Admit it: applying presets and filters to an image you love is pretty darn fun. With just a tap of the screen, your image transforms before your eyes. Effects that would take hours to accomplish in the wet darkroom—if they could be accomplished at all—are achieved instantaneously, and errors or oversights made at the time of capture can be eradicated or improved immediately. Adobe Lightroom Mobile provides presets and filters, all from the convenience of your mobile phone.
That’s why we have this Lightroom presets tutorial. You’ll learn how to apply and use presets and filters on the Lightroom Mobile app. Check out the options Lightroom Mobile provides, and read the steps that follow. You’ll learn how to put the finishing touches on an image so that you can achieve the exact aesthetic you’re looking for.
What You’ll Learn
- How to use presets and filters found on the Lightroom Mobile app
- How to use Loupe Mode in Lightroom
- How to choose an image
- How to select Lightroom Mobile presets
- How to try out and compare different presets in Lightroom
- How to add presets to Lightroom
- How to reset adjustments as needed
- How to manage Lightroom Mobile presets
Jump to content in this section:
How to Use Presets and Filters on Raw Photos in Lightroom Mobile
The Basics
Lightroom Mobile is a free app that lets you create, edit, and share high-quality images. Embedded Adobe Photoshop technology provides you with over 30 presets, allowing you to experiment with color, clarity, vignetting, and more—all for free. Upgrading to a Creative Cloud Photography plan gives you access to a few more editing options, as well as syncing across devices, a customizable website, Photoshop, and cloud storage.
Creative Cloud plans and pricing for individuals vary from $9.99/month to $74.49/month (or you can pay annually in one lump sum) and usually come packaged with other perks, apps, and GBs of cloud storage. (Businesses, students & teachers, and schools & universities are offered other plans and pricing.) You can also try it out by activating a free seven-day trial.
1. How to Open the Adobe Lightroom Mobile App in Loupe Mode
For the first step of our Lightroom presets tutorial, open up Loupe mode by tapping the picture/plus icon in the Library.
2. How to Select Your Image
Choose a nice, juicy, high-resolution DNG (RAW) image so that you have the ultimate editing latitude for applying filters and presets in Lightroom.
3. How to Select Presets in the Edit Panel
Now select Presets from the Edit panel in Lightroom.
There are two tabs of Lightroom Mobile presets: Premium and Library. The Premium tab includes pre-loaded Portraits, Cinematic, Futuristic, Vintage, and Travel presets.
Library includes Color, Creative, B&W, Portraits, Defaults, Curve, Grain, Optics, and Sharpening.
4. How to Experiment With Presets in Lightroom
Learning how to use presets on the Lightroom Mobile app is super fun! This Vintage preset, VN07, gave a soft aesthetic reminiscent of sepia. To apply a preset from Lightroom to an image, tap the Checkmark icon.
5. How to Compare the Preset Effect
Now let’s see how the image looked before you applied the preset in Lightroom. Tap and hold on the image. Before at the top of the screen tells you it’s the original version. To go back to the version with the Lightroom Mobile preset applied, let go of your tap-and-hold.
To reverse a preset you have applied in Lightroom, tap the Undo icon.
To move forward with a preset, tap the Redo icon.
6. How to Add More Presets to Lightroom
Did you know you can add multiple presets to an image in Lightroom? To apply more than one, tap the checkmark icon after each preset. Stacking multiple presets lets you quickly create a stylized photo.
I liked this B&W Punch preset but wanted to add a heavy grain too.
After selecting Heavy Grain, I tapped the checkmark icon again to add this preset to my image in Lightroom.
Lightroom Mobile also gives you the ability to create and save your own specific presets. Check out this Lightroom presets tutorial for the details:
7. How to Reset Some or All Adjustments as Needed
Now that you know how to use and add presets to an image on the Lightroom Mobile app, it’s time to see how to get rid of them. To reset the image and remove the presets, tap Reset.
Then tap what you would like to reset. This could be everything or individual filters and presets in Lightroom.
8. How to Manage Your Lightroom Mobile Presets
You can manage all of your filters and presets in Lightroom without much effort. Tap on the three-dots icon in the upper right.
Then tap Manage Presets.
Select the preset group you want to manage, Premium or Library.
And then toggle on or off the presets you would like to make visible or invisible. Once you know the presets you prefer, this can help save you from having to scroll a bunch to find them. This is especially helpful if you’ve added a lot of presets to Lightroom.
Have Fun With Presets
Capturing an image is just one part of the process. What you would like that image to portray through its aesthetics is another, which is why this Lightroom presets tutorial is so useful. You have so many options with presets.
I hope you’ve learned how to use presets on the Lightroom Mobile app. Have fun experimenting with the different ways an image can look—and make viewers feel!
Keep Learning About Lightroom and Photography
Did you enjoy learning about how to use presets and filters on the Lightroom Mobile app? Here are a few more free tutorials and resources to help you study Lightroom and smartphone photography:
50 Top Lightroom Preset Packs for Instant Image Filters and Photo Looks
- How to Use Manual Camera Settings to Take Photos With Lightroom Mobile (Pro Mode)
- How to Shoot Raw Photos on Your Phone Using Lightroom Mobile’s DNG Camera
- How to Make Great Landscape Photographs With Your Smartphone
- 10 Top Film-Style Look Presets for Lightroom
- 10 Top Instagram Look Presets and Color LUTs for Lightroom CC and Mobile
- 10 Amazing Photoshop HDR Photo Effects (Pro PSD Actions)
- 20 Quick-to-Use Photo Mirror Effect Photoshop Actions
