Lightroom is the one of the best photo editing softwares and presets are an amazing way to further enhance it. Lightroom presets are professionally designed filters that edit your photos in just one-click. They're a time-saving solution that ensures consistent and professional-looking results.
You can use presets to edit your photos in one-click or use them as a starting point to further edit and customize your portraits.
We are always being asked by photographers what the best Lightroom Presets are for editing portraits. That's why we put together this list.
When editing portraits you need to take into consideration, skin tone, dominant colors, overall lighting, and your editing style.
Let’s explore the top Lightroom presets for editing portrait photography in Adobe Lightroom Classic, Lightroom CC, Lightroom Mobile, and Photoshop CC.
1. Natural Light Lightroom Presets
The Natural Light Lightroom Preset Collection is the best choice for editing portrait photography. Its soft, subtle, and slightly warm tones create a dreamy effect. This collection will bring out amazing color in your subjects eyes on close up shots. With Natural Light, you can enhance your portraits while maintaining the integrity of skin tones, clarity, and image quality.
Edit Style: Natural, Light, Mild Warm Tones
Best Settings: Outdoor, Indoor, Year Round
Before & After Natural Light Presets
Shop: Natural Light Portrait Lightroom Presets
2. Kodak Portra
The clean film edit is a must-have for 2024. Many top portrait photographers rely on the Kodak Portra Film edit for their portraits. This preset enhances skin tones and smooths skin. Making this one of the best Preset Collections to add to your editing workflow. This preset comes with many strength variations that make it subtle for close up shots as well as shots taken further away to capture the entire scene.
Edit Style: Clean, Smooth Skin, Mild Film Tones
Best Settings: Outdoor, Indoor, Year Round, Natural Light
Before & After Kodak Potra Presets
Shop: Kodak Potra Portrait Lightroom Presets
3. Colorful Clean Lightroom Presets
Who doesn't love a bright, airy photo with a pop of color? The Colorful Clean Preset Collection is the best at brightening photos and enhancing beautiful, natural tones. This collection also ensures natural skin tones and crisp images, everything you need in a portrait preset.
Edit Style: Clean, Natural, Colorful Tones
Best Settings: Outdoor, Indoor, Year Round
Before & After Colorful Clean Presets
Shop: Colorful Clean Portrait Lightroom Presets
4. Golden Hour Lightroom Presets
This collection gives serious golden hour vibes. The Golden Hour Preset Collection creates gorgeous warm tones, smooth skin, and soft airy images with a punch of contrast. This collection will help you edit your portraits in a natural warm tone. Perfect for enhancing golden hour images or recreating the look of golden hour in your portraits.
Edit Style: Natural, Soft, Golden Warm Tones
Best Settings: Outdoor, Indoor, Late Summer & Early Fall
Before & After Golden Hour Presets
Shop: Golden Hour Portrait Lightroom Presets
5. True Color Lightroom Presets
If you love clean colorful edits and want to keep colors as true to tone as possible The True Color Preset Collection will be your go-to. This collection is best for enhancing images while keeping them extremely natural. If you client/clients have red hair, or colored hair, or a vibrant outfit you will want to enhance those colors not alter them. True Color will enhance natural tones and keep your portraits clean and crisp.
Edit Style: Natural, Clean, True Color Tones
Best Settings: Outdoor, Indoor, Year Round
Before & After True Color Presets
Shop: True Color Portrait Lightroom Presets
6. Classic Black & White Lightroom Presets
Every photographer needs their go-to black and white preset. When delivering your clients images including a few black and white options will make the gallery feel like it has more options. You can also use black and white presets to help evoke mood in your portraits, direct the viewers attention to your subject and soften dominant color tones. The Classic Black & White Preset Collection is the best black and white preset for portraits. This collection smooths skin without compromising on image quality.
Edit Style: Natural, Clean, Classic Black & White
Best Settings: Outdoor, Indoor, Year Round
Before & After Black & White Presets
Shop: Black And White Portrait Lightroom Presets
7. Golden Boho Lightroom Presets
That golden warm creamy edit is always one of the best styles of photo editing for portraits. If you are shooting in late summer or fall settings this collection will bring out all those gorgeous warm tones. The Golden Boho Preset Collection will warm up photos taken in any setting and help to even out skin tone while creating a cohesive photo edit.
Edit Style: Dreamy, Moody Undertones, Golden Warm Tones
Best Settings: Outdoor, Indoor, Summer-Winter
Before & After Golden Boho Presets
Shop: Golden Boho Portrait Lightroom Presets
8. Rich & Moody Lightroom Presets
If you shoot your portraits in darker settings or woodsy settings a rich moody photo edit will help enhance your background colors and bring attention to your subjects in your portraits. The Rich & Moody Preset Collection is a very versatile moody preset with different mood strengths making it suitable for all portraits.
Edit Style: Rich, Deep Color, Moody Tones
Best Settings: Outdoor, Indoor, Year Round, Darker Settings
Before & After Rich & Moody Presets
Shop: Moody Portrait Lightroom Presets
9. Creamy Moody Lightroom Presets
The creamy edit is always one of the best presets to enhance portrait photography. The creamy tones help even skin tone and soften the background color to bring attention to your subjects. The moody undertones create soft beautiful contrast to further enhance the image. The Creamy Moody Preset Collection is great for all settings and all lighting conditions. The best preset collection for overcast days!
Edit Style: Creamy, Warm, Mild Moody Tones
Best Settings: Outdoor, Indoor, Year Round Best For Overcast
Before & After Creamy Moody Presets
Shop: Creamy Portrait Lightroom Presets
10. Everyday Lightroom Presets
The light airy photo edit is one of the best editing options for indoor and outdoor portraits. The Everyday Preset Collection will brighten and soften images and give them light airy color tones while keeping the photo edit really natural. Great for brightening up dull images or overcast days.
Edit Style: Natural, Light, Dreamy Color tones
Best Settings: Outdoor, Indoor, Year Round Best For Spring & Summer
Before & After Everyday Presets
Shop: Bright Light Portrait Lightroom Presets
11. Cream Tones Lightroom Presets
The Cream Tones Lightroom Presets are amazing for portraits because they give a soft creamy tone while still maintaining a natural edit. If you like creamy tones but don't want to add any moodiness this collection is perfect for your portraits. Create clean soft tones with warm creamy color.
Edit Style: Natural, Light, Creamy Tones
Best Settings: Outdoor, Indoor, Year Round
Before & After Cream tones Presets
Shop: Cream Tones Portrait Lightroom Presets
12. No Filter Lightroom Presets
The last collection that made it to the list is The No Filter Preset Collection. This collection has a very mild film grain and smoothing effect that creates the dreamiest skin without making it look like you retouched the skin. These presets also keep the edit very natural and light making it great for all lighting conditions and dominant color tones.
Edit Style: Natural, Soft, Smooth Skin Tones
Best Settings: Outdoor, Indoor, Year Round
Before & After No Filter Presets
Shop: No Filter Portrait Lightroom Presets
Perfecting Your Edit
Let's go over how to get the best outcome when editing your portraits with Lightroom Presets. Presets are great with just one-click and most photos won't require any additional adjustments.
If you encounter challenging lighting or harsh dominant colors, you can easily customize the presets to fit your specific situation. Once you've applied a preset, you can easily adjust the edit to work with the dominant colors and lighting of your images.
Adjusting The Strength Of The Presets
All our presets are designed with a customizable opacity slider for adjustable editing. You can adjust the amount of preset being applied to your image to increase or decrease the edit. For close up images we recommend you decrease the edit to give softer results.
For iPhone & Android you can find the slider after you apply a Preset then click on that preset again. The slider will pop up and you can adjust the setting.
For Desktop Lightroom you can find the slider in the Presets Panel after you apply a preset. You can simply slide to the desired amount.
Finding The Perfect White Balance
White balance is crucial for the final result of your photo edit. To get your color tones just right you can adjust the white balance after applying a preset. You can either use the "Auto" white balance option, which honestly works great or manually adjust to your liking.
If you are using Lightroom Classic (LrC) you can also use the white balance eye dropper to select a neutral tone in your image so Lightroom can achieve a better white balance for your photo.
Get Your Exposure Just Right
To adjust the brightness of your image after applying a preset, simply tweak the exposure. You can also try "Auto" but it will adjust a few other settings but can give great results. Manually adjusting the exposure will work great to really get that perfect lighting.
Batch Edit Your Portraits
One of Lightroom's most time saving features is batch-editing. And it's exactly what it sounds like. Lightroom allows you to edit all your photos with the same preset at the same time! No more manually editing each individual photo.
To batch edit in Lightroom Mobile you will first copy the Preset and then select all your photos you want to add the preset too. Then click paste to add the preset to all your photos.
In Lightroom Desktop you will apply the preset to one of your photos in your gallery and then select all the photos you want to apply the Preset to. Then click "sync", this will apply the Preset to all the photos.
You can browse all these Portrait Preset Collections or shop all our Lightroom Presets here: Shop Lightroom Presets
To use Portrait Presets you will need the Free Lightroom App you can download here: Download for iPhone or Download For Android
For Desktop users you can download a free trial of Desktop Lightroom here: Lightroom Desktop Free Trial
For Photoshop users you can download free trail of Adobe Photoshop CC here: Download Photoshop CC
If you need any further help adjusting presets to suit your portraits, need help manually editing your portraits, or have any questions on editing styles or the right Lightroom Presets for your portrait photography please Fill Out The Contact Form
