Reynante Martinez is a professional 3D designer, but he's also an accomplished macro photographer who's especially drawn to getting up close and personal with wildlife. "I’ve had this fascination with the tiny world beneath our feet since I was a little kid." We recently asked him to share six of his Adobe Photoshop Lightroom presets, plus a few tips.

Tip: DIY diffusers do the job.

I always have a DIY cardboard diffuser with me to light up my scenes uniformly. That combined with my gear [a Sony A7RII and Laowa 60mm Ultra Macro lens, plus a Raynox DCR-250 or MSN-202 lens] allows me to take very high magnification shots with incredible clarity and keep the photos less noisy.

Tip: Saturation can be overdone.

When you're editing an image, are you tempted to go crazy on the saturation and vibrance? Look around and you’ll realize that almost anything you can perceive with your eyes is relatively low in saturation.

Tip: Don’t exaggerate curves.

The Curves tool is so flexible and intuitive that I can almost do all of my adjustments just within this area of Lightroom. I often use the Curves Tool to add a punch to my photos, enhancing the contrast, fixing clipping issues, and doing color grading. It can be tempting to exaggerate the curves, though, so try to keep the adjustments subtle.

Tip: Don't use your camera's viewfinder to judge exposure.

In-camera, a shot with a balanced exposure might look bland and monotonous, but when you do the post-processing in Lightroom, that balanced exposure gives you more freedom to be creative.

Tip: Calibrate for optimum consistency.

Make sure that your primary working screen is accurately calibrated for color and luminance. If it isn't, what you see will entirely be different than what others see. To go a step further, view your edited image on separate devices and screens.

Installing presets.

Having trouble getting presets into Lightroom? Follow these instructions.

For Lightroom (must have version 1.3 or later):

  1. Download the preset here.
  2. Open Adobe Lightroom on your computer.
  3. Select File > Import Profiles and Presets.
  4. Select the downloaded preset file and click Import.
  5. Open the photo you want to edit and click the Edit toolbar on the right-hand side of Lightroom. Select the Presets button and you’ll find the imported preset.

 

For Lightroom Classic (must have version 7.3 or later):

  1. Download the preset here.
  2. Unzip the zip file on your computer.
  3. Select an image and go to the Develop Module.
  4. Click on the + icon in the Preset Panel. Select Import Presets.
  5. Navigate to the preset you downloaded in step 1.
  6. Click Import.

 

Learn how to make these edits and save as presets directly in Lightroom (desktop and mobile):

Lightroom offers a range of photo editing tutorials called Discover edits that show you the edits made to a photograph. You can view the before and after photos and the editing process to know what it took for the photographer to achieve the result, and save the edit as a preset to apply to other photos.

To access Reynante's Discover edits, click each link below to open each Edit in this preset pack to see how the edits were applied in Lightroom:

 

To view the Edit:

  • Desktop users: In the bottom panel, tap Playback to view the edits step by step. Tap Edits to see all the applied edits. The Info button gives you information about the file type and metadata.
  • Mobile users: The Edit will automatically display the output of edits made to the photo. Tap Edits at the bottom of the screen to see all of the applied edits step-by-step. Like on Desktop, the Info button gives you information about the file type and metadata.

 

To save the edits applied as a preset:

  1. Desktop users: Tap Save as Preset in the upper-right corner of the screen.
  2. Mobile users: Tap “...” in the upper-right corner of the screen and then select Save as Preset.
  3. Click Back in the upper-left corner to return to the Home view.
  4. The preset is saved to User Presets folder in the Presets pop-up menu, by default.

 

Follow Reynante Martinez on Lightroom to view more of his Discover edits.