry to say this.
Hi Matt,
This preset is really cool and I’m happy you want to share this with us.
I wrote a blog post on my website about this great preset with a nice example: http://www.derooijfotografie.nl/hdr-look-preset-van-matt-kloskowski/
Thanks and I’m looking forward to new posts on Lightroom Killer Tips.
Matt, I’ve been enjoying your videos on Kelby Training. I just discovered (you probably knew this…) that one advantage to using ratings to “grade” your photos is that when (if) you look at your Windows Explorer folder containing the images the ratings show up there. Very handy! I do agree that there should be only “0” and “5” ratings.
Very nice presets. Also, I’m watching your KT videos on LR4. I absolutely love the black/white point tip in the develop module. I had always used LR’s curves to do that, with less pleasing effect and more work.
I’m looking forward to finding time to continue watching. Soft proofing is really intriguing and I’m hoping for an equally elegant time saver.
Hi Scott,My internet speed is very poor and I might not be able to watch the live seisson. I’d like to ask you if there will be any chance to download your webminar or see it later?I’m sure that photowalk will be a blast!