If you are starting to use Lightroom on your mobile, then you will pretty soon want to begin using the presets that you rely on in the desktop version. Presets are great tools that allow you to do a series of different edits in one click, helping to boost an image to its fullest potential based on the things you already know work. Here’s how to get your presets working in the mobile Lightroom app, whether you already have them installed on your desktop app or not.
From the desktop app
In this first scenario, you’ve been using Lightroom on your desktop and you already have your presets loaded into it. But now you want to get them all copied over to your mobile app – how do you do it?
First of all, you’ll want to make sure that you are using the right accounts. Use a single Adobe ID to login to the desktop app and the mobile app, so that you can sync your account data across both of your devices.
Now, open up the mobile app and select an image to edit. It doesn’t have to be a particular image – anything will do in order to make sure you have access to the presets for later. At the bottom of the screen in edit mode, you’ll see an icon of two overlapping circles – one solid and one empty – with the label ‘Presets’. Tap on this and you’ll see a list, but there’s also a downward facing arrowhead next to the name of the preset group you’re currently using (it might be ‘Color’).
Tap on this arrowhead and you’ll open up more categories of presets, including ‘User Presets’. Select this, and you’ll find all of the presets that you already use in the Lightroom desktop app. How exciting is that? If you’ve made any other collections in the desktop version, they will also be visible from this dropdown menu.
For first uses
If you haven’t used your presets before on any device, but you’ve got something new that you would like to try, here’s how you get started.
First of all, open the Lightroom desktop application. You’ll want to do this ahead of time if you’re planning to edit on the move and don’t have your laptop or computer with you! In the menu, first click on ‘File’ and then ‘Important Profiles & Presets’.
This will open up a view of the folders on your computer, so go ahead and navigate to the folder which contains the presets – you might find them in your downloads or on your desktop if they’re brand new. Once you find the preset, select it in the folder view and click import.
It will take a moment to load in, and once it has, you can verify that the process has worked by going into Edit Mode and clicking the presets button. This will show you a folder called ‘User Presets’. Under this menu, you’ll find your new import.
Now, just follow the same process as above, and you’ll be good to go on mobile!
When using the app
Now let’s talk about how you can use the presets, now that you’ve loaded them in. Actually, it’s very simple, as you will no doubt be pleased to learn. All you have to do is open that presets menu and tap on the name of the preset that you want to use. You’ll then see the effects applied live on your screen in a matter of seconds.
Because it’s so fast, it’s really easy to use the app to compare different presets and see what works best for your images. You can even use this as a way to decide which preset to use on a big batch of photos, by checking it on the mobile version first and then batch processing all of the other images on your desktop.
For downloads direct to your mobile device
You might be wondering, what about if I’m not using the desktop version of Lightroom at all? Well, first of all, it’s really recommended that you do have this version available. There’s no reason not to, as you need an Adobe subscription to use them in the first place, and you’ll be able to sync all of your edits across both your desktop and mobile versions of the app.
Secondly, it’s actually essential that you do have the desktop app available if you want to use presets in the mobile version. The reason for this is that there is currently no way to import presets directly into the Lightroom app from your mobile device. You won’t be able to download a new preset onto your device and then put it into Lightroom – they simply haven’t added this functionality to the app yet. Maybe in the future it will be possible, but for now, you do need to follow the steps outlined above.
Using presets on the go
The great thing about the Lightroom app is that it does sync across all other versions. So, if you’re on the go, you can do your edits in the app and then sync the results with your Adobe Cloud folders. When you next return to your desktop, you can go ahead and find the results of your editing and sync them onto your desktop, allowing you to save and share the images in high resolution directly from your desktop even though you didn’t edit them there. This really can speed up your workflow if you are travelling a lot for your clients.
What do you think about the Lightroom mobile app? Is it useful for you to be able to do these edits on the go, or would you prefer it if you were able to import presets directly from your mobile device? We think it’s really useful to have access to those presets no matter where you are, but we do hope that it becomes even easier to use in the future! To learn more about Lightroom, join us in the Summerana Academy!