Every photo has a unique atmosphere. From the composition to the idea behind the shoot, every picture can become a masterpiece. But if you want to showcase a specific atmosphere or distinguish yourself from other photographers with a signature style, you’re going to need a few tricks up your sleeve.
When it comes to adding extra flair to your photos, there’s nothing like Lightroom presets and Instagram effects. They are filters that can be applied to photos so that you can recreate the photo effects made popular by the social media giant. They enhance the look and feel of an image, change its color tone, and create a unique visual style for the photographer’s content. Instagram photo effects have become essential for creating an eye-catching social media feed and sharing high-quality images with a broader audience.
So today, we share the best Lightroom presets for adding Instagram effects to your shots. Instagram photos are incredibly noticeable for their aesthetics, from desaturated shots that give photos a soft feel to effects that bring out the pastels and make for colorful feeds and portfolios.
All you need to do is choose your favorite presets and then add them to Lightroom. After that, you can take your photos, and with just a few clicks in Lightroom, they will fit your style perfectly. Soon enough, you’ll have a distinguished style that stands out from the crowd and gives your professional branding consistency that customers can rely on.
What are Instagram Effects in Photography?
Instagram effects refer to the filters, edits, and enhancements you can apply to your photos before sharing them on Instagram’s social media platform.
These effects can transform the look and feel of a photo, creating a specific aesthetic, mood, or style. Instagram offers a wide range of built-in editing tools and filters, allowing you to customize your photos and make them more visually appealing. The key aspects of Instagram effects in photography include:
- Filters: Filters are pre-set combinations of adjustments that alter a photo’s color, tone, and overall appearance. Instagram provides a selection of filters, each with a unique look, ranging from vintage to modern and vibrant to muted.
- Adjustments: Instagram’s editing tools allow users to manually adjust aspects like brightness, contrast, saturation, and sharpness. These adjustments help fine-tune your photo’s appearance.
- Vignette & Blur: Instagram effects include options to add vignettes (darkened edges) and blur effects, which can draw focus to the center of the image or create a dreamy look.
- Grain & Texture: Filters often include the option to add film grain or texture, giving your photos a vintage or artistic feel.
- Frames & Borders: Some Instagram effects offer frames or borders that can enhance the composition and presentation of the photo.
- Stylized Effects: Instagram also offers creative effects like bokeh (blurred background lights), light leaks, and more, which add artistic elements to the photo.
- Consistency and Branding: Many users apply consistent filters to their photos to maintain a cohesive visual style or branding on their Instagram profiles.
- Story Effects: Instagram Stories have their own set of interactive effects, stickers, and filters that you can overlay on your photos and videos.
Instagram effects allow photographers, casual users, and influencers to enhance their images and create a distinct visual identity. These effects contribute to the overall aesthetic of an Instagram profile and can help tell a cohesive visual story.
Our Favorite Instagram Lightroom Preset Collection
Instagram Traveler Lightroom Presets
If your most common hashtag is #wanderlust, you will love these Instagram traveler Lightroom presets. Carefully customized to provide soft and pastel tones, creamy skin, and stunning faded and matte effects, these 15 Lightroom presets are a perfect fit for travel bloggers and photographers.
Top Lightroom Presets for Instagram Effects
Instagram Portrait Lightroom Presets
Once you’ve taken that perfect shot, it’s time to share it with the world! Just make sure it’s the best it can be with these Instagram portrait Lightroom presets. Easily add signature Instagram tones with these 11 Lightroom presets for bloggers and portrait photographers.
15 Instagram Blogger Lightroom Presets
Create a beautiful and cohesive aesthetic in your Instagram feed or your portfolio with these 15 Instagram blogger Lightroom presets. Perfect for photographers and bloggers, these Lightroom presets offer professional and beautiful results. You can easily customize these presets to fit every photo’s specific qualities.
Glamour Pro Lightroom Presets
Vogue who? With these glamorous Lightroom presets, your photos can look just as glossy and fantastic. And you don’t even have to spend hours tweaking the settings! You’ll get ten professional (and customizable) Lightroom presets with different options: matte, glossy, soft, dramatic, warm, deep, and more!
Instagram Trendy Lightroom Presets
Give your photos the soft Instagram feel with these Lightroom presets. You’ll get 14 presets with trendy Instagram aesthetics: pastels, desaturated tones, matte effects, soft colors, and creamy skin palettes. These presets don’t change photos’ white balance, so you can use them with various shots.
Instagram Blogger Lightroom Presets Pack
Create stunning and ethereal photos with this Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop preset pack perfect for Instagram bloggers and photographers who specialize in weddings, portraits, and similar niches. You’ll get 11 easily editable presets that play with shadows and highlights to give your photos the beautiful Instagram glow effect.
Instant Hipster Lightroom Presets
Add retro glamour to your standard shots with these Lightroom presets. These 40 presets offer fadeable color grading and adjustable tones of some of the most popular Instagram presets, such as Crema, Valencia, and X Pro. They won’t disrupt your standard WB and tone settings.
Clean Color Lightroom Presets
If you want to emphasize the subject of your shot, you’ll love these clean, and minimalist Lightroom presets. These 12 Lightroom presets offer smart and clean options that bring out the colors of your photos. They’re perfect for photographers, as well as bloggers!
The Film Lightroom Preset Collection
Create beautiful and expressive photos for your portfolio or Instagram with this retro Lightroom preset collection. Featuring the best of Instagram retro aesthetics, these ten film presets are the perfect fit for colorful and dramatic feeds that instantly stop the scroll. They work beautifully for both social media and blogs!
Street Photography Lightroom Presets
Make your city’s streets shine bright with these street photography Lightroom presets! These 13 versatile presets are perfect for all kinds of urban scenes, from those vivid avenues to neon-lit facades and dim alleys shot during the night. In any case, your photos will look beautiful and Instagram-worthy.
Natural Portrait Lightroom Preset
Bring out the natural beauty of your subjects with these natural portrait Lightroom presets. You’ll get as many as 60 different presets to pick from, all of which come with an organic glow and specially adjusted shadows and highlights. They work like a charm for ethereal wedding photography.
Tropical Lightroom Presets
Give your tropical and vacation photos an extra oomph with these tropical Lightroom presets. You’ll get 50 presets and LUTs that give your vacation photos a film-like atmosphere. These presets also offer skin-tone protection for glowy skin and opacity/amount sliders. They’re compatible with Lightroom mobile, too!
Summer Lightroom Presets
Share that irresistible summer feeling with these summery Lightroom presets! These 30 presets offer warm and colorful filters for your standard photos, so they’re perfect for beach and sea-themed shoots, landscapes, or simply a cohesive feed. You can also easily customize them to match your photos perfectly.
Get the best of both worlds with these Lightroom presets that play with both warm and cool tones to give your photos an incredible atmosphere. You’ll get 50 gold and navy Lightroom presets (from film tones to presets playing with contrast) with opacity sliders and skin tone protection.
Prestalgia Retro Lightroom Presets
There’s nothing like a little bit of vintage to take your viewers on a journey. Prestalgia is a collection of 25 retro Lightroom presets with five different filter strengths. Your original tonal and WB settings are safe, too, and you can choose presets that fit your photos best!
The Wonderlust Lightroom Preset Collection
Inspired by the creators’ worldwide trips, the Wonderlust Lightroom preset collection is perfect for travel bloggers and photographers who dream of appearing in NatGeo. You’ll get 10 Lightroom presets, and they fit diverse photos perfectly, from urban settings to shots taken in the wilderness.
Teal & Orange Lightroom Presets
There’s nothing like teal and orange to give your photos an epic, longing feel. And this collection of Lightroom presets gives you 50 gorgeous presets that bring out the best colors. You’ll get plenty to work with from intense color variations to natural and soft presets!
Minimalist Lightroom Presets
Give your photos a bright and clean finishing touch with these minimalist Lightroom presets. Mimicking the Scandinavian-style Instagram aesthetic, these 11 presets are perfect for fashion bloggers and photographers, as well as for indoor and outdoor photoshoots. You can easily edit the final effects to suit your branding perfectly.
Magazine Lightroom Presets
Showcase your professionalism and skills with these magazine Lightroom presets. This collection offers 50 chic presets that will give your shots a film-like atmosphere, ready to be on magazine covers everywhere. From presets inspired by Kodachrome and Hermes to bright and retro options, you’ll get the full package!
Gingerbread Lightroom Presets
Create a welcoming atmosphere with Gingerbread, a Lightroom preset collection with 11 presets. These presets play with both cool and warm tones, offering unique and soft results perfect for capturing the charm of special moments. From wedding and indoor photography to outdoor photography and fashion, they fit various shoot styles!
How to Install & Use a Lightroom Preset
How to Install &and Use a Preset in Lightroom CC 2018+:
- Download & unzip the preset file
- Open Lightroom
- Navigate to
Develop Module
- Hover over the
+
sign next to the Presets - Select
Import Presets
- Apply the preset by selecting the photo you want to edit and clicking the preset name.
How to Install and Use a Preset in Older Versions of Lightroom:
- Open Lightroom
- Go to
Preferences > Presets
- Click on the box titled
Show Lightroom Presets Folder
- Double click on
Lightroom
- Double click on
Develop Presets
- Copy the folders of your presets into the
Develop Presets
folder - Restart Lightroom
- Use the preset by selecting the photo you want to work with and clicking on the preset name
The world is visual. If you’re a photographer, you understand the importance of having a signature style. Unfortunately, it’s often hard to tweak your photos just so, and it’s even harder to do that every single time. With these gorgeous Lightroom presets with Instagram effects, you can easily curate a beautiful gallery without extra work.
The settings that match your style will be saved – all you have to do is apply them to your photos. So pick the presets you’ve been eyeing, and add them to your Lightroom kit. Your clients will love knowing what they can expect from you, and you will be attracting followers in no time.
They also work great for trying out new editing styles. To create a consistent feed, make your photos beautiful, and you’ll have a photoshoot waitlist before you know it!