Education
This tutorial will teach you to install Lightroom Mobile presets into the app, without using the desktop version at all. You will also be able to save them as presets and apply them with one click.
If you already have the desktop version of Lightroom (to subscribe to Lightroom Desktop click here), you can simply sync your presets between Lightroom Desktop and Mobile.
But if you want to download Lightroom mobile presets straight to your phone and use them on the free app without going through the desktop version, you can do it directly on your phone.
If you haven’t yet, check out our custom Mobile presets here.
Step 1: Download the DNG files to your phone
Most mobile presets you purchase (including ours) will come as DNG files that you can download directly to your phone. If that’s the case, skip directly to Step 2.
But some presets might be compressed into a ZIP file. Most cell phones are not able to open ZIP files. Here you have two options:
Option A
You can use apps like iZip to unzip the file directly on your phone. Click to download the file and then tap on Open in iZip:
Once you’ve unzipped the files on your phone, go to Step 2 to import them into Lightroom.
Option B
If you have a computer handy, download the ZIP file on your laptop and double-click to unzip it. That should create a folder of the same name with the DNG image files inside.
Now you need to transfer the DNG files to your phone via Dropbox or any other method you prefer.
Simply drag your DNG files into your Dropbox folder and wait for the files to sync. Once all your files are synced, go into your Dropbox folder in your phone app and export each DNG file into your phone. See detailed steps below:
Open the Dropbox app on your phone and tap on the 3 dots button next to each DNG file:
Then tap on Export:
Then tap on Save Image:
Step 2: Import the preset files into the Lightroom app
At this point you should have all of your DNG files saved to your phone. These serve as “preset carriers” and now you just need to add them to Lightroom mobile and save presets out of them.
If you go into your photo stream and see them as blank picture files, don’t be alarmed – that’s how they should look.
Open the Lightroom app and create a new album. In this case we’ll name it Costola Presets:
Then open the new album, tap on the 3 dots in the upper right corner and then tap on Add Photos:
If you downloaded your DNG files through iZip to files, select From Files and then navigate to iZip files. If you downloaded them directly to your Camera Roll through Dropbox or download, select From Camera Roll:
Next, select the DNG presets from your camera roll (or from iZIP) and import them into the newly created album in Lightroom:
Step 3: Create and save your Presets
Go into the album containing your newly imported DNG files. Open the first file:
Now tap on the 3 dots icon at the top right of the screen and then tap on Create Preset:
Next you will see the New Preset screen (shown below) which contains all the options you can use to customize your preset. You can give your preset a name (highly recommended) and add it into a Preset Group in Lightroom. You can save it in User Presets or you can create a new preset group and name it however you like. We recommend this if you have a lot of presets and want to keep them organized.
The checkboxes below determine which picture settings you’d like to save with this preset. Only the settings you choose here will be applied to the pictures you edit with this preset in the future.
I personally check all boxes except for Tools, Optics and Geometry. That’s because those parameters vary from picture to picture and I will probably never need to crop or tilt a picture exactly the same way as the preset for example.
When you’re done with the settings save your preset by tapping on the checkmark icon at the top right corner.
Repeat this step for each DNG file as you will need to save each preset separately. Don’t worry though, you only need to do this once!
Step 4: Using Lightroom Mobile presets
To use your new presets just go back into your library and open any photo you’d like to edit.
Find the Presets icon in the menu at the bottom of the screen and tap on it. Make sure the Preset Group that’s selected is the one where you saved your new presets. If you saved them in the User Presets group, select that.
Now you can edit the photo by tapping on a preset from the list and then tapping on the checkmark. You can still continue to edit the photo and make adjustments if you like, after you’ve applied the preset.
And that’s it! Now you know how to install, save and use your Lightroom Mobile presets without desktop! Let us know if you have any questions or issues below!
