A. Well…yes and no. First, I’ve got to say that this question was in response to me saying recently that Florabella actions work best on raw files. I was mistaken. I even did some testing today with raw vs jpg and they looked exactly the same when treated with Florabella actions. So rawk on jpeg users!

Now…when you buy presets and actions, the maker usually specifies if they work best with RAW or JPG (or both). There are certain controls you miss out on when editing a JPG such as white balance changes and so if your preset or action contains any commands which aren’t available because your camera has compressed all the information into a JPG (or you converted it to a JPG first) then it won’t work as intended. I did some tests on presets and actions I have and this is what I found:

One Willow Presets for Lightroom and ACR truly do work best on RAW and she has said quite clearly that her presets are for raw files. You can see below the difference when using the ‘Tocca’ action from the new Timeless Collection on a RAW vs a JPG:

As I said previously, Florabella actions worked beautifully with both raw and jpg as did the MCP Actions I tried. Florabella doesn’t say in her FAQs if the actions are meant for any specific file types and MCP didn’t specify either. As you can see below, the MCP Actions I ran on the image below worked exactly the same with a raw vs jpg:

I think that where you will find that automated plugins work best on a raw vs jpg is going to be Lightroom. I find far more often that presets are meant for one or the other and so you’ll need to check with the company you’re buying from first.

_MG_7292aftersmlr _MG_7292beforesmlr

EVERYONE KEEP THOSE SHOTS COMIN. SEND YOUR {sharp & well exposed} PHOTOS TO EH@ELIZABETHHALFORD.COM

If your photo has been featured on Reader Photo Friday and you would like to purchase digital copies for printing yourself, please get in touch. Digital files are only $25 each and 100% of these monies goes to Compassion International to help us edit out poverty for our little guy Victor.

• Look at the images used as examples when buying. Were they taken outside? Then your indoor flash photos won’t get the same results. The results might still be spectacular, but not exactly the same.
• If you’ve seen a B&A, was the ‘before’ already a near-perfectly exposed image? Presets & actions need a well exposed image to start with.
• Check with the maker if they were created to work best with jpegs or raw.
• Presets and actions are very rarely a one-click deal. Every image is different and so these great little plug-ins for your photo editing software are just a foundation for editing.
• After running an action, go into the layers palette and tweak the resulting layers. Mask bits out and fiddle with opacities.
• After running a preset in LR or ACR, take a look at the sliders and educate yourself on what the preset has done to your image and change things to customize your result.

Actions & presets are an excellent (for me, must-have) tool to help you edit your images. I just think the most important thing to know is that they’re not meant to be one-click solutions for your photos but a springboard for your own creativity!

{How I shot it}

I was drawn to the line of the fence that went on forever and the path beside it. I knew it would be so interesting in the photo. The afternoon sun was to my right and heavily overcast by clouds. It was only 1* and so Natalie quickly dropped her coat for this photo. I only had a second to take it. I told her “every time you hear the shutter, do something different”. I didn’t have time to use my reflector.

50mm f/1.4 lens

Taken at:

• ISO 200
• f/5
• 1/160th sec
• ‘Cloudy’ WB setting

{How I edited it}

• One Willow’s Timeless Collection of presets for Lightroom
• Then in Photoshop, I used the ‘Sun & Lensflare (right)’ action from Florabella’s Spring set 1 to add sunshine and warmth. I made sure to place the sunshine in the direction it actually was in real life.
• Then I added a texture from Florabella in overlay mode, around 20% and masked it off of her face.

What: It’s called The Timeless Collection and it’s made specifically for portraits

The promise: They give a ‘subtle yet complete edit for your images’

My take: I’m really impressed. This is the first set of presets I’ve EVER used that didn’t require any of my own tweaking. They truly are one-click edits for your portraits.

When: The set for RAW files comes out this Friday (the 21st). JPG and ACR formats coming soon.

IMG_5880 IMG_5880 IMG_5854 IMG_5854 IMG_5725 IMG_5725 IMG_5724 IMG_5724

IMG_5765 IMG_5765after IMG_5880 IMG_5880after

IMG_5377before IMG_5377after IMG_5357before IMG_5357after IMG_5353before IMG_5353after IMG_5353afterbw IMG_5277before IMG_5277after

The Color Castle is my fave because it’s simply an action you run and it gives you layers to turn on and off to pop particular colours. On this one of my son, I just popped the reds and then ran another of the actions in the set to add contrast.

Easy does it.

IMG_3149before IMG_3149after IMG_3616before IMG_3616after

Last week, I introduced y’all to Pretty Presets for Lightroom. And naturally, they’ve got some pretty rad freebies too! Enjoy!

This month, I tried all that Pretty Presets has to offer and I’m tellin’ you…I {heart} it all.

Two reasons I really loved using Pretty Presets for the first time:

• They were the first presets I have found for my studio lit photos which made me jump with excitement
• Some of the presets (like the one I used on the photos below) have results that were so full and rich like when I use Photoshop actions. Sometimes with presets, I am left feeling like something is missing and I have to go into PS for that last added oomph. But these were amazing right off the bat!

These photos were edited exclusively with one click on the ‘Sassy’ preset from Set III:

IMG_3483before IMG_3483after before after