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Graduated Filter Presets not Cumulative?

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reidthaler

Reid
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Jul 4, 2008
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I created some presets for the graduated filter, to underexpose. I made one each for top, bottom, left, and right. They work, but when I try to use two of them together on the same image, the first preset adjustment disappears.

What's wrong?

Thanks,

Reid
 
The problem is that when you save the preset, you define that the new filter will override all existing ones. There is no way not to override. This is a limitation (bug) in Lightroom, because it should not be necessary to reset old filters when you add a new one through a preset. For global settings it makes sense, because a global slider can only have one position. For filters it does not make sense, but it seems that nobody at Adobe noticed or felt the need to change it.
 
It's not really about the xmp, but about how Develop presets work in Lightroom. They aren't relative or cumulative - they replace any corresponding Develop setting.

So if a preset has +1 Exposure, that doesn't mean that it adds 1 to the image's existing Exposure value. It means that it sets the image's Exposure to +1. It's the same thing with presets that contain local adjustments.

Adobe could implement relative or cumulative presets, of course, and one can see reasons why that may be desirable.
 
Presets are very simple to read and to edit, because they are in plain text. For example, you can save a white balance preset and then open it with a text editor and delete the 'Tint = ...' line in the preset. That will give you a preset that will only change the temperature, and leave the tint as set. For some reason this preset doesn't work on import (it will change the tint nevertheless) but it does work later on.

It might be possible to change a gradient filter preset so it adds a filter and does not delete existing filters, but I don't know what you would have to add or change (or if it's possible at all).
 
It might be possible to change a gradient filter preset so it adds a filter and does not delete existing filters, but I don't know what you would have to add or change (or if it's possible at all).

Not easily, Johan. The preset contains a series of values for each individual filter with each element contained in {} brackets, so you would need to identify the image's existing graduated filter values (most readily by creating and editing a new preset), then insert them into the preset you want to apply. It's possible but tricky with all those {} and commas. A plugin could do it though.

John
 
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