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rmargolis

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Premium Classic Member
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Jun 8, 2011
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65
Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
Classic
Lightroom Version Number
11.5
Operating System
  1. macOS 12 Monterey
I have never used a LR Preset or Plug-in so in this area, I am a newbie. Is there a place to find a wide variety of Presets to import that are for creative purposes? I haven't been able to find what I am looking for. My goal is to find a Preset that will simulate wet plate collodion and possibly other effects of alterative processes. If I can't find one, I know I can make my own however it will take time. When doing this sort of thing, I'm not particularly fast.

Are the terms" Plugin" and" Preset" interchangeable?

Thanks in advance, Roberta
 
I'm not a fan of purchased presets but I know many people who love them. So, I'll let one of them point you to a source for what you're looking for.

However, to answer your other question, a Plugin is not the same as a Preset. And, if you ask this question, you should also include "Profile" in your question.

A preset is basically a saved set of "input values" that you can apply to an image in a single go. Where these "values" pertain to the same contorl (e.g. slider) that you or a previous preset already changed, applying the new preset resets it - does not add-to or subtract from the prior value. For example. let's say I ran a preset that increased exposure by 1 stop. I then ran a preset containing an exposure value ot 1.5. the result is 1.5 not 2.5. When a preset is created, the creatore tells it which controls are to be part of the preset.

A Plug-in is a peice of code that LrC "calls" at specific points in time. In other words to some extent it is programming that runs within LrC that someone other than Adobe Created. Adobe has built into LrC something I'll call "exit points" (that's an old term which is probably out of date, but I'm old and out of date as well). These Exit points are places in the Adobe code where a plugin developer can have LrC jump over to the plugin code. Some plugins run entirely within the LrC space and some are just an interface to a standalone applicaitons. For example, you can buy a standalone applicaiton that does sharpening. With the App, you can open an image, do the sharpening, and then save the sharpened image back to disk. But, that app may come with a LrC plugin in which case from within LrC you can invoke the app. When you do this the plug in will use a preset that it came with to export the selected image from Lrc to a temp folder, will then launch the sharpening App handing it the exported image. You then do the sharpening in that app and when done, the App hands the image back to the plugin within LrC which imports it into the Catalog. In this example, the App included an LrC plugin as well as one or more LrC presets.

The third thing, which you didn't mention is a Profile. this is similar in some ways to a develop module preset but unless you're a developer is more complicated to creat. It is also more powerful than a preset. What a profile does tell Lrc how to convert the image into pixels. If the image was a RAW image it provides the parameter to "render" the image. Unlike a preset that when run changes slider positions in the develop module, a profile establishes the initial look of the image when all the sliders are at their zero value - in other words it is the starting point for the Lrc develop module. In the film days different films had different characteristics such as sensitivity to light (ISO), outdoor film vs indoor film which filtered out some yellow to counteract incadesant light, or super saturated film like Velvia, and many other film characteristics which made one film look differently than another. These differences were your "starting point" for shooting with that film and affected everything in the workflow that came after. This is similar to what a profile does. My guess is that what you're looking for is someone selling an LrC profile that simulates the film and wet process you desire.
 
My goal is to find a Preset that will simulate wet plate collodion and possibly other effects of alterative processes. If I can't find one, I know I can make my own however it will take time.

I'm not a big fan of presets either, but that is exactly the kind of situation that I'd recommend a preset - not only to reproduce the effect, but you can also examine the settings to see how it was created.
 
I have never used a LR Preset or Plug-in so in this area, I am a newbie. Is there a place to find a wide variety of Presets to import that are for creative purposes? I haven't been able to find what I am looking for. My goal is to find a Preset that will simulate wet plate collodion and possibly other effects of alterative processes. If I can't find one, I know I can make my own however it will take time. When doing this sort of thing, I'm not particularly fast.

Are the terms" Plugin" and" Preset" interchangeable?

Thanks in advance, Roberta
Hi Roberta,
I just had a rip around YouTube to see if anyone had posted a tutorial for creating that wetplate look. Didn't find one but I did find a few for Photoshop.
There are various companies that sell presets. There is one I found that comes up a lot. The cost is $12 USD. I'm wondering if you were to watch the Photoshop tutorials, you could make a pretty good edit in Lightroom.
If/when you do get something you like, it's pretty quick to create a preset.
Here's how:
In the Develop module in the right hand panel, you'll see Presets. If the arrow to the left of the word is pointing TO the word, click it to open up all the presets that ship with Lightroom.

Once you have edited a photo to a point you like, click the + sign to the right of the word Preset in that left hand panel. This opens the dialogue box where you save your new preset.
Choose Create a Preset
Next, give your preset a name
In the Group area, click the down arrow to the very right and create a new group (if you haven't already). I have groups like "Wedding Presets," Real Estate Presets," "Rodeo Presets," etc.. You can name your group whatever you find useful. Lightroom will save everything you've done to your image as a preset. The only things I make sure are unchecked for presets are spot removal and crop, because you usually won't want either of those to carry over.

One useful thing to use when creating presets is Virtual Copies. You can make one or several virtual copies of an image and try different edits on each to get to where you like the look. For instance, say you create two virtual copies of your image (so you'll have three identical images), you can do whatever edits, then select them all (CTRL + Click, or CMD + Click). Then press "C" on your keyboard to compare the images in one screen.
 
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