Bulk editing in Adobe Lightroom is a great choice if you’re a sports or event photographer. And Lightroom sports presets are a great way to edit your action shot quickly. They let you share photos straight after a sports event.
We’ve collected some free and paid presets for sports photographers. Read on to find the best Lightroom presets for sports photography and learn how to use them.
- Learn to use every tool for quick, professional edits.
- Discover seamless subject selection with a single click.
- Unlock hidden details in photos with our unique method.
What Are Lightroom Sports Presets?
Lightroom sports presets are a way to change an image or a batch of images with a single click in Adobe Lightroom. If you download a preset, these adjustments were made by other Lightroom users and are available for you to use.
Lightroom is an excellent editing software program that lets you tweak your digital shots. You can raise and lower the exposure, play with the colors, and even change the perspective. But presets can help save you some of that time and effort!
Some presets might only increase an image’s sharpness. The majority act as a filter over your scenes, letting you edit them quickly and efficiently. These “filters” adjust different details. They change everything from highlights and shadows to clarity, color, and saturation.
Having your own preset can help define your unique style. Luckily, Lightroom also lets you create your own!
Installing, Using, and Creating Presets
Installing Adobe Lightroom presets is easy and requires only a few steps. There are also several ways to do this. We have a step-by-step tutorial for installing Adobe Lightroom presets you can check out. This tells you how to add presets you download to Lightroom.
Read our article about adding your own Lightroom presets to learn how to use or create them. We also have a post about selling presets!
10 Best Lightroom Sports Presets
Sports photography is a broad field encompassing team sports like soccer, basketball, and baseball. It also includes events involving fast-moving vehicles like airplanes.
It might be difficult to find presets that cover different types of sports. Each one concentrates on different details in a photo.
You want to look at what connects all the images you will likely take. For example, most might need a boost in contrast and clarity. This can help separate the many parts of your scene.
Many sports make use of distinct colors. So perhaps you want to find a preset that tweaks this to strengthen your images. The presets you need depend on the aesthetic you want. You can even use your favorite preset to help define the look of your social media account!
Let’s look at the best sports photography presets out there. There are ones for Lightroom (CC), Lightroom Classic, and Lightroom Mobile.
1. Workout Lightroom Presets
This workout package by 123Presets contains 11 Lightroom desktop presets. These presets make your photos appealing by creating a clear and airy atmosphere. They also soften your subjects’ skin and separate them from the background.
This makes it easier to focus on the people in your images. And it’s why it’s great for capturing workouts, where the focus is on the people, not their environment. There is even a mobile version of the Workout Lightroom Presets.
2. Canon Sports Photography Presets
These Canon Lightroom presets by sports photographer Ben Lumley are for Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, and Lightroom Mobile.
This FilterGrade package contains Lightroom presets for black-and-white and color images. And they improve your images without making them look too artificial.
Turning a color image into a black-and-white photo is not easy. Color images focus on how colors work together. But black-and-white ones focus on contrast and texture. This set of Lightroom presets can help you play around with both.
3. Ten Sports Model Presets for Lightroom
Eldamar Studio’s Lightroom presets are cheap and great for many types of images. This Adobe Exchange package includes 10 presets.
This variety lets you try several and decide which preset is best for your image. These presets are suitable for action photography and sports models.
4. Vibrant Colors HDR Lightroom Preset
The Vibrant Colors Lightroom preset is a free one by Preset Kingdom. It is best used for water sports, like swimming. It’s also perfect for any sport near water or under a blue sky. This is because it enhances blues while reducing highlights and reflections.
By adding +100 to the Shadows setting, they become darker, adding more contrast between them and lighter areas. Whites and blacks are reduced to add detail and remove the chance of highlights being blown out.
The added vibrancy and saturation make the colors pop. And the clarity separates the subject from the background.
5. Black & White Lightroom Presets
This elegant set of Lightroom presets by Luxe Lens is not specifically for sports shots. Still, they can be great for sports photography.
Changing photos to black and white can enhance motion because all the distracting colors have been removed. These presets help images look more dramatic. It can also be easier to freeze motion without colors. And you will also create a more timeless image.
6. Sport (Preset Love)
There are a lot of adjustments in this free Lightroom sports preset by Preset Love compared to others on our list. They increase the quality and “punchiness” of the scene and subject.
First, the color temperature and tint changes add a touch of blue and green. This preset’s cinematic feel benefits most sports, indoors or outdoors.
The raised contrast and blacks give the subject more presence. The whites are pushed up while the highlights fall, giving a little more light without overdoing it.
7. Sport Preset (Photonify)
The Photonify Sport Preset can be used for different kinds of sports. This free Lightroom preset doesn’t change the exposure value. It sharpens your images and strengthens clarity, vibrance, and saturation.
It nicely emphasizes the orange parts, which look especially nice on running tracks. It also separates people from the background. So it’s great for enhancing motion.
It makes your sports photos grungy and gives them a dramatic effect. We recommend it for advertising or a smaller photo collection. It takes away from natural colors, so it’s not the best option for documenting a sports event.
8. Skate Lightroom Presets
These are custom-developed Lightroom skateboarding presets from action photographer Forest Dempsy. This FilterGrade pack has 10 different Lightroom presets. So you’ll likely find one that fits your sports image.
These are great for brightening your images and increasing their clarity. Lightening the background draws the viewers’ attention directly to your subject. They work for skateboard photography and more!
9. Light and Bright
As you may have guessed, the Light and Bright Lightroom preset adds light to your scene! This free preset by Exposure Empire pulls more detail from the darker areas. It lowers the strength of the blacks and shadows.
The reduced contrast helps to set the subject in the scene. Raising the saturation and lowering the vibrance keep hints of color without going over the top.
10. Grungy Sports
This Grungy Sports Lightroom preset by Nuugraphics is short and sweet. There are only four adjustments. But they make all the difference to a wonderful sports shot.
The added contrast punches up the subjects, and its high clarity separates them from their stage. But the lack of color is what makes this preset special. Use this free preset for cinematic sports shots where teams or sides don’t need to be clearly defined.
Conclusion: Best Lightroom Sports Presets
Lightroom presets can be used in almost any field of photography. After you select one or multiple images, editing them only takes a few clicks, speeding up your workflow.
You might need to test several Adobe Lightroom presets for your sports photography. Sports are played in many different locations and lighting conditions. So, there is no such thing as one ultimate Lightroom sports preset. But we have given you some top ones!
Many of these Lightroom presets are free, but even the paid ones are affordable and worth the investment. And if you’re a sports photographer who uses Lightroom professionally, you can create your own presets!
- Learn to use every tool for quick, professional edits.
- Discover seamless subject selection with a single click.
- Unlock hidden details in photos with our unique method.