Free Lightroom Preset. Gavin’s Old Polaroid:


Mouse over for Before/After sample.

I frequently crawl under the hood in Lightroom. Today I’m working some projects in LR3 and experimenting with the latest features and tools. Something I’ve started doing to make certain effects more adaptable, is what I’m calling Tone Independent Presets. They add an effects without using any of the primary tone settings like exposure, brightness, contrast, white balance etc. The result is an effect that can easily be applied to a plain image, or after general and batch corrections without effecting previous tone settings. This preset is an example of that.

I’ve spent quite some time today (probably too much) looking at the tones and feel of classic Polaroids and doing lots of tweaks in LR to get the look I wanted. The result is this effect I’m calling Gavin’s Old Polaroid. It’s a classic Polaroid themed tone that I think you’ll find appealing. This is a test of effects that will probably show up soon in an update to Color Fantasies presets collection. You get it today however and it’s free to boot. You can download the ZIP below. While it uses some LR3 features, This, like all my other presets will still work on older versions of LR. Enjoy… Gav

Download Old Polaroid Preset ZIP

How to install Lightroom Presets.

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    1. Hey Kerry. Probably not. My presets are preset and my actions are actions. I don’t try to cross them over much because their both meant to work best at different stages of the editing process. If you don’t use LR or something similar you’re missing out. Time to jump in. The water’s great 😉

  1. Hey Gavin! It’s Julia from Russia. Your preset’s so nice that I’m going to learn LR to use it for my photos. Thank yo? a lot!

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About the Author

Glad you're here.

I'm from WA State USA and started studying photography in 97. I started work as a pro (using that word loosely because I sucked) using film at age 16. I learned fast but was not as easy to find training then. Sometimes I beat my head against the wall until I figured stuff out.

As digital dawned I went all in and got to study with masters like Ken Whitmire. In 09 I founded the Pro Photo Show podcast. I started promoting tone-focused editing. When Lightroom arrived, I started developing tools to make editing and workflow better.

20 years of study and photography around the country earned me a Master of Photography (M.Photog) from PPA. I got to see my workshops and tools featured in publications across the industry. Once I even won the prestigious HotOne award for my "EXposed" light and tone workshop.

Wanting something calmer, I moved to Mexico in 2017. It's a land of magical light. I'm here now exploring light and trying to master my weak areas. I make videos of that for my Youtube channel, sharing what I learn. I hope you'll stick around and be part of Light Hunters Tribe... Gavin

Gavin Seim

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