Lightroom Presets – Game Day Presets for Sports Photography

I was watching the Pittsburgh Steelers/Broncos game yesterday (I’m a Bucs fan, but my son loves the Steelers) and I thought of a preset idea. See, I went to the University of South Florida and when I got a chance to shoot a home game for them I jumped at it.

Now, the photos I delivered to USF didn’t have quite as much “punch” or edginess to them as this preset does. But while shooting my son’s Pop Warner football games last year I realized something. News and wire services don’t want a lot of Photoshop work done to the photos. Cropping, some sharpening and some quick white balance, highlight or shadow adjustments are about all I’d do for those photos. But… the rest of the world… they love the edgy/gritty stuff. Every photo I gave to some one on my son’s team had this effect on it and they loved it. Said it made their kid’s photos look tougher and more professional then the typical high school football field in mid-afternoon.

Here’s a Before/After (btw… the differences show up more when you see the photos larger):

There’s 3 different versions (Light, Medium, Strong) so you can pick your level of edginess for the photo.
Enjoy ‘em and let me know what you think!

• Here’s the link to download the presets for Lightroom 4 (I made them for LR4. You can try them in LR3 but they’re tuned for LR4 specifically).
• And here’s a link to a video on how to install and organize Lightroom presets if you don’t know how.

Have a good one!

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Matt Kloskowski

Education Director at NAPP / Kelby Training

Matt is a full time Education Director for the NAPP and Kelby Training. He's a best-selling author of various books on Photoshop and Photography co-hosts the live weekly photography talk show "The Grid" and is co-host of "Photoshop User TV". In his spare time he practices as a 1st degree black belt in Taekwondo and enjoys spending time with his family in Tampa, FL.

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