I was recently delighted to be contacted by the lovely people over at SleekLens to say that they love my portrait work and would I mind testing out some of their Lightroom presets on a few of my photos. Of course I was happy to oblige so in exchange for a free set of their "Strike a Pose workflow" Lightroom presets and brushes I agreed to give a completely honest review. I've really enjoyed playing with them so here are my thoughts...
The first thing I noticed was how many presets and brushes are included - it's a lot! I think there are 62 brushes and 69 presets in the pack, all designed to help with portrait workflow. As with any Lightroom presets and brushes they're very easy to install and full instructions were provided with the download so even if you've never done it before it will only take you a couple of minutes.
Once they were installed it was time to get playing! Here are a few before and afters along with my thoughts and which tools I used...
The first thing I noticed was how many presets and brushes are included - it's a lot! I think there are 62 brushes and 69 presets in the pack, all designed to help with portrait workflow. As with any Lightroom presets and brushes they're very easy to install and full instructions were provided with the download so even if you've never done it before it will only take you a couple of minutes.
Once they were installed it was time to get playing! Here are a few before and afters along with my thoughts and which tools I used...
This first image (as with all my "before" shots) is straight out of camera and just converted straight from RAW to jpeg with no adjustments at all...
Here it is using the SleekLens preset Sunset Portrait 2 as well as the reduce reds in their colour/tint adjustments. I have made no additional adjustments at all but the first thing I noticed was just how much it has made the eyes pop and the sunset portrait preset certainly gives the image some extra warmth. It's perhaps a touch warmer than I would normally edit but if you're aiming for that sunset look then it certainly helps...
Next up I thought I would try out one of the black and white presets that are included in the pack. Here's the before shot...
And here it is using the greyscale matte preset, along with the high contrast polish preset. I also added some extra clarity. I really like that although it gives the matte look I was easily able to maintain some depth and I really like how it's turned out ...
Here's the next "before" shot....
And here it is using the SleekLens hide and seek preset, along with the high contrast and sharpen polish adjustments. I like how this combination has turned out as it has kept the colours very realistic and true to the setting, but it has just given it that extra something that it needed. ...
Last but not least I decided to try the presets out on a non human subject to to see how they looked. Here's my before shot...
And here it is using the base - auto tone preset as well as the high contrast polish preset. As you can see I also cropped the image but the presets definitely helped the image the pop and really brought out those highlights in the background nicely...
So, what do you think to the SleekLens presets? There's lots more included in the pack but those were the ones that really stood out to me and fitted in the closest to my usually editing style.
If you want to find out more about SleekLens, their presets and their editing service then you can find out more here...
https://sleeklens.com/product/strike-a-pose-portrait-workflow/
https://sleeklens.com/product/professional-photo-editing-service/
https://sleeklens.com/product-category/lightroom-presets/
https://www.pinterest.com/sleeklens/lightroom-presets/
