Adobe Lightroom – Installing templates

Custom image processing settings from an external source

Downloading

Bored with sliders? Want something simpler? Adobe Photoshop Lightroom does offer a solution. There are factory presets, also called templates, which can alter a picture—for instance, apply an interesting effect—with a single click. We briefly discussed them at the beginning of our Lightroom series, and they really don’t deserve more of our time.

But what if you’re bored with them and want something new? Of course there’s a solution again—downloading and installing templates created by others. You can find some of these on the official Adobe Lightroom Exchange site. Many of them are free of charge. For example, here’s the above color alteration collection, Camera Dojo Camera Tools. Just click the Download button on the right, and it’s yours to use.

Into a folder

First, unpack the downloaded .zip file into a folder. You’ll get over a dozen of files with the .lrtemplate extension. This is exactly what you need.

Import goods

Start Lightroom and get to the Develop module. On the left, you’ll see the Presets list with the factory templates first. After these, there’s the User Presets item. Right-click it to display a context menu. Select Import here. A Browse dialog appears, where you can select the .lrtemplate files you want, and Lightroom imports them into the User Presets list.

Checking the head count

Here are the templates you imported. If you open the User Presets list by clicking the down arrow on its left, you’ll see them in alphabetical order.

Ready to use!

Click any of them to instantly see a result. That’s all! The Adobe Lightroom Exchange site contains further interesting color adjustment templates and also plugins. We’ll describe installation of the latter in another article.