Free photo presets: create, import and apply them in your browser

What presets in Lightframes are and who they’re for

A preset in Lightframes is a saved set of edit settings that you can apply to any photo with one click. It is for photographers who want a consistent look across a shoot or an Instagram feed, people who have bought or downloaded Lightroom presets (.xmp) and want to use them without installing Lightroom or any other software, and anyone who just wants a quick filter on a phone photo. The editor is free and open source and runs in your browser, which makes it a free Lightroom alternative for applying the looks you already own.

How presets work, and why your files stay private

Presets are applied on your own device: the editor renders every preset thumbnail and every full-size preview locally, and neither your photos nor your presets are uploaded. Your custom presets are kept in the browser’s IndexedDB storage, with a localStorage copy as a fallback, and the editor asks the browser to keep that storage from being cleared automatically.

Applying a preset is non-destructive. It replaces the photo’s tone and colour settings, keeps that photo’s crop, rotation, spot removal and background, and can be undone. Click Remove (or click the active preset again) and the edits you had before come back. Switching from one preset to another replaces the look instead of stacking it, and Remove still returns to the edits you had before the first preset.

What you can do in the Presets tab

• Filters: 15 built-in, read-only looks: Vintage, Old Money, Japan Film, Moody Brown, Analog Dreamy, Moody Forest, Teal & Orange, Warm Film, Bright & Airy, Nordic, B&W, B&W Noir, B&W Matte, Sepia and Selenium.
• Live thumbnails: each preset tile shows the active photo with that preset applied.
• Intensity: after applying, set it from 0% to 100%.
• Save: store the current photo’s edits as a new preset under My presets.
• Update preset with current edits: overwrite the applied custom preset after tweaking it.
• Apply to a selection: with several photos selected in the filmstrip, a preset and its intensity apply to all of them (see the batch photo editor).
• Import and export in the formats below.

Supported preset formats

Format	Import	Export	Notes
.json	Yes	Yes	A single preset, or a full backup containing many
.xmp	Yes	No	Develop settings mapped onto Lightframes sliders
.cube	Yes	No	3D LUT applied after your edits (see apply a LUT)

From an XMP file, Lightframes reads these settings when present:

• Exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites and blacks
• Temperature and tint (relative values directly, Kelvin values approximated)
• Vibrance, saturation, texture, clarity and dehaze
• Master and red, green, blue tone curves
• HSL hue, saturation and luminance for eight colour bands
• Colour grading wheels, or older split-toning settings
• Sharpening, luminance and colour noise reduction
• Post-crop vignette and grain

These are the same develop settings stored in presets exported from Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw, so most of the look carries over. The preset takes its name from the XMP file when one is stored there, otherwise from the file name.

Lightroom and Camera Raw are trademarks of Adobe. Lightframes is an independent open-source project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Adobe.

Tips

• Build presets on a well-exposed photo. A preset saved from a photo that needed +2 EV will push every other photo up too.
• Use intensity instead of saving several strengths of the same look. 60% of a strong film look is often enough.
• After applying a preset, fine-tune exposure and white balance for each photo. Then use Update preset with current edits if the change should apply to every photo.
• Click Backup from time to time. It downloads a dated JSON file with every custom preset, which you can import again on another device.

Limitations

• Older Lightroom presets in the .lrtemplate format can’t be imported; only .xmp presets are read.
• XMP import is a mapping, not a copy. Camera profiles, lens corrections, calibration and local masks in the XMP are not imported, so some looks will differ.
• You import one file at a time. To move many presets at once, use a JSON backup.
• Presets live in one browser. Clearing site data, or a private window, can remove them unless you have a JSON backup.
• Presets are exported only as Lightframes JSON, not as XMP or .cube.
• The editor interface is in English. More questions are answered in the FAQ.