These are the Top 10 Reason why your images look bad after applying Lightroom presets

1.Exposure

The Exposure Panel is located in the Develop menu tab in lightroom. The exposure adjustment controls how "Bright" or "dark" your image is. If you adjust the slider to the right or type in a number above "0" the image will get brighter. If you adjust the slider to the left or type in a negative number, the image will get darker.

"Exposure Adjustment Slider"

2.Temperature & Tint

The Temperature Adjustment slider consist of both the "Temp" and the "Tint". Most presets you buy or get for free will have the temperature changed and often times it makes your image look terrible. To fix this you need to move both the "Temp" slider and "Tint" slider. Start with the "Temp" slider and adjust it to the left to cool your image or make it more "blue" and adjust it to the right to warm up your image or make it more "yellow". After you have adjust the "Temp" slider move onto the "Tint" slider and adjust it accordingly to bet fit your image.

"Temp & Tint Adjustment Sliders"

3.White Balance

White Balance (WB) is usually the main if not the second most popular reason why your images look bad when applying presets. White Balance controls the "temperature & tint" of your image. Most people will set their WB on their camera to auto then pull it into Lightroom. Most presets adjust the WB. The quickest way to fix this is to click on the WB tab. Here you will see it shows "As Shot" you can click on that dropdown menu and it will give you a list of preset WB's. You can click through them to get the desired look you want. The "As Shot" option is the exactly WB that you had used at the time of capturing your image through your camera. 

"WB Dropdown Adjustment"

4.Highlights

Highlights refer to the bright areas in your image where the light was bright. Sometimes this gets confused with the setting adjustment "Whites" but its completely different. The Highlights slider is designed to bring back detail (moving slider to the left) in the brightest areas of an image or to brighten (moving slider to the right) highlights while protecting against clipping. As you move the slider around you can see how it affects the histogram.

"Highlights Adjustment Slider"

5.Shadows

The Shadows adjustment act just like the highlights adjustment but is for the darker areas of the images or "shadows". If you want to increase the details in the "shadows" adjust the slider to the right and if you want to crush the details in the shadows move the slider to the left. One thing that is important to remember is that every camera handles shadows differently. So many times when a preset is installed it might need some slight tweaking. 

"Shadow Adjustment Slider"

6.Saturation

The Saturation slider is pretty simple, it will impact all tones in a photo, either by boosting the color Saturation or decreasing it. Give it a try on your image to see what we're talking about. Saturation is a great tool to make your image add a little more life to it. If you're shooting portraits be careful with increasing the Saturation, as it will increase the color of the skin tones as well. Increasing Saturation works really well with landscapes. If you want an even, all over color increase, then using saturation will be the best choice.

"Saturation Adjustment Slider"

7.Tone Curves

The Tone Curve Panel is Lightroom is a more advanced adjustment that takes time to get familiar with it's one of the more powerful panels in Lightroom and it represents all the tones of your image. The bottom of the Tone Curve is the Tone axis that represents the Shadows on the left and the Highlights on the right. In the middle, you have mid-tones, which are then further split into darker mid-tones, called Darks, and brighter mid-tones, called lights. Almost every preset you get will have a tone curve of some sort applied to the preset. If you scroll down to the panel you will see the tone curve, if you look in the upper left hand corner of the tone curve panel you will see a little toggle switch, if you turn it off you will see what your image will look like without the Tone Curve. If you have the toggle off, you can export your image without the Tone Curve being applied as well. 

"Tone Curves Adjustment Panel"

8.Split Tones

Split Tones in Lightroom adjust the highlights and shadows specifically with a color. If you image is generally a darker image with a lot of shadows, when you apply a color to the shadows it will make your image look mostly like that color applied. Same thing goes with the highlights. This can be a very powerful adjustment once you get the hang of it and understand it more. Again check the Split Tones panel on your image after installing the preset(s) and make sure it's not what is causing your image to look bad. You can toggle it off via the upper left hand corner to see what your image will look like without the Split Tones applied.

"Split Tones Adjustment Panel"

9.Vibrance

The Vibrance slider gets confused a lot with being the same as the Saturation slider. It's completely different, Vibrance increases the intensity of colors but only for a handle of them. It tries to preserve the skin tones colors so they don't look unnatural. It also preserves the intensity of already bright colors, so it wont change them too much. Vibrance is great for portraits, as it will boost the duller colors in your image while preserving the skin tones of your subject so they don't become orange.

"Vibrance Adjustment Slider"

10.Clarity

The Clarity adjustment slider is great for adding punch to your images without making them look unnatural (although to much clarity will make them look unnatural). Clarity will help bring out more detail in your images, its important to note that clarity will increase contrast in the midtones of your images. Use clarity as and adjustment after you have set your prior adjustments to give you that extra punch you're looking for. If the preset you have applied looks way to "sharp" then move the clarity slider back to zero to see what your image would look like with zero clarity and then adjust it from there.

"Clarity Adjustment Slider"

11.Blacks

The Blacks adjustment slider in Lightroom allows you to adjust the brightness of the blacks in your image as well as preserve as much black detail in your image as possible. If you move the blacks slider to the left you will darken or make the blacks deeper in your image. If you move the slider to the right, you will lighten the blacks and preserve as much detail as possible.

"Blacks Adjustment Slider"

12.Whites

The Whites adjustment slider in Lightroom allow you to adjust the brightness of the whites in your image. If you move the slider to the right you will increase the brightness of the whites in your image. If you adjust the whites to the left you will darken your whites and try and preserve as much detail as possible.

"Whites Adjustment Slider"

13.Vignette

The Vignette panel allows you to shift the focus to the center of your frame. A vignette starts on the outer edges of the photo and allows you to apply a black or white vignette that pulls your attention to the center of the frame. If your image has the main subject off to the side of the frame then a vignette probably isn't the best used for your image. You can smooth out the vignette with the feather tool. Check your image to see if the vignette has been applied and adjust it to get a better understanding of how it affects your image.

"Vignette Adjustment Slider"

14.Grain

The Grain adjustment panel is for adding grain or noise to your image. A lot of film type presets will have grain applied to them and this panel will allow you to either increase the grain or decrease it depending on which look you prefer.

"Grain Adjustment Slider"

15.Color Adjustments

The Color Adjustment panel allows you to select specific colors of your image and be able to change the colors via the Hue, Saturation and luminance of each of the colors. This is a very powerful step in Lightroom and can change the look of your greens to yellows, reds to orange etc. This is best used as one of the final steps in editing your images. A lot of presets have them applied and make sure you take a look at the color adjustment panel to make sure the colors look the way you would like them to on your image. If you use the toggle in the upper left you can see what your image looks like with the color adjustments applied. If you hold "alt" you can reset the color back to zero. Remember if you do this you cannot undo this change.

"Color Adjustment Slider"

---

Check out our best selling Adobe Lightroom Presets