As we have already told you on some occasion, if you want to stand out on Instagram you must take care of the image of your publications and be creative to differentiate yourself from other users. We can do this in many ways but, one of them, always maintain the same aesthetic so that they can recognize your photos. And this you can easily get creating and applying your own presets in all your posts.
What are the presets?
These items go by many names: presets, luts, presets, filters, etc. But in the end, they all apply a series of adjustments to your photos to make them look a certain way.
Some can completely change the appearance of the photo, others are limited to highlighting a specific color or, for example, they can leave only one "visible" color to highlight it. The combination of functions that a preset can perform is equivalent to the number of photo editing styles that exist. A very clear example of this can be the well-known style "Orange & Teal", which brings all the warm tones to orange and all the cool tones to turquoise.
These luts are made by varying the different parameters of the image such as exposure, contrast, clarity or HSL control of each color separately.
There are many applications from which we can apply these types of settings on our phone. Some are tremendously popular like: VSCO, Snapseed, Afterlight and a very long etcetera. But, without a doubt, the best known is Lightroom.
Lightroom is an application from the suite for Adobe professionals that allows us, among other things, to create and apply this type of "filters". So now that you know what they are, let's see how we can make them in lightroom using its free version.
Create your own presets for Instagram
The process is quite simple and, best of all, you can create them both from the PC desktop version of this program and from its mobile version.
If you want to carry out this process through the phone, it will be as simple as following these steps:
- Choose the photo you want to edit and import it into Lightroom. You can do this both from the smartphone's own gallery and from the menu of this app in the photograph icon with a "+".
- Once the photo is imported into the Adobe app, you will have to make the adjustments you want in it. Here let your creativity run free to do something curious and attention-grabbing.
- When the photo is the way you wanted it, it's time to save your preset in Lightroom. For that, click on the menu of the three points in the upper bar and select “Create preset”.
- In this menu, choose those fields that you have modified and want to make it visible when applying this lut to another photograph. You can also add a name to better identify it and, of course, add it to your own group.
And your first filter for your Instagram photos would already be created. Now, to apply it to any screenshot is even easier:
- Add a new photo to the Lightroom catalog and open it in the editor.
- Scroll through the menus on the bottom bar until you reach the "Preset" option. Get into it.
- Here you will see all the settings that you have saved within your collection. To apply it, it is as simple as clicking on one of them and confirming the changes. Ready.
On the other hand, if you want to carry out this whole process from your computer You will only have to get to the point of having that first photograph edited within the program. After this, you have to click on the “+” that accompanies the presets option on the left sidebar and select the settings to save.
Once this is done, you will now have these same settings saved that you can apply with a single click to any other photo you edit in this application. Then it will be a matter of slightly readjusting the different parameters of this to adapt the filter to that capture.
How to download free presets for Lightroom
As it is such a well-known and used application, there are many users who create their filters and upload them to the internet for free so that others can download them. Although, of course, there are also other users who market their luts.
There is an incredibly large list of results if you search the internet. Both on websites, forums and YouTube videos, there are many professionals and non-professionals who provide their own filters. Some interesting websites that you can consult are: Crehana, Adobe Exchange or Preset Love among many others.
The important thing here is that identify if it is luts for Lightroom Classic (desktop version) or Lightroom Mobile (for the phone). While the first consists of a file with an .xml extension, which you can load from the same preset import menu, the mobile version will have a .dng extension, which you must import to your gallery as a normal photo and then save the setting preset as we have taught you.
Presets for Instagram stories
However, if you are too lazy to go through Lightroom first to upload a story to your profile, remember that you can use the Instagram filters. These will act as a lut that we can add directly as an effect to our publications in this section of the social network. Of course, forget about being able to regulate any of these parameters.
If you don't know how you can add this type of filter to your stories, you can take a look at our tutorial that we published on YouTube:
This is everything you need to know about presets to stand out on Instagram. Now is the time to unleash your creativity and create spectacular settings that will catch the eye of everyone who sees your photos on the internet.
How to create presets for Stories with Spark AR Studio
You will surely be surprised by the number of filters for Stories that there are on Instagram. many are made by users who do not have precisely programming knowledge. How do they do that? Basically, to make the video presets on Instagram, an application called Spark AR Studio is used. This app allows you to create any filter from scratch, but it also contains its own gallery of effects that we can combine to our liking to create completely original filters.
Spark AR Studio is available for both computers Windows as if to MacOS. It is free to use and the software is owned by Facebook. Can download it here. With this tool you will be able to create your own three-dimensional effects for Instagram stories. You will also be able to share them with all the users of the social network.
Once you have installed the program on your computer, you can continue Tutorials on YouTube or directly access the Learning Center, which is Meta's program where they teach users to get the most out of AR Studio. As we said, it is not necessary to know how to program to be able to make a good creation in this software. Even so, the learning curve will be easier for you if you already have some knowledge of 3D design thanks to having used programs like Cinema 4D, 3D Max or Blender, to name a few. The program has its own gallery of 3D objects, although you can also import your own three-dimensional files, either created by yourself or downloaded from the Internet. Once you have managed to animate your effect and it is completely ready, your filter will now have to go through the Instagram filter, worth the redundancy. The moderation team of the social network will have to analyze your project to ensure that it is safe and that it does not violate the rules. Normally, it will take a few days to review your order. In the worst case, the process can take up to a week.
We recommend that, to create creative and attention-grabbing presets, look at the posts of the users of this social network that you like the most and then try to recreate the style in your filters. And remember, if you want other users to recognize your work, don't copy, get inspired by other creators.