# How to unset a preset, take it back?



## Biff (Sep 7, 2018)

When I click on a preset / color and such it is set / activated and shown on the image. How could I disable it deactivate it / take back the effect of it on the image?


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## Tom75 (Sep 7, 2018)

Hi,

just go to the history panel and click and the step before the preset and it will be gone as it works with all the adjustments you do in LR. So if you click on the Import then you will reset it to the unchanged original after import

Regards,
Tom


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## Biff (Sep 7, 2018)

Hello Tom,

Many thanks!

Well, using the history or STRG+Z would undo all the steps between now and the step I want to be undone. I meant, how can I make a single step undone.

And how could I brows through the presets by using an arrow key instead of moving the mouse pointer above the presets?

Many thanks again


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 7, 2018)

If you already did other things, then you can't use History to undo it without also undoing the subsequent steps. However, presets simply change sliders, so you can always manually change those sliders.


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## Tom75 (Sep 7, 2018)

As far as I know what you want is not possible you can undo stuff only in the order as in the history panel and I also think its not possible to navigate through presets with arrow keys.

But maybe someone else knows more


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 7, 2018)

No, you can't navigate through presets using the arrow keys, because that would effectively mean that you'd apply all of them!


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## Biff (Sep 7, 2018)

> If you already did other things, then you can't use History to undo it without also undoing the subsequent steps. However, presets simply change sliders, so you can always manually change those sliders.


Well, well, to manually reset the sliders / settings one by one seems to be quit enconvenient, I would think. And how should one know how the sliders / option were set before?


> As far as I know what you want is not possible you can undo stuff only in the order as in the history panel and I also think its not possible to navigate through presets with arrow keys.



But actually that would not make any sense I would think. I cannot believe it is not possible. The same way one can see the preset working by just hovering the mouse pointer over it and reomve the effect there must be a way to do the same by clicking on it and...


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 7, 2018)

Biff said:


> But actually that would not make any sense I would think. I cannot believe it is not possible.


Think about it: clicking on a preset applies it. How would you use the arrow keys to navigate through them without clicking on one of them first? How is Lightroom otherwise supposed to know where to start? That is exactly the difference between hovering and clicking. Hovering only shows a preview as long as the cursor is right above the preset. You would have to move the _*cursor*_ with the arrow keys, but that is a function of the OS, not of Lightroom.


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## Biff (Sep 7, 2018)

> No, you can't navigate through presets using the arrow keys, because that would effectively mean that you'd apply all of them!


May be it depends on how the program is coded.



> Think about it: clicking on a preset applies it. How would you use the arrow keys to navigate through them without clicking on one of them first? How is Lightroom otherwise supposed to know where to start? That is exactly the difference between hovering and clicking. Hovering only shows a preview as long as the cursor is right above the preset. You would have to move the cursor with the arrow keys, but that is a function of the OS, not of Lightroom.


Unfortunately I do not have any idea of anything / programming but I would suppose one could easily make it work like that. Similar / the same works in other programs as well, so why shouldn' t it work in LR? 



> How would you use the arrow keys to navigate through them without clicking on one of them first? How is Lightroom otherwise supposed to know where to start?


E.g.  just hovering the pointer over it then use an arrow key? Or clicking a special area of the preset name? Or near to it? Or...?

So it does not work finally, well, okay.

And the only way to unset a preset is to go back in history or use CTRL+Z. Otherwise the easiest way is closing and open image to get rid of the preset?

Many thanks.


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 7, 2018)

Biff said:


> Unfortunately I do not have any idea of anything / programming but I would suppose one could easily make it work like that. Similar / the same works in other programs as well, so why shouldn' t it work in LR?


Because of the difference between clicking and hovering. These other programs probably don't make that difference. Like I said: it would be easy to select a preset and then go through the others with the arrow keys. But that would _*apply*_ all the presets, so that does not make sense. I don't think I know any program that allows _hovering_, and then consequently  moving the cursor with the arrow keys.

Would it be possible to create some kind of _select-but-not-apply_ function so that going through the presets would then be possible? I'm sure that would be possible, but Adobe chose not to do that.



Biff said:


> And the only way to unset a preset is to go back in history or use CTRL+Z. Otherwise the easiest way is closing and open image to get rid of the preset?


Correct. Remember that Lightroom is not Photoshop. You do not change pixels, so you can undo and redo sliders as often as you want. I agree that it is inconvenient that you cannot remove an in-between step via the history. In fact, that would make the history panel in Lightroom kind of useful, because right now I don't think it's very useful at all. Maybe you want to go to Photoshop Family Customer Community to file a feature request for it. Maybe somebody else did already, so you can add your vote.


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## Biff (Sep 7, 2018)

> it would be easy to select a preset and then go through the others with the arrow keys. But that would _*apply*_ all the presets, so that does not make sense.


Why not code it the way it would do it not like that?



> I don't think I know any program that allows hovering, and then consequently moving the cursor with the arrow keys.


Hovering or clicking and then move or else, it is a common function I would say, many / almost all programs do it I would think, e.g Photomatrix.


> Would it be possible to create some kind of select-but-not-apply function so that going through the presets would then be possible?


Yes, why not? I would think there are some or many ways how one could do it. Just hold STRG and ARROW or SHIFT and ARROW...



> I agree that it is inconvenient that you cannot remove an in-between step via the history.


Yes, such should be easily to code, I would think. Would think it is a basic function which may not be missing.



> Maybe you want to go to Photoshop Family Customer Community to file a feature request for it. Maybe somebody else did already, so you can add your vote.


No, no, thank you for the link.


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 7, 2018)

Biff said:


> Why not code it the way it would do it not like that?


Because clicking is the way to apply the preset and it makes sense to have a way to actually apply a preset, don’t you think?
I’m going  stop this fruitless discussion. It is the way it is, whether you like it or not. There is nothing you or I can change about that, apart from filing a feature request (and that is something you apparently don’t want to do).


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## Tom75 (Sep 7, 2018)

Biff said:


> Well, well, to manually reset the sliders / settings one by one seems to be quit enconvenient, I would think. And how should one know how the sliders / option were set before?


You know how they were set before because if you simply go one step back in the history panel. Thats wh yit is a history panel because you can go back every step in the correct order and if you would be able to mess around with the order it would not be a history panel anymore. I thin it makes perfectly sense once you get used to this way of working


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## Biff (Sep 7, 2018)

> Because clicking is the way to apply the preset and it makes sense to have a way to actually apply a preset, don’t you think?


Yes, yes, indeed. But why not apply by clicking while pressing an addionally (or more than one)  key? Or without that key? And appying with key?



> I’m going stop this fruitless discussion


Yes, yes, of course, do it as you like it. Do not feel forced going on with this fruity discussion.



> It is the way it is, whether you like it or not.


Yes, the same with my wife, absolutely true words.



> There is nothing you or I can change about that, apart from filing a feature request (and that is something you apparently don’t want to do).


Actually, I would think -  among other things - that might not cause that big changes or small ones.


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## Biff (Sep 7, 2018)

> You know how they were set before because if you simply go one step back in the history panel.


I would not think so, if you do not want to lose your editing done between now / the last history item and setting the preset you cannot / do not know.


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## Ed Anderson (Sep 7, 2018)

Am I missing something?  Lightroom 7.5 has a "Hover Over Preview of Presets"  Ensure it is enabled.  Under Preferences>Performance>Develop Section, ensure "Enable Hover of Presets in Loupe" is checked.  Then when in the Develop module, when hovering over a preset it will show a preview before clicking on it.  You can then hover over other presets to see the effect before applying it.  Sometimes its slow so you may have to wait a second or two.  If you accidentally click on the preview and apply, CTRL+Z to Undo.


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## Biff (Sep 8, 2018)

Yes, that is and has been enabled, by default and it is working. But after 




> f you accidentally click on the preview and apply, CTRL+Z to Undo.



Or use the history, yes, but if you decide to not to use it or want to see the image without that preset at the end of editing you cannot just switch off that preset (without making the other edition undone done after you enabled that preset).


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## DGStinner (Sep 8, 2018)

It sounds like you may be better of using Photoshop where you can perform each edit in a separate layer and then hide the layer to see its effect.


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## Ed Anderson (Sep 8, 2018)

Biff said:


> but if you decide to not to use it or want to see the image without that preset at the end of editing you cannot just switch off that preset (without making the other edition undone done after you enabled that preset).



Thanks, I see what I was missing.  Unfortunately, I don't know of way to do that, though it would be a great feature. At the moment it seems you'd be  reseting everything and starting over.


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## davidedric (Sep 8, 2018)

Think about it.  If you applied a preset,  then moved one or more sliders, then wanted to "undo" the preset, what would you expect the new value of those moved sliders to be?  

Dave


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## Biff (Sep 9, 2018)

> It sounds like you may be better of using Photoshop where you can perform each edit in a separate layer and then hide the layer to see its effect.


Yes, that would be great ( at that moment I realise LR doesn't have such layers obviously), but I am absolutely not able to use such a comprehensive programm and I have a slow computer.



> Thanks, I see what I was missing. Unfortunately, I don't know of way to do that, though it would be a great feature. At the moment it seems you'd be reseting everything and starting over.


No no, I have to say  thanks for your help!



> Think about it. If you applied a preset, then moved one or more sliders, then wanted to "undo" the preset, what would you expect the new value of those moved sliders to be?


The value they would have without using the preset, I would say.


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## frozenframe (Sep 16, 2018)

If you like using Presets a lot, then make a *PRESET-RESET*.  It's real easy to do. Just make sure all sliders are set to their zero values. Hit the + on the Preset panel to create a preset. The dialog pops up, check all the boxes that you want to have reset, which generally is all of them.  Give your preset a name, and tell LR what group of presets you wan to save it to. 

Now when you apply a preset and don't like it, just hit the RESET Preset and viola you're back to just before you applied the preset.


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## Biff (Sep 16, 2018)

Thank you very much!

Very sorry for my bad understanding. What is the benefit of doing it? Why not use CTRL+Z or the "History" instead?


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