How do I see and adjust presets?

[neonmamacita]

I have the ENHANCE EYES/ WN02/ VIVID/ HEAVY GRAIN presets all applied to the photo

1) How do I see which presets are applied to my photo?

2) Is there a way to switch off and on which presets are applied? 

3) Can I adjust the strength of these presets? ie. is there to apply WN02 at 100% or at 10%?

Currently the only place I can see the presets is in the "history" panel. But sometimes I don't want to go back in history, I want the ability to see and adjust the presets. 

[AxelMatt]

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1) How do I see which presets are applied to my photo?

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By @neonmamacita

You'll see it in the History section on the left side panel in the Develop modul. There are you see all steps that you have made during the editing of your image.

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2) Is there a way to switch off and on which presets are applied? 

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By @neonmamacita

No.

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3) Can I adjust the strength of these presets? ie. is there to apply WN02 at 100% or at 10%?

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By @neonmamacita

Yes. But this possibility must be set at the creation of the preset. During the creation process you have to enable the "Support Amoint Slider" option.

 

Then you can set the amount after you have assigned the appropirate preset

More infos you'll find also here: Work with the Develop module in Lightroom Classic

[JohanElzenga]

@AxelMatt screenshot shows all checkboxes ticked when creating a preset. I'm sure he did that just for the screenshot, but a word of warning might be useful. If you create a new preset, or update an existing preset with the current settings of the image by right-clicking on the preset, then only tick those checkboxes that the preset should affect! If you tick all boxes, then the current settings of all sliders will be saved in your preset, even if those sliders are at zero in the current image. So here's what that means:

Suppose you create a preset that should only increase the Vibrance to 30, and so that is all you have set in the current image. If you tick all the boxes when you create the preset, then your new preset will set Vibrance to 30 and all other sliders to zero. So if you have edited an image and only want to quickly apply Vibrance = 30 by using your preset, then you will be in for a nasty surprise...

Also remember that not everyting is supported by the Amount slider. Things that are not supported by the Amount slider are those things that are yes/no, such as Treatment = Black&White, or Lens Corrections enabled, or HDR Mode on. If you tick any of these boxes, then your preset will not support the Amount slider, and so ticking that checkbox won't have any effect.

[AxelMatt]

@JohanElzenga You're right. Thanks for clarification.

[richardplondon]

Presets are just a convenient and standard way to move the standard adjustment sliders to particular values. It is those adjustments, not the preset itself, that make a difference to your photo.

The same difference happens regardless whether you've manually moved an adjustment to a certain value, or copied that across from another photo, or used a preset to set it to that value.

Furthermore if any later preset or manual change has further altered relevant adjustments then it no longer makes sense to talk of the photo as "having" that preset applied any more. The record of its usage in the History has to be considered together with all the other History steps, to explain how the photo currently looks.

Some presets can be modified in their % effect immediately after they are used - before dpoing anything else - but this is again merely a matter of what setting the actual adjustments concerned are to adopt. Say a preset is going to set Exposure to -1, and then you choose to moderate that preset's action to 50%. This just means that the Exposure slider moves half the distance from whatever its present value is, to the value of -1 that is written into the preset. Exactly the same as if you had manually moved the Exposure slider to this final setting. That is what the photo goes forward with - there is no ability to later change % action of the preset. A preset is not any kind of persisting "thing" that would be further adjustable, or listable - it is a momentary past "event" in the image's History.

Analogy: knowing something perhaps from school, or perhaps from encountering that fact somehow else. We can't assess or extend our current knowledge by reconsidering what school lessons we had as a child (some of which information was later forgotten or corrected or superseded), nor by reviewing our other past experiences for that matter.

We work from, and update as needed, our present situation - which results from a combination of all that.

[JohanElzenga]

@richardplondon wrote: "Say a preset is going to set Exposure to -1, and then you choose to moderate that preset's action to 50%. This just means that the Exposure slider moves half the distance from whatever its present value is, to the value of -1 that is written into the preset."

If I understand you correctly, then what you are suggesting is that if Exposure is initially set to -0.5 and you apply the Exposure -1 preset and moderate it 50%, then the result is that the Exposure slider moves to 50% of the distance between -0.5 and -1, so it will move to to -0.75? I don't think that is true. Presets do not apply relative adjustments, they set an absolute adjustment. That means they disregard the current value. So a preset that sets Exposure to -1 and is moderated to 50%, will set the Exposure slider to -0.50 (50% of -1), regardless of the initial Exposure slider setting.

[richardplondon]

You may be right about how the % works for presets, some time since I've experimented with that (since I make little use of presets). I would be a little surprised. It could perhaps mean that a preset which relatively lightened an image when applied at one %, might darken it when applied at another % - which seems counter-intuitive to me. I am unable to test actual behaviour just now though. I will be curious to do so! 

Regardless, my focus was more on what presets are, as distinct from what adjustments are. Also, pointing out that changing the % action of a given preset - however that is implemented - is only briefly an option, immediately after applying that preset.

[JohanElzenga]

Yes, you could indeed get a strange effect. I just did a quick test, although I was absolutely sure. I have a preset that sets Vibrance to 30 (and does some other things). So I set the initial value of Vibrance to 100 and then applied the preset. Then I moved the Amount slider to 50%. The result is Vibrance = 15, not Vibrance = 30 + (100 - 30) * 50% = 65.

[richardplondon]

Thanks for your diligence Johan, I shouldn't have posted that detail without checking first. 

[neonmamacita]

Thanks Richard,I hope that Adobe considers making it easier to see which presets are applied and adjust going forward as it is quite confusing now. For example, if I have grain, WN05, and polished portrait, I should be able to turn those on and off individually as they don't override each other. 

[JohanElzenga]

That's very unlikely, because of the following. A preset is simply a "pre-setting". There is no difference between changing Exposure to a certain value manually, or using a preset that changes Exposure to that value. That means that a preset does not remember what the settings were before you applied it, except in the history panel. And it also means that if you applied several presets, then you cannot 'toggle on/off' an earlier preset, just like you cannot toggle on/off an older history step without also toggling the more recent steps as well.

[richardplondon]

Perhaps as an analogy, consider an old fashioned control panel for a power station or something, with lots of manual dials and levers and such. A preset in this analogy would be a shaped piece of wood you press against the panel which turns some of the dials to certain values. And over time, various of these shaped pieces of wood are used as well as manually turning dials prior, in between or since. Maybe you wrote on each of these pieces of wood, each date and time when it was pressed against the control board. But the only thing that can tell you is that those particular dials (but not the others) were then on certain settings (but may have since changed). And you've also kept a full log (History) of every time any change, manual or preset, was made on the control board. 

Looking at this from the other side, someone could look at a dial and ask "why is it on that setting?" - so you look back at the History. This only informs you usefully about the last setting change made to that dial. Prior settings are not useful information, since they have been since obliterated - presumably, for good reason at the time. And you haven't recorded what that reason was: possibly associated also with the settings of other dials, and not just this one. Possibly specific to that one situation and not of any broader significance (as, when considering using the same setting change for a different image). 

To reiterate, the past use of a preset is not any kind of  (reliable) information. That was just one way, among several equivalent ways, to change the image adjustments. The adjustments as they are now is what matters functionally. If you want to classify images by what processing decisions were taken on them, yes the presence of a given preset in that image History may be informative. Or you can note or mark images in some way.

But later adjusting the result from having previously used a preset: LrC does not work like e.g. a parametric 3D modeller (where the final result seen is due to a stacked set of modifiers that each operate on the outcome from all the modifiers appllied prior). That is because the application of a Lightroom develop preset REPLACES (it does not relatively alter) the value of each parameter affected by it. Just as any manual settings change does.