The 10 Best Free Lightroom Presets for Creating Stunning Portraits

Photography isn’t easy, and portrait presets help you make every photo look its best. You can boost colors, smooth edges, and stylishly fade surroundings into the background. And since you’re doing this in post-processing, you don’t have to get every image exactly right when you shoot it.

To help get you started, we’ve collected ten of the top free Lightroom portrait presets. While they share a common theme, they vary widely in design and styling. You’re sure to find one that perfectly fits every portrait photo you need to edit. Let’s explore the options.

Note: these free Adobe Lightroom portrait presets are used for Adobe Lightroom Classic. They are each packaged with .xmp files. Check out our instructions to install Lightroom presets at the bottom of this tutorial.

Slumberland serves up a light, airy look for your portrait photos. It’s especially useful if you have shadowy, dark images that you want to elevate to new heights.

Try it out for fresh summer shots, album cover portraits, and more.

Do you think black and white portraits are flat and boring? Contrast Noir, a free preset, proves otherwise.

This preset boosts contrasts and makes portrait subjects stand out from their backdrops in style. Photos retouched with this preset are sure to get a second look.

Cosmic Dancer is a flexible, color-focused portrait Lightroom preset. It has been designed to make hues pop and stand out.

This preset is worth using if you have flatter images that need a bit of pizzazz. It works on your landscapes too, making it a powerful asset in your editing toolbox.

Are you aiming for a bit of retro styling? The Portrait Matte preset delivers exactly that, with warm, matte tones applied throughout.

This one warms colors while keeping them soft and visually appealing. It’s a fantastic way to freshen up your favorite portraits.

Think back to memorable old, historic photos. Many have the brown and yellow faded sepia tones that come with age. You can add these to your modern portraits for a dash of timeless style!

This sepia preset helps you do just that, applying vintage shades to any photo in Lightroom.

Wedding photos are some of the most memorable portraits that you’ll ever capture, and that means they deserve the best treatment possible during the editing process.

Take a Vow is a preset that’s tailor-made for wedding shots. It helps the happy couple stand out, fading background colors to avoid distractions.

Hopscotch is another color-forward portrait preset. It delivers ethereal, bold styling to any portrait photo.

You’ll find that this one works best to create funky, artsy shots. The more colorful they are to start, the more impact you’ll enjoy from the applied preset.

Classy and elegant black-and-white portraits never go out of style. But it’s not a great idea to shoot in black and white. Take color photos, and convert them later using presets like Limograph.

This preserves creative flexibility; colorizing images is much more difficult. Here, you’ll enjoy flat, soft tones in a grayscale photo design.

Vintage-styled images need not be uninteresting. They can be colorful, stunning works of art! Transform your photos into precisely that with the free Vintage Portrait preset.

This preset makes full use of yellow and orange tones for a classic, bright look. It’s an aesthetic that’s impossible to match with a camera alone.

Shadowze is a final example of a black-and-white portrait preset. It has been built to emulate the look and feel of film photography, and present photos in a high-contrast, yet flat way, without many sharp tones.

Shadowze is a prime example of a leading portrait preset, working well with any subject.

How to Install Adobe Lightroom Classic Presets

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