Presets a total mess in Lightroom 7.3

[DSeim]

Adobe work with us here. You just pushed an update that makes a total mess of everyone presets, even though you were notified of problems during the beta. We all like new features but come on. Is this programming school?

First, presets are changed to XML without asking. Ok, I see where they're going with the more compatible format and it has potential. But it's like Adobe did not even bother to see if it worked. Sure favorites are cool, but along with them, we are stuck with even more clutter of default preset folders and no way to remove them even though your customers have been asking for years.

Worse, Presets are randomly out of order inside their folders. It does not even make sense the random they are arranged. It's chaos for the LR organization many of us have developed over the years.

Next, the "Show Lightroom Presets" button in preferences still goes to the old presets folder and the original presets are there but no longer show up in because Lightroom is looking for the converted XML presets that are now in the Camera Raw folder. You didn't even bother to update the button? From what I can tell new presets installed in that official location will not only not show up, there is no way to convert them after the initial update.

I have thousands of photographers using preset packs I design. At this time I'm going to downgrade my working projects and recommend that people do not update until we have a solution for these blatant issues. I'll start tinkering for a temporary solution and everyone, please share if you have any until Adobe fixes this. Thanks.

[danielp83378976]

Same here...plugins scrambled and I can't simply work with the files and folders to change it.

[marcusd_]

Hi, have the same problems with my presets...

when I rename a preset, the preset is then at the end of the list (user preset) - could it be that the sort order is not the names of the preset rather the update date?

crazy...

[ondrejb47127146]

Renaming worked in my LR. Rename all of your presets and it will be ok.

I have changed it from 1, 2, 3,... to 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, 2b...

[paulc61894698]

I've found that the problem goes beyond simply scrambling the order of the presets. It's also destroyed the way the presets work together.  I have the SLR Lounge Lightroom Presets, which worked nicely together as a system.

But now, if I choose a B&W preset and then try to build on it with one of the other presets -- e.g., shadow lift or contrast boost -- it wipes out the B&W and applies the newly added preset to the original version of the photo.

What a mess.

[Carlos de Leon]

Yep, I’m having the same issue with my Mastin Labs B&W presets. It’s maddening!

[ondrejb47127146]

This worked for my presets: LR accidentally changes B&W profile to color after 7.3 update

[DSeim]

Ok so regrading the reverting to color bug, it seems Adobe staff have noticed and say they are working on a fix on the bug thread. Who knows how long that will be.

Regarding the presets being out of order. I've gone over the threads and made a video here showing what's happening and how to corretc it untill Adobe adresses this... Presets Not in Order in Lightroom 7.3 Fix - YouTube

[arwcampbell]

I would recommend reverting back to the previous Lightroom CC version, Adobe must fix the problems so that any upgrade is seamless (I mean having to update each preset is a ridiculous solution) and do a complete test of the application. I'm guessing some good old formal manual testing was skipped or cut to get a nice agile release cycle completed. Call me a sceptical old school software developer!

[dannys97905561]

How do you do this?

[Vivacious_Solace154A]

I'm not sure I understand the question. Instructions are on the page linked to. Is that what you meant?

[jeffreym]

I have a similar problem with the presets order as noted elsewhere, but also a separate issue with regard to keeping more than one Lightroom Installation in sync. When all the presets were kept in the Application Support > Adobe > Lightroom folder on the Macs, I created a symbolic link in each of those to a master folder stored on dropbox and this has worked flawlessly for the past two or three years. Since I'm the only user, it didn't matter which Mac I used, the presets were always the same for each installation. For some reason, the way Lightroom Classic 7.3 accesses the CameraRaw folder, also in Application Support > Adobe > CameraRaw it will no recognize a symbolic link. I've checked permissions, and everything I can think of. Something else is looking for an actual folder, and not seeing a folder, but rather a document symbolic link, it simply stops looking and so the presets are not loaded.

At this point I've removed all my collections of 3rd party presets save for my own custom sets an a very few select ones that are new and updated for some of the recent changes with local adjustments and masks, so I'll limit the development in LR for now until things get sorted out. It's going to be a pain to keep my custom user presets synchronized between both macs. And it's still ridiculous we cannot nest and organize presets logically according to our personal preferences and needs.

[Barrie Spence]

I've been doing the same with the symlink and Dropbox - 7.3 Presets converted and moved - not in the release notes - no undo to downgrade

[Nature Mike]

I'll be using Version 7.2 as well. 7.3 is a mess!

I can no longer control click to create a new preset folder or rename a preset.

Worst of all, my gradients are now rotating if they are applied to an image with a different orientation. So if the preset was created on a vertical image with a gradient from the top, it will now come from the side. What a disgusting mess of engineering.

[jholbrk]

I am also experiencing this Adobe preset chaos that I hope Adobe will remedy with another update very, very soon. I complain here only to add to number of others who also experienced this and more importantly have paid Adobe to surprise us with this unexpected and unwanted interruption of our workflow.

[BruceDenis]

I'm another confused, bewildered, and annoyed subscriber to lightroom. I paid money for many presets. Also, there is a small but carefully edited collection of my own personal presets. Then this crap is heaped upon me! You know, I'm using Topaz Studio and Lumist a lot more lately. And PhotoMechanic seems more and more attractive when stuff like this happens. I'm inching more toward that direction. A subscription was supposed to deliver worry free updates, not chaos in a box.

[BruceDenis]

And since when do pre-sets pre-view in the main window? That is annoying as all hell. Turn it off!

[betasx]

True! Very distracting and confusing  Is there a way to disable it 

[matthew_saville]

That would be Lightroom 2-3 or thereabouts. 😉

[PadPhoto]

I have hundreds of presets that I have developed myself and installed from other developers. Only about 10% got converted and I did not even have chance to read the conversion notice that popped up after starting Lightroom for the first time and updating and was not aware that this was going to happen, so I was very confused.

After doing some research I found out about this update process and tried to import the presets that had not converted.

It turns out that you have to select the actual presets to convert which are then put in to your User Presets folder, you can not select a folder and convert all the presets in that folder and have the folder created as well. (Pretty bloody useless).

It also looked like during the conversion process, as soon as the process worked it's way through the Lightroom Presets folders and ran in to one with sub folders, it stopped working (it did not drill down). As a result it only converted the first 6 folders of presets before stopping.

There is no way of running the conversion again. VERY POOR............

A warning that this was going to happen would of been polite......

[Vivacious_Solace154A]

This may help:

http://www.buggeringabout.com/lightroom-7-3d-preset-sort-order-fix/

It's a Lightroom plugin that lets you browse to a folder of presets and tries to fix the sort order problem on any presets it finds. Fixed presets, along with any presets it can't fix - a few of the Adobe supplied presets that don't seem to be presenting a sort problem - into a mirror of the orginal folder.

I've tested it pretty thoroughly, it should be pretty safe to use, it doesn't alter any original files, but be sure to back up your lightroom settings folder before using it.

I only have the facility to test it on a Mac. It *should* work on Windows but I'd appreciate it if someone can test it, let me know how you get on.

feedback, etc, to me here or the BuggeringAbout.com feedback form.

Good Luck.

[Sean McCormack]

This post can help the sort order: http://natephotographic.com/lightroom-classic-7-3-presets-sorted-wrong-order/

[BruceDenis]

And now I get this from one of my vendors, "However Camera RAW lacks a few features found in Lightroom, the

Gradient and Radial filters cannot be saved in Develop presets."

Godammit Adobe. Now you're removing functions.

[BruceDenis]

And now I find out that my ability to organize the presets has be tossed out.

I'm not normally one to use profanity, but this update calls for it--lots of it.

[DSeim · Accepted solution]

Everyone I've summerized the solutions we have found in a video and links to the file tools people have made that workaround the sorting bug (as well as how to downgrade) on my blog if anyone needs help with this... http://seimeffects.com/2018/04/06/lightroom-7-preset-order/

[kentmcpherson]

Gavin, thank you!!