This set of black & white presets for Lightroom has been designed to incorporate many of the traditional looks and popular effects with an authentic film-like feel.
Note – You need to shoot RAW, or in Color JPG for these to work correctly. Don’t shoot JPG B&W or these won’t work correctly. RAW works best.
7 Looks Total
There are 7 base looks total organized with different effects and treatments.
Looks 1a – 1g The standard B&W Looks
Adjustments to the color channels and primary channels to enhance and accent certain color luminance channels. So with some, skin tones look better, in others landscapes look better.
Each look has a standard look and a high contrast look that is marked with an +.
1c – 1i Color Filter Simulations
These simulate color filters that would go over the lens when shooting traditional black and white film.
Red Filters I find to work well when dealing with skin tones and people. Yellow can also work well in most situations. Green Filters often work great when dealing with landscapes or street photography.
Effects – Faded, Muted, Grunge
There are a few different feels you can get out of black and white photos which I’ve placed in an Effects category. I’ve also built some of the standard B&W looks to have these baked in.
Faded
This effect gives the B&W a faded look and feel that’s pretty standard.
Muted
This look fades the image but also brings down the highlights. The color curve is set up to give it a very interesting muted look. For years, this is how I treated my B&W photos.
Grunge
The Grunge Look blasts out the clarity. Many snap-focusing street shooters or manual lens shooters are doing this because it helps hide that the focus is never 100% accurate. It often looks great when shooting at higher apertures.
Note: You can push it even harder by adding a graduated filter with even more clarity. I see some people do that, but it’s not my thing so I didn’t include that since graduated filters mess up presets.
ONO B&W Sample Images
These are shot with various cameras. Always shot using RAW. But you can use JPG too.
How To Install
Unzip file. Right-click in the preset panel in Lightroom. Click Import.
V1.00 will work on older versions of Lightroom that use lrtemplate files. If you are on an older version, email me and I can send those to you.
Changelog
1.25 – 09/28/21 – Consolidated some of the Red Filters by eliminating one of the looks, and made minor changes to the other looks in this set. A few of the looks did not have the channel mix set properly and those have been updated. Added a ++ look which adds even more contrast. Turned down the grunge effect on the grunge look to make it a little more usable. Added new Grain effects.
