# finding my own style



## htnoam (Sep 1, 2017)

hi all, 
im using LR for some time now, and i totally loving it,
the thing is, i still havent found my editing style.
now, i know it takes time and patient, but i dont even know where to start 
there are tons of presets and options and i got totally confused.
any advice on where to begin? 

thank you


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 1, 2017)

Welcome to the forum. Isn't "finding my own style" something you need to do yourself? My advice would be *not* to resort to presets produced by others, because you learn nothing from them and they aren't going to give you your own style. Experiment, experiment, experiment. And ask questions here if there is something you don't understand.


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## Roelof Moorlag (Sep 1, 2017)

Another option is to see what others do and try to reproduce it. There is plenty stuff available. It doesn't matter if you like the style from that photographer or not, you will learn from it. The first thing to find you own style is to rule out the styles you don't like


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## Linwood Ferguson (Sep 1, 2017)

Taking "style" as a visual thing: Slightly twisted from what Johan said (and I agree with), work on developing your own preset.  Keep tweaking it until (for your most common work) it can be applied generally, and then you tweak afterwards.  Working toward finding what settings you can use for most of your work as a starting point is a way of developing what your preferences look like, e.g. how saturated, how contrasty or stretched. 

Now the alternative interpretation is "style" as in workflow: what order and sequence should you use.  That's a very different matter, and you should think as separate from "style" as the end destination of appearance has many paths leading to it.  Did you mean "appearance" or "workflow"?


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## Replytoken (Sep 1, 2017)

I concur with Linwood.  LR is really just a tool set to help you achieve your style.  You need to know what you want, and that really does not have much to do with LR until you want to use it to make your style appear from your images.  I recommend mastering the basic of LR to understand how it can help you in post processing.  This may also help you in your journey to finding your style as you can try out different processing techniques and see how they further you along.

Good luck,

--Ken


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## Diko (Sep 1, 2017)

1/Go look around and participate in communities where you can evaluate (like) a photo and be evaluated. E.g. *fstoppers.com 
*
2/ Try this exercise: Everyday check someone else's photos for 5 min. NO matter if it's portfolios on websites, 500px, the Fstoppers, or Instagram. Even Facebook can do. Just go and check some photos every day. And whenever you come across a a photo that you like or hate. Stop on it. Take a minute and ask yourself what is it that you like about it and what you would try to avoid doing in your photos. It could be the color. The subject. An object in the photo. The framing. The contrast. The colors. ANYTHING!

3/ Play around with *every *possible slider in LR Develop module. And when I say every I mean *EVERY*! A certain configuration and corelation would provide you with at least a few own recipes for beginning of developing you pictures. Later on you would begin with one recipe and finish with another. Like how often do you use the Tone Curve 


or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbYtYIzO3zM

I hope this would help.


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## htnoam (Sep 2, 2017)

thank you all for the answers, really appreciate it,
i totally agree with you, that i need time and practice,
and thats what I've being doing lately,
BUT,
since i shoot (during one session) in different locations, different lighting types, i cant seem to figure out how to give all the photos the same look and feel.
for example:
גל&עידן - Noam

i feel like i got lost there 

any advice?


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## Replytoken (Sep 3, 2017)

Noam,

No one solution or approach is going work for all of your images.  Think a bit more broadly and separate your images into groups so you can work on one type at a time.  Eventually you will have done enough types that you can both draw on past images and your experiences.  It takes many folks quite some time to master post processing to the point that they can have a consistent "look".  Ming Thein does a very good job with Photoshop at his blog, for example, and he has video tutorials, but for the moment, I recommend working on a handful of similar images.  See how this does and ask questions after your session.

Good luck,

--Ken


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## Linwood Ferguson (Sep 3, 2017)

htnoam said:


> since i shoot (during one session) in different locations, different lighting types, i cant seem to figure out how to give all the photos the same look and feel.


I understand, but there is still commonality.  

For example, some people might prefer a more saturated, rich color style and that can transcend lighting and environment.  Some people prefer one more flat and (perhaps) more realistic.  You can build this into a preset for yourself through how you use saturation, vibrance, and to some extent clarity.  Presetting these a bit more up, or not, can set a general feel of how deep you like colors.

As another example, some people like contrast more, with deeper shadows and brighter highlights; some do not, and want all the detail stretched out of them.  Compare a few images using the shadow/highlight near zero, and one with them set at 80/-80.  Then add back some contrast with black point and white point to offset that, and you get a very different feel in the images.  Neither is "right" or "wrong" but personal taste.  I bet if you try a bunch of photos in different areas, over time you will find there's a setting you most often prefer -- not every single time of course, but if you can find a setting that hits 70-80% of your shots as about right, that makes a good preset for you, to embody that aspect of your style.

Your "style" can also come from workflow.  If you use the same technique each time to determine the proper amount of sharpening for example, you will start to instill a similarity to your photos that may not jump out as much as saturation would, but will still be an element of your style. For example, zoomed to 200% (maybe 100%, depends on your eye) and sharpen to a consistent look takes you away from the overall image and begins to apply it more consistently.  This could be good or bad, but if you are looking for a more consistent style this might help (vs just using the slider while looking at the whole image). 

Rather than looking at differences in images, start looking for commonalities that speak to you as an artist, things that you can control that are (mostly) common to all shots.  You'll never get 100% (if you did you could be replaced with a robot  ) but you can find things to make your own.


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## Diko (Sep 3, 2017)

It is difficult to get both versatile and homogenous at the same time, since they are just opposites.Don't try to get 100% of your style ( a set of specific shooting and development preferences like colors, brightness, angle of shooting, emotion of the subjects) in 100% of your photos. I would go for "most" of them in the most photos.


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## htnoam (Sep 7, 2017)

thank you all so much, really appreciate the time and explanations...
so, i followed some photographers i like, and now im trying to work on the edit to find my place, 
will it be ok if i post some photos here, and you can point me to the direction of how to come close to the style?
im not going to copy anyone's style, but i believe that once i figure out how to get there, it would be much easier for me to tweak it as i want.
what do you think? 

thanks


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## Linwood Ferguson (Sep 7, 2017)

It's certainly OK to post your own work here, though as you move more and more into the "art" question and away from technological ones, anywhere you ask you are going to get increasingly subjective answers.

As to posting others, it depends on them - have they given permission for general use, does such use fail under fair use (if their country has such).  For the most part posting the work of others without permission would not be OK.


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