LUTs vs Presets - The Photo Editing Battle Royale

Do you know your LUTs from your presests? When should you use each one? Will the style police come and arrest you if you do? Here's the inside story on these photo styling shortcuts and how you can use them in your photo processing workflow.
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[@kettlebelle290]

Wonderfully informative! Thank you.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Thanks mate - glad you found it useful.

[@michaelwplant]

This is a good explaination and makes me appreciate Luts far more than I did before. I use PhotoLab and they now have Luts as a feature and I now know why this is such a great feature.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Yea, they work particularly well in Photolab thanks to the built-in wide gamut profile.

[@petermcginty3636]

Thank you, Andy. As usual fun and informative. As I am "colour illiterate", I am going to stick to the colour scheme from my OM-1.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Thanks Peter - whatever works for you :)

[@JackBeasleyMedia]

Good explanation! When I was first starting my digital editing journey, I bought a bunch hoping to kick start my editing. It was mostly about seeing what others had done to achieve a look. Years later, I still have hundreds of paid-for presets in my Lightroom, but of all those I paid for, I only use one of them, and that's are for a very specific style. Now, I have my own presets, but they are only start points - even for my own photos. In most cases, I still have to adjust a couple of the sliders to get the final result.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Yep - I have my default presets in all my apps for those baselines edits. :)

[@hywel3143]

Thanks, Andy. So if I understand correctly LUTs just affect colour and brightness, whereas Presets can affect any processing variable. You certainly have a gift for demystifying photography!

[@Andyhutchinson]

Thanks mate - that's about the size of it. :)

[@ianslingsby3415]

Thanks Anndy now I am educated, great info.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Thanks Ian :)

[@Steve_I_See]

Very informative, thanks.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Thanks Steve. :)

[@TerryKontopoulos]

I don't "belong" to any of them but I think I will try some LUTs.. Thanks Andy!!

[@Andyhutchinson]

No worries Terry. :)

[@helmutsassenfeld8002]

I've noticed that presets can be a big time waster as you point out but I still use them sometimes because occasionally they give me new ideas. Do you know if custom picture controls can be transferred to software like dxO, Luminar or ON1? I have some nikon ones that I really like . I suppose picture controls are more like presets.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Generally speaking only LUTs have cross-app compatibility.

[@marcrjacobs]

Great review, Andy! However, I still prefer to edit manually.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Thanks mate - same here. :)

[@GordonRunklePhoto]

Instructions unclear; browsing history now hopelessly corrupted. 😿
Re: Presets; I make my own, generally oriented to workflow stage or by shooting session or subject. Even then, I only use them to get me in the neighborhood and then fine tune from there.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Yea that's the best approach I think - use 'em for baseline stuff to speed things up. :)