This tutorial will show you how to create and sell your own Lightroom Mobile Presets step by step.

What Do You Need To Create Lightroom Mobile Presets?

In order to simply create and save presets in the Lightroom app for your own use, Lightroom Mobile is all you need. But if you are planning to export them from the app and sell them, you will need the Desktop version of Lightroom Classic CC. Unfortunately, at the moment there is no way to export and sell Lightroom Mobile presets using the free mobile app only.

To subscribe to Lightroom Desktop (and get Photoshop as a bonus) click here. Choose the Photography plan, which costs about $10 per month.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you install Lightroom Classic CC and NOT Lightroom CC. Although the Photography plan includes both, Lightroom Classic is more advanced. It has more extensive editing options and it is easier to create and export presets with it. If you are not finding some of the menu options in the tutorial below, check your software and make sure it’s Lightroom Classic CC and that you have the latest version.

What Is A Lightroom Preset?

Lightroom is a professional photo editing program that allows you to edit your photos very precisely. You can edit each color separately, as well as the highlights, shadows, tone curve, and any other metric you can think of. Since there are so many different settings you can adjust, Lightroom allows you to save a set of settings as a “preset”, which you can later use on other photos.

So a preset is similar to a filter because you can apply it to different photos in one click. But it’s also a little better than a filter, because after you apply it you can still adjust parts of it without having to change the whole preset.

That’s what makes Lightroom Presets a great way to edit but it also requires a little more knowledge and practice. Check out our custom Lightroom Presets for Mobile and Desktop here.

Step 1: Make Your Edits On Cover Photos

To sell your Mobile presets you need to create them by editing a cover photo in Lightroom and then exporting that cover photo in DNG format. The DNG file preserves the edits you’ve made to the photo and allows the person who downloads it to save a preset out of it.

What Cover Photos Should I Use For My Presets?

We use our own photos and we make sure they don’t have any extreme colors and the light distribution is even before editing. That ensures that your presets would not be over or underexposed.

If you don’t have high-quality photos of your own, you can use stock photos.

Make sure you only use photos you have the rights to, purchased from photo stock sites or license-free ones. DO NOT just take someone else’s photos off the internet and use them without permission to showcase your own presets. This is illegal around the world and the photo creators can come after you and even sue you for damages for unauthorized breach of copyright.

We have done this many times with people who use our photos without asking and have even won settlements for thousands of dollars!

How To Make Your DNG File Size Smaller

To make sure your customers don’t have to download huge DNG files, resize your photos down to a small size using Photoshop’s Save For Web option. Start with this step BEFORE you upload your photos into Lightroom for editing and preset creation. That way when you export them as DNG files they will end up smaller in size. You won’t be able to resize the DNG files once they’re exported.

To do this, open your cover photos in Photoshop and go to:

File -> Export -> Save For Web

Next you will see the Save For Web panel. You can play with the settings here but this is what we use. Set the file type to JPEG and quality to 50. We usually lower the image size to 1500 px width and change quality setting to Bicubic Smoother.

Then click Save and repeat this for all of your cover photos.

You will notice that the file size is way smaller than what you started with. In our example the photo went from 6mb to 216kb.

Once you’re done with this with all of your cover photos, import these reduced JPEG files into Lightroom and make your edits on them.

Edit Your Photo

To create a preset you need to know how to edit a photo in Lightroom. Learning how to edit takes a long time of practicing and mastering each setting. It also takes quite a bit of time to develop your own style. But that’s a whole different topic so I won’t get into it here.

Select a photo you want to edit in Lightroom Mobile and make your edits.

Step 2: Export Presets As DNG For Lightroom Mobile

Now that you’ve created your mobile presets in Lightroom Classic, you just need to export them so you can sell them.

Export Presets As DNG

For each cover photo containing your preset edits, export as DNG to your computer:

Click on File -> Export with Preset -> Export to DNG

Select where you want the files to be exported.

NOTE: If you don’t see this option, you most likely don’t have the right version of Lightroom installed. Make sure you have Lightroom Classic CC (not Lightroom CC) and make sure your version is up to date.

Sell Your Presets!

That’s it, your new Lightroom Mobile presets are ready to go 🙂 To sell them, you just need to get the DNG files to your customers.

Step 3: How To Sell Lightroom Mobile Presets

If you already have an existing blog on WordPress, you can simply get an ecommerce plugin, which will allow you to create a store on your site and sell digital products. We use WooCommerce plugin on our WordPress blog to sell our presets.

But if that’s too complicated or you don’t have an existing site, Sellfy might be a better option for you. Sellfy is an ecommerce platform that will help you set up your own store quickly. They have store templates, payment processing, reviews, and everything else you need to sell digital products. It’s easy to use and the best solution if you are starting from scratch and want to get your store up and running fast. We are currently running a promotion for 10% off your Sellfy plan if you sign up through this link.

For instructions on how your customers can install the DNG files and save them as presets, click here. You can refer your customers to this link to help them install their new presets.

Let us know if you have any questions in the comments.

LIKE THIS POST? SAVE IT ON PINTEREST!