The 10 Best Free Lightroom Presets to Create Stunning Portraits

Photography isn’t easy, and portrait presets help you make every photo look its best. You can enhance colors, smooth edges, and the environment fades stylishly into the background. And since you’re doing this in post-processing, you don’t need to get every image right when you’re shooting it.

To help you out, we’ve rounded up ten of the best free Lightroom portrait presets. Although they share a common theme, they differ greatly in design and styling. You’re sure to find one that’s perfect for every portrait photo you need to edit. Let’s explore the options.

Note: These free Adobe Lightroom portrait presets are used for Adobe Lightroom Classic. They are packaged with .xmp files. Check out our instructions for installing Lightroom presets at the bottom of this tutorial.

Slumberland gives your portrait photos a light, airy look. It’s especially useful if you have shadowy, dark images that you want to elevate to new heights.

Try it for fresh summer shots, album cover portraits, and more.

Do you think black and white portraits are flat and boring? Contrast Noir, a free preset, proves otherwise.

This preset boosts contrasts and makes portrait subjects stand out from their background stylistically. Photos retouched with this preset will definitely get a second look.

Cosmic Dancer is a flexible, color-focused portrait preset for Lightroom. It was designed to make hues pop and stand out.

This preset is worth using if you have smoother images that need a bit of pizzazz. It also works on your landscapes, making it a powerful resource in your editing toolbox.

Are you aiming for a bit of retro styling? The Portrait Matte preset delivers exactly that, with warm, matte tones applied throughout.

This one warms up colors while keeping them soft and visually appealing. It’s a great way to freshen up your favorite portraits.

Think of old historical photos in memory. Many have the faded brown and yellow sepia tones that come with age. You can add these to your modern portraits for a dash of timeless style!

This sepia preset helps you do just that, applying vintage shadows to any photo in Lightroom.

Wedding photos are some of the most memorable portraits you’ll ever take, and that means they deserve the best treatment during the editing process.

Take a Vow is a preset customized for wedding shots. It helps the happy couple stand out, background colors fading to avoid distractions.

Hopscotch is another color-forward portrait preset. It delivers an ethereal, bold styling to any portrait photo.

You’ll find that this one works best for creating funky, artsy shots. The more colorful they are to begin with, the more impact you will enjoy from the applied preset.

Elegant and graceful black-and-white portraits never go out of style. But it’s not a great idea to shoot in black and white. Take color photos, and convert them later using presets like Limograph.

This preserves creative flexibility; it is much more difficult to color images. Here, you’ll enjoy balanced, soft tones in grayscale photo design.

Vintage-styled images do not have to be uninteresting. They can be colorful, amazing works of art! Transform your photos precisely with the free Vintage Portrait preset.

This preset makes full use of yellow and orange tones for a classic, bright look. It’s an aesthetic that can’t be matched by a single camera.

Shadowze is the ultimate example of a black-and-white portrait preset. It’s built to mimic the look and feel of film photography, and to present photos in a high-contrast but balanced way, with few harsh tones.

Shadowze is a great example of a dominant portrait preset, working well with any subject.

How to install Adobe Lightroom Classic Presets