To buy or not to buy presets ... this is a hard decision. I would say as a new photographer it is great to buy presets, but you should not just blindly apply them. I believe presets created by other photographers are a great learning experience and reflective of how other photographers do things. If you don't study the presets then you never actually learn how to edit the photos. Presets are great way to learn how to do things that your not sure how to do! Great presets can help you learn how to properly do the following:
- sharpen an image
- color correct
- use layers in a way you haven't done before
- do things that your already doing more efficiently
- use other effects you may not have thought to use before
I use presets for all my wedding, engagement, and family shoots to color correct, sharpen, add some contrast etc. BUT! I studied presets and decided what other people did that I liked; through this process, I found what worked for me and my style, then I built my own presets. I now use my own presets that (most importantly) look different from the presets I have purchased, so that my workflow is fast and easy. I do not use presets on my commercial work or my portfolio work! Why? Because I don't want my portfolio to look exactly like someone else's. I always edited my images from scratch. It doesn't actually take as long as you think, because I think about what I will be editing before even shooting the image. This way I'm not pulling my image into photoshop and just playing around. I don't like doing this for commercial clients as I should be knowing exactly what the end result will look like. However, on the occasion, I will edit by playing around on Photoshop for fun or to get inspired.
- sharpen an image
- color correct
- use layers in a way you haven't done before
- do things that your already doing more efficiently
- use other effects you may not have thought to use before
I use presets for all my wedding, engagement, and family shoots to color correct, sharpen, add some contrast etc. BUT! I studied presets and decided what other people did that I liked; through this process, I found what worked for me and my style, then I built my own presets. I now use my own presets that (most importantly) look different from the presets I have purchased, so that my workflow is fast and easy. I do not use presets on my commercial work or my portfolio work! Why? Because I don't want my portfolio to look exactly like someone else's. I always edited my images from scratch. It doesn't actually take as long as you think, because I think about what I will be editing before even shooting the image. This way I'm not pulling my image into photoshop and just playing around. I don't like doing this for commercial clients as I should be knowing exactly what the end result will look like. However, on the occasion, I will edit by playing around on Photoshop for fun or to get inspired.