How to customize LR develop default settings to save time?

[badbluesman]

How can I change LR develop module default settings to my own preferred settings? For example, when I apply a 'Post Crop Vignette,' I prefer "paint overlay" to the default setting "color priority." I also like to set the intensity number at about 6 or 7. Is there a way to make these setting my default?

Thanks in advance.

[elie_dinur]

In Develop display a photo. In all the right side panels set the slider positions to what you want the new defaults to be. Be sure to check that all the panels are as you want, because the reset will change anything that has been moved from its Adobe default setting. Press and hold the Alt/Opt key and the Reset button at the bottom right will change to Set Default. Click on it and then confirm that you want to change the defaults to the current settings. The new defaults will be for all cameras of the same model as the one that took the displayed photo. If you have more than one camera of that model, the defaults can be specific to the serial number. Or if you want different defaults for different ISOs, they can be specific to the ISO of the displayed photo. To activate those options go first to Preferences/Presets/Default Develop Settings. You will also find there a button to go back to the Adobe defaults, should you change your mind.

[dj_paige]

In addition to the above, you could create a preset, and then apply this preset at Import, or when you enter the Develop Module. This may be useful if you only want certain types of photos (for example portraits) to get this develop preset, and not other photos (for example landscapes).

[richardplondon]

Camera processing defaults are great, user customised as necessary, for specific processing which addresses how one camera differs from another as to its baseline appearance. What level of NR or camera calibration profile etc you prefer to see, with a Nikon XYZ camera at 800 ISO.

However before choosing to implement such "general preferred defaults" as post-crop vignetting by updating the processing default, it's a good idea to consider:

• applying an updated processing default onto a previously edited photo, is unselective : your only option is to Reset that photo completely, and this obliterates ALL work done to that photo since import, by the user
• a preset can encapsulate only selected settings, so when applied (at import) or reapplied (later), it updates only those particular settings while leaving the image otherwise alone.

Also

• different processing defaults are maintained, and updated, per camera model
• for each camera model, you furthermore have separate processing defaults for Raw and for non-Raw
• for each camera model / Raw or non-Raw, you may have further separate processing defaults for different ISO settings, if you have configured LR to do this - and/or, for the same thing for different camera body serial numbers

Hence you may have many different sets of processing defaults to separately update in this same respect. That's laborious.

So IMO a develop preset (with a selective scope) is by far the better way to apply that kind of thing. At import, or subsequently. You only need ONE such preset, to make and later to update as needed - and you can then apply or re-apply this single preset onto Raw or non-Raw photos taken by any camera model at any ISO etc. Without losing the remainder of your pre-existing edits, nor overwriting any other default processing which a particular image may happen to be showing because it was taken with a Nikon XYZ, in Raw, at ISO 800.