Are Presents a Worthwhile Investment?

April 4, 2020

When looking at some of the most popular Instagram feeds, you’ll notice they all have one thing in common. All their pictures look vaguely similar and their colour undertones are consistent.

That’s not a coincidence or an example of their photo editing expertise. It is because they use presets.

The times, when you could snap a picture and it was enough to apply one of the pre-installed Instagram filters before uploading it, are long gone.

The use of presets has changed the Instagram game and allowed people to obtain a particular look for their feed.

Does investing in an editing preset seem like too much? And are you feeling overwhelmed by the amount of presets available? Are they easy to use?

And most importantly, are they a worthwhile investment?

via Digital Film Actions

Why Should You Care?

With more than 500 million active users logging into Instagram every single day, it is one of the most influential social media platforms out there. Businesses are investing in developing their social marketing campaigns and hiring photographers to shoot content for them.

Learning all the tricks and secrets behind this powerful platform must be worthwhile. And presets are one of the tools that can help your Instagram account stand out and develop your brand.

What Are Presets?

Presents are custom filters that are applied usually using Abobe Lightroom. Each preset has a list of settings that are customised in a way to create a similar “look” for all the pictures.

This means that with presets, you no longer need to manually edit each photo and all your desired settings are applied within a click of a button.

The presets can significantly streamline your workflow and make your Instagram pictures look like they’ve been professionally edited.

Intrigued? Read on.

Are They Free?

It is true that the Lightroom app comes with a set of basic preinstalled presets that enhance your pictures and makes the colours more vivid.

But if you’re looking for the ones that will give your photos a more unique look, these are custom developed and need to be purchased.

For long, this was an area occupied by photographers and professional photo editors. But since Lightroom launched their long-awaited mobile app, this caused a massive boom of the popularity of presets and made them much more accessible to the public.

How Does It Work?

Now, transforming your pictures with purchased presets is easy. Once you have the app downloaded to your phone and install the purchased presets, simply import the image from your gallery and then apply the preset with a click of a button.

Additionally, you can do little tweaks depending on the photo and change the basic settings like contrast or brightness. From there, you export the picture into your gallery and it is ready to use.

Nowadays, not only can you buy presets from your favourite photographer, but many influencers and bloggers have also developed their own packs.

Are They Worth It?

Presets are one of the most useful tools that can transform the look of your feed. They make your page stand out and develop a specific style that others will associate with your brand.

Look at presets as a form of investment. As much as paying for a set of filters might seem like an unnecessary expense, you only need to purchase them once and you can use them on your profile forever.

While buying a set of presets for $50 may seem expensive, from a business perspective, it is a small investment given the benefits.

via Instagram

Choosing the Right Presets

The question is not whether to buy a preset but which one to buy. With their rising popularity, there are now thousands of them available on the market.

And while there are some good ones, there are also many bad presets out there. If you have a favourite Instagrammer who also sells presets, be careful.

The fact that you like the edited pictures doesn’t mean that you’ll like the presets too. Some presets don’t cover all the changes that the photographer makes and they require a lot of editing afterwards.

Not to mention that not all presets work on all kinds of photos. As soon as you start doing your own research, you’ll soon find out that different ones are recommended for different accounts.

This is because each preset produces an effect that can dramatically change the mood, the vibe and the impact of your picture. Same presets that are recommended for travel pages won’t work for food blogs, same as beach pictures need different editing than the mountain ones.

Influencer’s Presets

Many influencers are generating a passive income by selling their own presets. It’s easy to convince their followers to buy them with a promise that their pictures will look like the ones of the influencer (which they already love). Hence, presets serve as an extension of their own brand used across the whole Instagram platform.

Before you buy presets from your favourite influencer though, think about whether your content would work with their style. Many encourage others to use their custom hashtag for the photos edited with their presets.

Checking how the same presets work on other “ordinary” pictures created by other people is a great way of making sure these would work for you. Additionally, some influencers offer to give you a preview of your own picture when edited with a preset that you want to buy from them.

via Do You Travel Presets

The Verdict

Times, when it was enough to run your picture through a “Valencia” Instagram filter and hit publish, are long gone. With so much competition to make your Instagram feed stand out, presets are a great way of achieving it without the need for a professional editing course.

Using presets will give your page a consistent look and is a way of taking your Instagram to the next level all with saving you time on editing and streamlining your workflow. With these results, paying for presets is not such a big investment.

A more crucial question, however, is buying the right presets that would suit your brand and feed. Before buying a preset pack from your favourite influencer look at how their presets work on pictures uploaded from other people.

Ready to become a professional photo editor within a click of a button?

via GIPHY