I often get asked how I edit my photos. Like most photographers and bloggers, I use Lightroom, where I have both my own custom presets and purchased ones loaded up. Using Lightroom presets can help you effortlessly create a cohesive Instagram feed and give your blog a polished, unified look. Today, I’m sharing the best lightroom presets I’ve discovered and tested over the past few years.
You can create your own presets by following YouTube tutorials, experimenting with your own ideas, or tweaking purchased ones. The latter is especially great for beginners or anyone looking for a fresh visual style and some creative inspiration.
What Is a Lightroom Preset?
A preset is essentially a set of saved editing adjustments in Lightroom that you can apply to any photo with a single click. You can read more about how to use presets in Lightroom here.
Presets can have various thematic focuses — vintage, black and white, film effects, or specific styles for portraits and landscapes. Lightroom users can either use ready-to-use presets or create their own that match their individual style and preferences. This way, photographers can quickly and easily adjust the look of their images and achieve a consistent aesthetic across an entire set of photos.
5 Best Lightroom Presets You Need to Try
Below you’ll find my top 5 picks for the best affordable Lightroom presets you can buy today. For even more recommendations, check out this article.
Albion Dark Lightroom Presets
This hugely popular set of 48 Instagram-ready presets by Presetrain is available for just $12 and offers a wide range of beautifully curated filters. My personal favourite is Albion Lucid (photo below), which transforms your images into those sought-after light, bluish tones while making whites really pop. You’ve probably seen this preset style all over popular Instagram profiles.
Albion Lucid
Albion Mystery
VSCO Cam 50 Lightroom Presets
These 50 presets inspired by the popular VSCO CAM app ($15) have become my go-to for portrait photography. I’d been trying to create that warm, brown-toned look for ages but could never quite nail it. My most recent photos are all edited using a customised preset from this collection.
Winter Wonderland Preset — FREE
I haven’t used these winter-themed free Lightroom presets from Contrastly all that much myself, but if you’re after something a bit different, they’re definitely worth a try. And the best part? They’re completely free. 
Wedding Pack 18 Professional Lightroom Presets
If you follow my travel photography, most of my edits are based on a tweaked preset from this “wedding” series, which costs just $5. The soft, delicate tones in this pack are far from being limited to weddings — they work beautifully for travel and lifestyle photos too. What really sold me was how well they suited my photographs straight away, without needing much adjustment at all.
50 Filmic Lifestyle Lightroom Presets
The priciest preset pack on today’s list offers stunning cinematic edits. At $15, it’s ideal for photos that lack contrast. I tested these on some of my drone footage that had a hazy, washed-out quality — and the results were brilliant.
Bonus: Online Photo Editing Course for Lightroom
Want to edit photos like a professional photographer? Learn to master one of the best photo editing tools out there and check out this online Adobe Lightroom photo editing course from start to finish.
What the course covers:
- 12 lessons – 2.5 hours of content
- Perfect if you want to edit photos but don’t know where to start
- Ideal for anyone dreaming of making a living from photography
- Learn to organise your photos both on your drive and in Lightroom
- Master new local adjustment techniques
- Discover efficient photo sorting workflows
- Get to know essential Lightroom features and settings
- Learn how to create your own custom presets
- Sync your photos seamlessly with your phone
Tips and Tricks for Your Vacation
Don’t Overpay for Flights
Search for flights on Kayak. It’s our favorite search engine because it scans the websites of all airlines and always finds the cheapest connection.
Book Your Accommodation Smartly
The best experiences we’ve had when looking for accommodation (from Alaska to Morocco) are with Booking.com, where hotels, apartments, and entire houses are usually the cheapest and most widely available.
Don’t Forget Travel Insurance
Good travel insurance will protect you against illness, accidents, theft, or flight cancellations. We’ve had a few hospital visits abroad, so we know how important it is to have proper insurance arranged.
Where we insure ourselves: SafetyWing (best for everyone) and TrueTraveller (for extra-long trips).
Why don’t we recommend any Czech insurance company? Because they have too many restrictions. They set limits on the number of days abroad, travel insurance via a credit card often requires you to pay medical expenses only with that card, and they frequently limit the number of returns to the Czech Republic.
Find the Best Experiences
Get Your Guide is a huge online marketplace where you can book guided walks, trips, skip-the-line tickets, tours, and much more. We always find some extra fun there!
