# Lightroom 3 presets in Lightroom 4



## Babsie (Mar 10, 2012)

I just made the jump from Lightroom 3 to Lightroom 4. So far all looks good: catalogue imported and merged with that from the Lightroom 4 beta, 1:1 previews rendered, converted process 2010 to 2012. It's the luxury of somebody who doesn't have to make a living with the software to just jump ahead, burn the bridges and all and move completely without holding back. There are probably photos that I need to tinker with again like with the last change of process version but I'll survive. As a hobbyist, the tinkering is part of the fun.

The only thing that I'd truly, truly miss are my favourite presets. Not the half dozen or so that I created myself but the ones that I downloaded from those friendly and generous souls that put them on the internet. I'd love to be able to use these in Lightroom 4.

From what I understand with my limited knowledge of what is happening under the hood of the software is that some of the development settings were changed heavily, like the clarity setting or the new ways that highlights and shadows are dealt with. Presets using those settings will probably not work or deliver "surprising" results, will they not?

On the other hand, some presets that only deal with settings that have not or not much been tangled with might still work - true?

Has anybody tried Lightroom 3 settings in the Lightroom 4 beta or Lightroom 4 itself? 

Is there any way to tell if a Lightroom preset will work properly in Lightroom 4? There are a lot of presets for free available on the net but few of them note with which Lightroom version they can be used. Up till now that might not have been necessary but if the changes in Lightroom 4 are too great for the older presets to work then it would help a lot if there are things you can check for. Or ideally things you could do to convert older presets to newer ones.

Yeah, I'm aware that once the baby problems have been ironed out the community is likely to put them up out there. Yeah, I'm aware that I should be making new presets.... But then I really, really miss my favourites.


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## clee01l (Mar 11, 2012)

if  a Preset was created with Process 2010, then LR4 will use it with Process 2010.  If you change the image to Process 2012, then you move away from the preset adjustment parameters and you no longer are using the preset.  So, in summary, you can still use the LR3 Presets, but you lose any new LR4 features and functionality.  You can start with a preset from LR3, change the process to Process 2012 and tweak the image adjustment parameters to your satisfaction and then save that as a new preset.  The result would be an upgraded version of your old preset.


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