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BlAcKSMiTH
by photo
graphers lightroom presets for photo
graphers
 Red
Leaf
post production tools · actions, presets & photography guides

BLACKSMITH PRESET GUIDE

COVER PHOTO BY RED LEAF STUDIOS INC.

Thank you for purchasing our Blacksmith LR Presets for Adobe Lightroom 6 (CC), 5 & 4. and ACR Presets for

Photoshop CC, CS6.

Old black and white movies, masters of light and photography, and the 50-70’s iconic imagery all have one thing

in common. They celebrate the beauty, simplicity and timeless qualities of gorgeous black and white film. This set

pays homage to some of our favorite B&W film inspirations. We hope you love our take on some beautiful classics.

The Blacksmith Presets are based on the Camera Standard Calibration profile and designed to work with Canon

and Nikon files. Our presets are flexible, allowing you to enhance and achieve beautiful edits using both RAW

and JPG files.

Richard & Amy McDowell

 LR PRESET INSTALLATION
AUTOMATIC:

1. Unzip the Blacksmith Presets file.

2. Go to the Develop module. Right click the “User Preset” folder in the preset panel and choose import.

3. Browse to the unziped folder of the Blacksmith Lr Presets and select them, then click the import button.

MANUAL: {RECOMMENDED}

1. Unzip the Blacksmith Presets file.

2. Locate the Develop Presets folder. In Lightroom, go to Edit > Preferences > Presets tab and select “Show

Lightroom Presets Folder” > Lightroom > Develop Presets.

3. Drag the three Blacksmith Lr Preset folders into the Develop Preset folder. Keep them in their individual

folders so they remain organized.

4. Restart Lightroom.

PS ACR INSTALLATION
1. Unzip the Blacksmith ACR Presets file.

2. Open up Finder in Mac / Explorer in Windows, and locate the following path: {Insert your own system user

name where you see “UserName” below.

Macintosh: /Users/UserName/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRawFolder/Settings

Windows: C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Adobe\CameraRaw\Settings

Windows 7: C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\Settings

Please note, if you don’t see the settings location, then you need to turn on the Show Hidden Files option.

You can also try the following search to locate the directory: For PC, copy and paste the following into an explorer

window. C:\Users\“UserName”\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\Settings /// For Mac, from the

finder, select Go from the menu, then Go To Folder, copy and paste the following. ~/Library/Application

Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/Settings

3. Copy the .xmp presets from the Blacksmith Ps Presets folders into the Settings folder.

4. The presets will now appear in the ACR preset tab, as show here.
THREE STEPS TO ACHIEVING A GREAT BW EDIT

EXPOSURE
Check your exposure and adjust it prior to applying any preset.

SELECTION
Choose images with visual contrast. In our experience the best B&W images
usually have contrasting elements to them. Having crisp whites and dark
blacks, adds visual interest to the image.

APPLY PRESET
Apply the preset of your choice, make sure to try several until you find the right
fit. A preset will react differently to various lighting situations. With B&W
presets, you might also need to re-adjust the exposure slightly after applying
the preset.

EXPOSURE
Having a properly exposed image is essential to any workflow. It is always

best to try and expose your images correctly in-camera, however with

Lightroom you can also adjust it in post. In the image on the following

page, I simply adjusted the exposure +0.50 with the exposure slider.
photo courtesy of Joni Bilderback Photography

Another method for adjusting your image exposure,

is to use the histogram. When you hover over the

histogram you will notice that an arrow will appear.

If you click and move left or right, it will adjust that

particular area of the image. Adjustments include

exposure, highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks.

These adjustments can also be made using the sliders.

 THE PRESETS
This Blacksmith set includes 12 B&W presets, 4 Grain presets, and 20 Adjustment presets. The B&W

presets themselves are fairly straightforward, and it is simply a matter of using the preset that is best

suited for the image you are editing. There are also four grain presets included with this set. They are

in order of “strength” from light grain to heavy grain.

t
THE BLACKSMITH TOOLS
The Blacksmith tools are fairly self-explanatory, and provide shortcuts to quickly adjust everything

from contrast, to highlights. Here is a quick breakdown of the tools. Please note, they are designed to

be used after the preset has been applied.

As mentioned above the Grain Presets are in order from lightest to

heaviest grain. The default for all of the B&W presets in this set is

the 50/15/60 combination.

The Auto BW Mix preset will allow Lightroom to apply a

predetermined B&W mix for you.

The Blacks adjustment modifies the far left of your histogram,

lightening or darkening the black tones in your image. Included

are 3 common adjustments.

If you need to add or remove contrast in your image, then you can

use the four included contrast adjustments. They range from light

to full contrast.

The “Curve & Tone” preset, will readjust the Tones and Curve in

the B&W preset, without making any other adjustments. It is a

great way to create a new look to an existing preset.

The three Highlights adjustments in this set can help recover light

areas of your image that have lost detail. At -100, they will tend to

“flatten” the highlights to create more of a muted look.

The Shadows adjustment simply adjusts the “shadows” slider in

Lr, lightening or darkening the shadows in your image.

Similar to the Blacks adjustment, the Whites adjusts the highlights

in your image, making them brighter or duller. This is a great way

to add or remove contrast.

 EMULSION OVERLAYS
This Blacksmith set includes 5 Emulsion negative overlay files. These files were created from actual

negatives from the early 1900’s. We have also included a Tone overlay, which when used produces a

beautiful warm golden hue. These overlays can be used in Photoshop after you have exported your

B&W image from Lightroom. Please keep in mind that they will require the right image, and a bit of

time and experimentation. As always with any kind of texture or overlay, less is more.

USING EMULSION OVERLAYS IN PHOTOSHOP

The Emulsion overlays in this set are 3840 x 5760 px at 300dpi. They are designed so you can simply

drag them over-top of your B&W JPEG image in Photoshop, and select an Overlay Blend Mode that

best suits the individual photo. On the following pages we have included some tips and tricks for
using these unique overlays.

Begin by opening your high-resolution B&W image in Photoshop. Once your image is open, you will

1 simply need to open one of the overlay JPEG files. With both your image and the overlay now open,

you can simply drag the overlay onto the image you are editing. If you hold the “Shift” key while

dragging the overlay onto your image, it will then center it on a layer above the photo.
 If the emulsion overlay needs to be sized, you can do so at this point. However for a different look, you

2 might choose to leave it so it bleeds over the image. Be sure the overlay is on a layer above the image

you are editing prior to proceeding to the next step, as can be seen in the example below.

You can transform the overlay

to fit your image by selecting
“Edit” > Free Transform from
the menu, or ctrl/cmd + T.
If you hold the Shift + Alt/
Option keys it will transform
all four sides at once. Once
the image is transformed
to the correct size, click the
Commit Transform check-
mark, or hit enter on your
keyboard.

Be sure that the Overlay

texture is above the image
you are editing, as seen here.

Now for the fun part! With the overlay layer selected, flip through the various Overlay Blend Modes to

₃ find one that works best for your image. Usually the ones I use are Screen, Color Dodge, and Soft Light.

However you might find other modes that work as well. You can also adjust the opacity by moving

the slider to the right of the overlay mode.

For this image I have selected

the Color Dodge overlay
blend mode.
 Another method for adjusting the effect of the overlay, is to create a Levels Adjustment Layer. To do

this, click the New Adjustment Layer icon (1. Bottom right) and select the Levels option. Now select

₄ the Levels layer (2.), then click on the Clip to Layer option (3.) By doing so, the levels adjustments you

make will only affect the layer below it (in this case the Overlay). Now make some adjustments to the

levels. For this image I moved the left or black slider to 20 to reduce the overall effect of the overlay.

The image on the left was created using Emulsion V and the

following settings: The Emulsion layer itself was set to 58% opacity,

using the Screen blend mode. I then added a Levels Adjustment

layer and moved the black slider to 40, and the mid slider to 1.16.

Once complete, simply flatten the image and save it as JPEG or your

preferred format.
This next image was created using Emulsion I and the following

settings: The Emulsion layer itself was set to 95% opacity, using

the Screen blend mode. I then added a Levels Adjustment layer

and moved the black slider to 15, and the mid slider to 0.94. Once

complete, simply flatten the image and save it as JPEG or your

preferred format.

Try this: Invert your Emulsion Overlay! On some images an inverted

overlay can work better vs the dark one. To do this, simply select the

Emulsion Layer and click CTRL/CMD + I. Then choose a blend mode.

For this image we used Emulsion II and the following settings: The

Emulsion layer itself was set to 60% opacity, using the Soft Light

blend mode. I then added a Levels Adjustment layer and moved the

mid slider to 1.47 and the highlight slider to 209. Once complete,

simply flatten the image and save it as JPEG or your preferred

format.
 For the image featured

here, I used the Tone

Overlay as well as

Emulsion V and the

following settings:

The emulsion layer

was set to 52% opacity,

using the Subtract

blend mode. The

tone overlay was added on-top of the emulsion layer, and set to

multiply at 60% opacity. The overall effect looks similar to the

daguerreotype or tintype photographic process. Remember to

experiment with various overlay modes and layer combinations.

In the Image below, we used two Emulsion overlays as well as the

Tone overlay. The Emulsion Layer I was set to Screen mode at 26%

and the Emulsion Layer II was set to Soft Light at 70%. We then

added levels adjustments to each overlay, and finished it with the

Tone Overlay, which was set to Soft Light at 35%.

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© Red Leaf Studios Inc. 2015