Teo Crawford
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January Preset: Kuroshiro
🕑 Added 2025-01-31 22:04:42 +0000 UTCHello! January is over already... so quick, eh... I hope you've had a good start to the year so far and are doing alright! <3
I must say, 2025 so far has already been great. I got to meet an (online) friend in real life for the first time and an old friend from Uni came to visit me for an exciting snowshoe hike in the mountains. We tried to reach a place that looks like heaven on earth but sadly we couldn't make it, because the risk of an avalanche was too high at a certain point and we lost daylight. But this has now prompted a new video for later this year haha. We're going to try again, but without snow, in summer and I think I want to document that adventure a bit like I did last year in the mountain-temple video, which you might remember. Hopefully I'll get to show you all that magical looking place then :)
Otherwise I've been working on some exciting projects. In fact a secret project I'm not allowed to tell you about, but you'll know soon enough, because it'll be the first video in February :D
A continuous goal for me since last year has been to work a little less and find more balance in life. While January was another intense month, I think I did alright in making more time for other things in life than just work and noticing that improvement is a great feeling - I hope to continue on this path in the next months.
Anyway, enough about my January, let me tell you about this month's Lightroom preset! For a change, I decided to make a B&W preset. I've had this in mind for a while and now I finally decided to make it. It's a pretty contrasty look that will soften your image a lot too. It almost adds a bit of haze it seems and a looot of grain haha. I love old B&W photographs that I believe fall under the genre Pictorialism and for this look I looked up to that as a guide. It's not as rough looking, but a nice mid-ground I find.
I tried the preset on multiple lighting situations from sunny shots to night shots and blue hour shots and it seems to work well with all of them. The only thing you should definitely play around with is the Exposure slider to adjust the brightness of your image after applying the preset.
I hope you like it. If you have any questions, just let me know in the comments or via a DM here on Patreon :)
Wishing you a lovely February! <3
Teo
Comments
T
Hi Nikolas, yeah... Adobe is tough in that regard :/ I really appreciate that you enjoy my presets so much! Nevertheless, if you'd like to leave the Adobe Ecosystem, you should know that once you've learned the techniques it is totally possible without much of a loss I think. While I'm not speaking from experience here, because I've never switched, I'm pretty sure that the techniques I teach in my tutorials, which the presets are based on, are applicable in other programs too, because they use the same tools (curves, colour wheels and such) :)
Nikolas
I do currently use Lightroom as well, and it's the only program I've ever used for editing. That being said, some of the payment plans for Adobe are a bit pricey, so I've been researching other software. Just wanted to ask, as I may have helped me make a move to a new program. But since I love your presets, I will simply endure with Lightroom. Thank you for your response.
T
Hi Nikolas, no worries, I've actually never been asked this haha :D Hmm I must admit that I do not really see myself making presets for other software for the simple reason that I'm a 100% Lightroom user. So neither do I really think that I have the expertise to create presets for other software nor would it be much of a genuine move from side I guess? So I'm afraid I will not be... what do you use for editing?
Nikolas
Teo, I'm sorry if you get asked this all too often; but do you have any plans for developing presets for other editing software? Especially given that a lot of people have been wanting to distance themselves from Adobe. Thanks for your time.
T
Hahaha good good :D Hmm ok, that actually sort of sounds similar to my issue. How old is your lens? I've heard that this 20mm 1.7 commonly has this issue after a couple years. Quite often, mine focuses but it's slightly off, but it's just so little, that I only notice it later on the computer. At the moment I'm just living with the issue and taking shots twice or more times in order to get the focus right... not ideal, I know haha. If your lens is a couple years old like mine, this might sadly be the reason :/
Jackson Wu
i'm not pixel peeping i promise xD. Its more that the sharpness looks fine-ish on the screen when pressing the shutter, but then when editing in pc and slight zooms/crops shows that the photo is actually a bit blurry and not as sharp as i thought on the screen (especially since I'm trying to avoid chimping so i cant "dubble check" the sharpness). I noticed 49 zone doesn't have this "problem" but the issue then is that it's not focusing on what i want.
T
Hmm that's odd... doesn't sound like anything I've experienced. I just shoot in single AF and it's fine. Nowadays my lens has become a little old and mildly misses focus at times, but I can already see that on the display, so if possible I'll get the shot again. But apart from that I can't think of much... my shots looks just fine without any trickery? How unsharp is it? As in like actually blurry or just slightly off focus? Or are you pixel peeping? :D
Jackson Wu
Hi Teo, do you have any advice on getting sharpness on the photo with the G Vario 20mm f/1.7? I've played around with various AF methods but when editing and minor cropping in LR I notice the pictures are not as sharp and clear as they look on the camera screen.
T
Ohh btw. I forgot to mention this haha: "Kuroshiro" is Japanese. Kuro = Black and Shiro = White. In Japan B&W photos are sometimes called "Kuroshiro shashin". Shashin = Photograph Just FYI :)
