Best Lightroom Presets for Portraits, Travel & Film (2026)

The best Lightroom preset is the one built for the light you actually shoot in. HAVANA, DAKAR and SANDSTORM are warm and made for sun, sand and golden hour; COLD START and ASPHALT are cool and suit water, mountains and overcast cities; NEON MILE is for night. For portraits, skin decides: look at HAVANA, VALET and GRAPHITE, and keep the cool packs for landscapes.

Below is every CHROMA pack in one table, then a pack-by-pack breakdown: what light it works in and where it falls short. Slider values come straight from the .xmp files.

Every pack in one table

Why start with the light

A preset has no idea what light your photo was taken in. It moves the same sliders on every image. Put a warm pack on a sunset and it stacks warmth on top of warm light, so skin drifts orange. Put a cool pack on an overcast day and the blue gets stronger. Sometimes that’s the point (ASPHALT is built for exactly that cold city look), sometimes it isn’t. The order that works: exposure first, then the preset, then white balance for your light. Every slider stays editable after the preset, but no preset will bring back a blown-out sky.

Warm sun and golden hour

The three warm packs differ in density, from soft to heavy.

HAVANA. Contrast down (−6), Blacks lifted (+10), shadows and highlights pushed toward yellow-orange. The result is a soft, warm film look with matte shadows. Good for portraits, markets, street in daylight and golden hour. Don’t expect deep blacks from it.

DAKAR. The warmest pack in the catalog: white balance +12, every tonal range tinted orange. Think dusty heat: sand, roads, desert. There’s no teal in the shadows; the whole frame goes warm. At sunset it can overheat skin fast, so pull Temp back to the left.

SANDSTORM. The densest of the warm packs: Contrast +18, Blacks −16, Clarity +10, color pushed to burnt orange. Made for harsh sun, rock, sand and sunsets where you want drama. If the shadows sink too far, lift Shadows. The LUT makes skin more saturated, so keep an eye on faces.

Water, mountains, city, night

COLD START. Classic teal and orange: shadows to teal, highlights warm, white balance slightly cooler (−4). The LUT turns sky and water teal and makes greens denser. This is the pack for coastlines, mountains, drone shots, roads and cars. It’s not a first pick for portraits: on video the LUT pulls skin cold.

ASPHALT. Cool (−6), Saturation −10, every tonal range tinted blue, Blacks −14. Heavy, dark frames: asphalt, metal, cars, the city on a grey day. It cools skin too, so it won’t give you a warm portrait.

NEON MILE. Shadows to blue-violet, highlights to pink-magenta, Contrast +14. Built for the city at night and neon. The LUT brightens dark footage a lot, so daytime clips come out too bright, and smooth skies can show banding. The preset’s Tint leans slightly green (−6): if the signs look green, set Tint back to zero.

Portraits: skin first

COLD START and ASPHALT cool skin down, so for people look at these instead.

• HAVANA: warm skin, gentle contrast, matte shadows.
• VALET: Shadows +64, Highlights −60, Blacks lifted (+27). Open shadows, soft warm light, matte blacks. Lifestyle, interiors, portraits in warm light, cars with people in the frame.
• GRAPHITE: five AI masks find the subject on their own; the background darkens and loses color while skin stays warm. Works best against greenery or a busy background. It mutes green and blue across the whole frame, so blue jeans turn grey too. The masks work in paid Lightroom mobile, Lightroom Classic 11+ and Camera Raw 14+. In my test on iPhone with paid Lightroom, all five masks built themselves. Free Lightroom applies the color only.

If you’re after a movie look

Usually that means dense blacks and color separation: warm highlights against cool shadows. COLD START with its classic teal and orange, SANDSTORM with its deep blacks and NEON MILE for night get closest. None of the packs adds halation, the glow around bright areas. That effect depends on neighboring pixels, and neither a preset nor a LUT works that way.

Shooting on a phone

Every $9 pack works in the free Lightroom mobile app: open the .dng from the archive, tap ⋯ → Copy Settings, open your photo and choose Paste Settings. Two more packs are built specifically for phone shots.

TRUE DEPTH ($2.99). Smart HDR already lifts the shadows, which leaves the image flat. TRUE DEPTH doesn’t lift them a second time; it brings depth back with midtone contrast, Clarity +30, warm light separated from cool shadow and a sky that’s held down. Tested on a phone. For night shots, use the Soft version.

CHROMA MOBILE ($15). 15 looks, each as .xmp and .cube. There’s no .dng, but the .xmp files install in free Lightroom too. Some looks lift the shadows hard, and on Smart HDR shots that can flatten the image. If it does, pull Shadows down or use TRUE DEPTH.

How to choose a pack

1. Look at your light. Scroll through your recent shots and see what dominates: warm sun, grey days or night.
2. Decide who the frame is about. If it’s people, pick a pack that keeps skin warm. For landscapes and cities, the cool packs are fair game.
3. Test it on the store page. Every pack has a before/after slider. Watch skin and greens: that’s where a wrong pick shows first.
4. Do the bundle math. The CHROMA bundle costs $35 instead of $54 and pays off once you want four of the six packs: four bought separately already come to $36. VALET, GRAPHITE, MOSS, TRUE DEPTH and CHROMA MOBILE aren’t included.

Presets vs LUTs: which do you need?

For photos you need the preset: the .xmp for Lightroom Classic, Lightroom desktop and Camera Raw, or the .dng for free Lightroom on your phone. For video you need the .cube LUT: in Premiere Pro it goes in Lumetri → Creative → Look, and DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut read it too. The LUTs are built for standard Rec.709 footage, so convert LOG (S-Log, D-Log, Apple Log) to Rec.709 first. Preset and LUT are made separately for the same look, so photos and video land close in color but not identical. More in our LUT vs preset guide and how to install them. If you already have a LUT you like, the free LUT to Lightroom converter turns it into a Lightroom preset.

Frequently asked questions

Which Lightroom preset is best for portraits?

The one that keeps skin warm in your light. In soft warm light, HAVANA or VALET; against greenery or a busy background, GRAPHITE (the AI masks need paid Lightroom); for phone shots, TRUE DEPTH. COLD START and ASPHALT cool skin down, so they’re not a first pick for portraits.

What preset is best for travel photos?

It depends on the place and the light. Sun, sand and dust: DAKAR or SANDSTORM. Streets, markets, golden hour: HAVANA. Coastlines, mountains, roads, drone shots: COLD START. A city on a grey day: ASPHALT.

Do these presets work for video too?

Yes. Every paid pack includes a .cube LUT for Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut. The color will be close to your photos but not identical, because the LUT is built separately for the same look. It expects standard Rec.709 footage, so convert LOG to Rec.709 first. The GRAPHITE LUT carries color only, no masks.

Is it cheaper to buy the bundle?

Yes, if you want four packs or more. The bundle is $35; the six packs bought separately cost $54, and four cost $36. It includes COLD START, HAVANA, DAKAR, SANDSTORM, NEON MILE and ASPHALT. VALET, GRAPHITE, MOSS, TRUE DEPTH and CHROMA MOBILE are sold separately.