The art of landscape photography doesn’t end with the click of a shutter. In today’s digital era, post-processing plays an equally pivotal role in creating breathtaking, emotionally resonant images. That’s where Lightroom presets come into play. These one-click enhancement tools have become a staple in every photographer’s editing workflow, especially for outdoor and nature photographers aiming to bring their landscapes to life.
With an overwhelming number of Lightroom presets available—both paid and free—it can be challenging to find ones that truly elevate your imagery without overwhelming it with overdone effects. That’s why we’ve meticulously compiled a collection of 35 exceptional free Lightroom presets for landscape photography that are not only versatile but also perform beautifully across various lighting conditions and styles. Whether you're after vibrant, colorful vistas, monochromatic serenity, or celestial nightscapes, these presets deliver refinement and aesthetic depth with minimal effort.
What Are Lightroom Presets?
Lightroom presets are predefined settings used to edit images in Adobe Lightroom Classic or Lightroom CC. These presets act as stylistic formulas that adjust numerous parameters—like exposure, contrast, white balance, saturation, and color grading—all in one go. They offer consistency across a photo series and allow photographers to achieve a signature look without starting from scratch each time.
Think of them as digital "looks" that can be applied instantly, transforming the mood and tone of a raw landscape photo into a striking visual narrative.
How to Install Lightroom Presets
Installing presets in Adobe Lightroom is a simple and intuitive process. Here are two easy methods:
Method 1: Import Directly Within Lightroom
Open the Develop module in Lightroom.
Locate the Presets panel on the left-hand side.
Click the “+” icon at the top-right of the panel.
Choose Import Presets and navigate to your downloaded files.
Select the presets and confirm. They will appear under User Presets or a specified folder.
Method 2: Manually Place Presets into Lightroom Folders
Open Preferences (on Windows: Edit > Preferences; on Mac: Lightroom > Preferences).
Navigate to the Presets tab.
Click “Show Lightroom Presets Folder”.
Inside the Lightroom directory, find and open the Develop Presets folder.
Drag your unzipped preset folder into this directory.
Restart Lightroom to view and use the new presets.
Color-Rich and Dynamic Landscape Presets
1. Adventure Glow
Source: Wanderlust by Fix the Photo
Adventure Glow is a versatile Lightroom preset that enhances the essence of untouched wilderness and vast natural scenery. Its ability to boost clarity without disrupting the organic harmony of the scene makes it ideal for travelers and photographers capturing panoramic terrain, lush valleys, or high-altitude plateaus. With subtle tweaks to shadow and vibrance settings, the preset introduces a lifelike sharpness and color intensity that feels both immersive and true to nature.
By reducing highlights and enriching shadow detail, Adventure Glow increases depth perception, especially in wide-angle landscape shots. This is a superb choice for anyone looking to maintain a photograph's authenticity while adding just enough polish to make it stand out in digital galleries or print formats.
Settings: Highlights: -36 | Shadows: +38 | Clarity: +21 | Vibrance: +20
2. Color Mirage
Source: Magic Nature by Fix the Photo
Color Mirage is a dramatic preset designed to bring out the hidden potential within your landscape photography. It emphasizes warmer color tones—particularly purples, reds, and magentas—infusing each image with a surreal yet believable quality. This preset is especially effective for photographs taken during twilight or late afternoon when the sun casts deeper tones and elongated shadows.
Rather than drastically altering your photo, Color Mirage works by amplifying the natural hues already present. The boosted contrast and increased clarity pull out intricate details, while enhanced shadows provide softness and dimension. This is the ideal tool for transforming floral landscapes, sunset ridges, and mountain skylines into visual poetry.
Settings: Contrast: +24 | Shadows: +31 | Clarity: +48 | Vibrance: +26
3. Canyon Dust
Source: Dull Slot Canyon by Exploring Exposure
Canyon Dust is a minimalist yet highly impactful preset designed to enrich earthy tones and add warmth to arid, sun-kissed landscapes. Perfect for desert photography, this preset specifically focuses on the HSL (Hue, Saturation, Luminance) panel, making targeted adjustments to yellows, oranges, and reds.
By deepening the saturation in these hues, Canyon Dust brings out the dramatic beauty in rock textures, sandstone cliffs, and canyon shadows. The result is a sun-drenched look that feels both cinematic and timeless. If you're editing images of the American Southwest, Moroccan deserts, or any dry environment with vibrant rock formations, this preset adds depth and warmth without over-processing the scene.
4. Dynamic Horizon
Source: High Contrast Scene – Light Shadows by Exploring Exposure
Dynamic Horizon is a bold preset for photographers seeking to amplify the tonal range in their outdoor images. It’s specifically engineered to improve detail in both highlights and shadows, making it ideal for midday or backlit photography where light extremes are common.
This preset heavily reduces highlights while lifting shadow detail, resulting in more balanced exposures across high-contrast scenes. It brightens whites just enough to maintain texture and definition in clouds and reflective surfaces while darkening blacks to improve structural elements in the foreground.
Dynamic Horizon is an indispensable choice for dramatic skies, expansive mountain ridges, and panoramic ocean views. It brings a visual equilibrium that’s perfect for both amateur enthusiasts and seasoned professionals looking to enhance realism with editorial flair.
Settings: Highlights: -100 | Shadows: +100 | Whites: +69 | Blacks: -46
5. Sunlit Clarity
Source: Classic Bright by Preset Love
Sunlit Clarity is a vibrant preset that simulates the luminosity of a sunny afternoon. It's especially effective for photographs captured in natural daylight, where clarity and color depth need to be emphasized without distorting the image's original tones.
This preset adjusts the exposure slightly upward to introduce lightness, while increased contrast and clarity help bring out details in grass, clouds, and water textures. The added vibrance and saturation make colors pop without crossing into unnatural territory, making this preset particularly effective for capturing rolling fields, coastlines, and mountainous trails bathed in sunlight.
Its balance of light and color gives the image a polished look, making it suitable for lifestyle, travel, and nature photography with editorial aspirations.
Settings: Exposure: +0.50 | Contrast: +21 | Vibrance: +20 | Saturation: +15
6. Breezy Tones
Source: Summer Breeze by Nicolesy
Breezy Tones is a soft-touch preset that enhances the subtle qualities of natural lighting. Designed to maintain the photograph's original aesthetic, it provides a quiet vibrance without overwhelming the frame. This preset works well with springtime meadows, lightly clouded skies, and peaceful seascapes.
Its strength lies in its simplicity—there are no extreme contrasts or heavy-handed alterations. Instead, Breezy Tones focuses on increasing vibrance, giving the colors a gentle lift. This makes the preset an excellent choice for those who prefer a light-handed editing approach that doesn't stray far from the camera's original capture.
Use it to add a whisper of enhancement to scenes filled with greenery, pastels, or soft light. The results are delicate yet undeniably improved.
Settings: Vibrance: +33
7. Radiant Summer
Source: Summertime by Nicolesy
Radiant Summer is a luminous preset that captures the spirit of long days and golden hours. With increased saturation and softened vibrance, it injects warmth and cheer into any landscape shot. It’s particularly suited for scenes with reflective surfaces like lakes, rivers, and sand, where the sunlight naturally dances across the frame.
What sets Radiant Summer apart is its ability to lighten dark shadows, revealing hidden details without compromising the overall exposure. At the same time, the preset pulls back vibrance just enough to avoid oversaturation. This balance creates an inviting, summer-fresh atmosphere perfect for travel bloggers, nature photographers, and content creators who want to evoke joy, freedom, and clarity in their work.
Settings: Saturation: +48 | Vibrance: -33
8. Cool Pop
From: Sucker Punch by Look Filter
Cool Pop is a distinctive preset that caters to photographers drawn to chillier tonal environments. It's a favored choice when the goal is to inject mood and depth into otherwise flat or neutral scenes. The tonal treatment leans into cooler color temperatures, casting a slight steel-blue ambiance across the frame. It simultaneously enhances shadows while preserving a strong sense of clarity—offering that cinematic coolness often seen in editorial or commercial landscape visuals.
With raised shadows and subdued saturation, Cool Pop is excellent for cloudy environments, mountain ridges, urban skylines at dusk, or overcast coastlines. The final image retains detail without excessive processing, making it suitable for both creative projects and professional portfolios.
Settings: Shadows: +25 | Clarity: +25 | Saturation: -15
9. Desert Flame
From: Enter Sandman by Look Filter
Desert Flame is the ideal preset for infusing your landscape photography with radiant warmth and a sense of sun-drenched nostalgia. It introduces a golden-hour glow that mimics the hue and luminance of late-day sunlight cascading over desert terrain. With a dramatic lift in shadows and a powerful increase in vibrance, this preset brings a burnt orange hue to rocks, sand, and any earthen surfaces, adding a rustic brilliance that evokes arid beauty.
What makes this preset stand out is its ability to simulate sunset light without oversaturating. The reduction in overall saturation keeps the image grounded, while the vibrance selectively enhances warm tones. Use it for desertscapes, savannas, or rugged, dry locales where warmth and depth define the natural ambiance.
Settings: Shadows: +38 | Vibrance: +20 | Saturation: -20
10. Coastal Fog
From: High Tide by Look Filter
Coastal Fog delivers an evocative, cinematic atmosphere that evokes early morning sea mist or gentle twilight over water. This preset casts a hazy softness over the image, particularly muting bright areas to create a diffused and tranquil effect. It’s especially suited for scenes where fog, overcast light, or marine haze naturally occur—such as beaches, harbors, cliff sides, or wooded coastlines.
It lightly boosts contrast to maintain some structural integrity, while the vibrance selectively intensifies cooler tones like teal and soft blue. The reduced saturation prevents color overkill, keeping the final result elegant and balanced. Coastal Fog is the perfect enhancement for moody seascapes or minimalist nature compositions that rely on subtle texture and layered light.
Settings: Contrast: +11 | Vibrance: +50 | Saturation: -35
11. Bold Definition
From: Very Dynamic by Preset Pro
True to its name, Bold Definition is an assertive preset designed to exaggerate every tonal nuance in your image. This preset is not for the faint of heart—it dives deep into contrast and clarity, ideal for those wanting to emphasize rock textures, bark details, or jagged terrain. The sharp contrast curve carves out every peak and valley, perfect for adding an epic quality to mountain scenes, cliffscapes, and glacial terrain.
Despite the aggressive enhancements, this preset avoids unnatural color shifts, letting natural tones speak with authority. It excels in photos where structure, shape, and detail are primary visual features. Use Bold Definition when you want to evoke strength, boldness, or awe-inspiring natural scale.
Settings: Contrast: +96 | Clarity: +40
12. Golden Touch
From: Warm Light by Preset Pro
Golden Touch is a beautifully restrained preset that delivers warmth and illumination reminiscent of golden hour photography. It brings out luminous details in forest scenes, autumn foliage, and softly backlit landscapes. By introducing warmth and enhancing midtone clarity, this preset wraps your image in a gentle glow without overprocessing.
One of its finest features is how it renders light naturally—mimicking the way sunlight diffuses through treetops or reflects off golden grasses. The preset enhances details subtly but noticeably, making it ideal for photographers seeking a polished, editorial finish. Whether you're capturing a winding trail through a golden forest or a sunbathed hillside, Golden Touch gives your photo emotional resonance.
Settings: Clarity: +45 | Vibrance: +35
13. Soft Radiance
From: A Beautiful Release by Trey Ratcliff
Soft Radiance is a poetic preset made for delicate light and gentle transitions. It reduces saturation while increasing exposure and clarity, creating a painterly feel that still preserves critical detail. This preset is best applied to early morning images or twilight landscapes, where natural light is muted but full of nuance.
It enhances the emotional tone of your photograph by favoring softness and balance over sharpness and contrast. Perfect for forest clearings, quiet meadows, or misty mountain ranges, Soft Radiance gives a dreamlike quality to compositions that might otherwise feel flat. This is the go-to preset for those aiming to capture introspection, serenity, or timeless beauty.
Settings: Exposure: +1.40 | Clarity: +45 | Saturation: -15
14. Sepia Dreams
From: Hotel of Budapest by Trey Ratcliff
Sepia Dreams channels the visual language of antique photography. With a classic sepia filter and gentle contrast, it casts a warm veil over your image, giving it an aged, romantic aesthetic. This preset reduces clarity to soften hard edges, resulting in a gentle blur that suits historic architecture, abandoned spaces, or ancient ruins nestled in the landscape.
While some sepia treatments can feel forced or artificial, Sepia Dreams retains a soft authenticity. Its muted contrast and subdued highlights allow the viewer to experience the photo almost like a memory, making it ideal for projects rooted in nostalgia or storytelling.
Settings: Clarity: -42 | Contrast: -6
15. Solar Storm
From: Alkaline Storm by Trey Ratcliff
Solar Storm is a bold and unconventional preset meant to infuse your landscape imagery with energy and vibrance. It bathes the scene in a saturated golden-yellow hue that mimics the overwhelming brilliance of midday sun in high deserts or open plains. The elevated highlight setting blasts bright regions of the image with intensity, while maintaining enough detail to avoid overexposure.
This preset thrives in stark, sunny environments where light plays a central role. From sand dunes to savannahs, Solar Storm creates visuals that feel sun-scorched and otherworldly. Use it with restraint, or embrace its unapologetic intensity for a creative edge in your nature photography.
Settings: Highlights: +86
16. Muted Horizon
From: Landscape Effect 16 by CreativeTacos
Muted Horizon is a contemplative preset crafted to replicate the quiet, subdued ambiance of overcast weather. Its adjustments yield an introspective mood, with softened contrast and a slightly enhanced clarity that reveals detail in subdued light without overpowering it.
Particularly effective in foggy forest scenes, overcast hills, or snowy clearings, this preset desaturates vibrant tones just enough to create a sense of distance and moodiness. It doesn't over-process shadows or highlights, allowing for a more natural rendering that resonates with realism. With its painterly neutrality, Muted Horizon works exceptionally well for storytelling projects, moody travel images, or thematic photo essays that call for a melancholic undertone.
Settings: Contrast: +12 | Clarity: +29
17. Twilight Chill
From: Landscape Effect 25 by CreativeTacos
Twilight Chill is tailored for those golden moments that blend day into night, where blue shadows meet the warm echoes of sunset. This preset uses a sophisticated interplay of red and blue saturations to establish a moody, cinematic atmosphere. The result is a visual chill that enhances cold tones without draining your image of life.
Ideal for snowy expanses, alpine lakes, or late-evening seascapes, Twilight Chill intensifies contrast while injecting clarity into the finer details. Ice textures, distant trees, and reflective water surfaces come alive with an almost glacial radiance. Unlike many evening-style presets that darken the entire composition, this one carefully sculpts the tonal curve to retain midtone balance and dynamic texture.
Settings: Contrast: +40 | Clarity: +48
18. Vintage Grain
From: Aged Film by Preset Love
Vintage Grain is a nostalgia-inducing preset that channels the imperfection and charm of analog film photography. It infuses your landscape shots with an aged patina, emulating the granular texture of vintage prints. The subtle grain overlay, coupled with a gentle vignette and custom tone curve, lends each photo a timeless aesthetic often seen in retro travel books or family heirloom albums.
What makes this preset stand out is its balance—while contrast is mildly elevated, it never feels aggressive. Greens become muted, shadows gain warmth, and blues are tempered, all contributing to a sense of timeless stillness. This preset is particularly suitable for rural scenes, abandoned buildings, old railway paths, and sepia-toned countryside imagery.
Settings: Contrast: +21 | Includes grain and vignette by default
19. Stormy Mood
From: Nature Lovers by Fix the Photo
Stormy Mood does precisely what its name suggests—it cloaks your landscape image in a veil of emotional intensity. This preset strips away vibrance and mutes the saturation while amplifying blacks and shadows to simulate the drama of an impending storm. With its brooding character, it transforms even a bland daylight photo into something heavy with atmosphere.
Ideal for windswept coastlines, cloudy mountain passes, or woodlands before rainfall, this preset enhances texture in foliage, clouds, and terrain. By dimming colorful elements, it puts the focus on shape, contrast, and narrative. The result feels poetic and cinematic, well-suited for editorial projects or dramatic nature photography.
Settings: Vibrance: -52
20. Rustic Fade
From: Autumn Vintage by Preset Love
Rustic Fade imparts a sun-bleached, pastoral look reminiscent of late summer afternoons and faded memories. This preset lifts the overall exposure slightly while pulling back the saturation, allowing earth tones to appear washed and vintage-like. It’s ideal for forest paths, abandoned barns, sun-drenched vineyards, and quaint rural scenes where light plays off wooden textures and golden foliage.
Its strength lies in its subtlety. Rather than pushing for drama, Rustic Fade suggests age and softness. Shadows remain intact while highlights are eased, maintaining detail in both sky and foreground. The slightly elevated warmth gives the photo a nostalgic air, perfect for storytelling through texture and tonality.
Settings: Exposure: +0.44 | Saturation: -36
21. Cinematic Cloud
From: Desaturated Cinema by Contrastly
Cinematic Cloud is a sophisticated preset built to replicate the understated style of cinematic film photography. It removes color distraction by heavily desaturating the image, placing emphasis on tonal balance, clarity, and visual emotion. The contrast remains soft, allowing shadows and midtones to blend seamlessly while maintaining structural integrity.
This preset excels in situations with flat lighting—overcast weather, foggy mornings, or dusk—that typically lack color pop. Instead of forcing saturation, it embraces neutrality. It’s ideal for storytelling, urban exploration, documentary-style nature photography, and even creative black-and-white transitions when you're looking to bridge the gap between color and monochrome.
Cinematic Cloud is a must-have for photographers aiming for editorial or journalistic visual storytelling, offering both mood and visual clarity.
Settings: Saturation: -50
22. Crimson Mist
From: Landscape Effect 2 by CreativeTacos
Crimson Mist is a poetic preset made for those quiet, mist-laced mornings when the sun hasn’t quite broken through. It gently bathes the image in a soft reddish hue while preserving the cool, muted essence of dawn. This color grading introduces a pastoral warmth without veering into overly saturated territory, maintaining the emotional tranquility often captured in early morning landscape shots.
The preset’s subtle contrast, elevated clarity, and high vibrance settings allow finer details—like dew on grass or distant treetops—to emerge through the veil of fog or overcast skies. Ideal for tranquil fields, lakeside imagery, or wide-angle forest scenes with light mist, Crimson Mist provides a painterly quality that pairs beautifully with serene natural settings.
Settings: Vibrance: +50 | Clarity: +48
23. Drama Film
From: Cinematic Film by Preset Pro
Drama Film is a visually arresting preset designed to deliver a brooding, almost cinematic atmosphere. It desaturates the image to remove distracting colors while employing a grain-heavy texture and a darkened highlight structure. The added dehaze setting intensifies depth and grunge, allowing this preset to mimic the gritty nuance of old film or stylized movie stills.
Best used in dramatic lighting or stormy environments, Drama Film accentuates strong shadows, leading lines, and architectural elements in your landscape. It's particularly effective for urban ruins, dramatic coastlines, moody forests, or mountain passes shrouded in fog. This preset does more than enhance an image—it transforms it into a visual narrative with edge and gravity.
Settings: Highlights: -100 | Dehaze: +7
Astrophotography Lightroom Presets for Night Landscapes
Landscape photography doesn’t have to end at sunset. With the right tools, night skies can become the most magical canvases. The following Lightroom presets for astrophotography help illuminate stars, enhance contrast between celestial elements, and preserve the mystery of the dark sky—all while maintaining image quality.
24. Starlight Boost
From: Alhena by Film Speck One
Starlight Boost is a minimalist preset designed for night-sky purists. Rather than turning your starry landscapes into saturated light shows, this preset takes a restrained approach—enhancing vibrance and clarity just enough to make the stars and galaxies feel closer, crisper, and more alive.
It’s the ideal preset for photographers capturing the Milky Way over silhouetted mountains, stars reflecting on calm lakes, or constellations in dark wilderness areas. By slightly enriching color tones and maintaining natural darkness, Starlight Boost evokes wonder without exaggeration, preserving the organic beauty of the cosmos.
Settings: Vibrance: +23
25. Galactic Contrast
From: Brandenburg by Film Speck One
Galactic Contrast is a more intense preset that deepens the shadows of your night images while highlighting celestial elements through bold contrast and clarity enhancements. The result is a surreal, almost dreamlike view of the stars—where every light source feels isolated and deliberate, creating high drama and depth.
Particularly well-suited for astrophotographers capturing galactic cores, auroras, or even light-polluted environments that need extra tonal shaping, this preset strikes a fine balance between fantasy and realism. It brings a professional edge to star photography, transforming a flat sky into a multidimensional space.
Settings: Contrast: +66 | Clarity: +60
26. Night Glow
From: Terebellum by Film Speck One
Night Glow is the boldest astro-themed preset in the Film Speck One collection. It’s designed for those who want to extract every possible detail from the dark sky while enhancing overall exposure and clarity. This preset works especially well in very dark, remote locations where light sources are minimal and sky conditions are pristine.
With elevated contrast and midtone shaping, Night Glow carves out crisp constellations and interstellar clouds from a pitch-black canvas. It works wonders on deep-sky astrophotography and time-lapse frames, giving your images that glowing edge without introducing artificial brightness or color noise.
Settings: Contrast: +50 | Clarity: +44
Monochrome Landscape Preset for Dramatic Black-and-White Effects
Some landscapes are best expressed without color. In fact, removing the distraction of hue can sometimes heighten texture, form, and atmosphere. Black-and-white presets allow landscape photographers to create timeless, contemplative, or gritty compositions that feel both classic and bold.
27. Shadow Play
From: Landscape Effect 21 by CreativeTacos
Shadow Play is a compelling black-and-white preset engineered for depth, structure, and tonal clarity. It is ideal for harsh environments—cliff faces, rocky deserts, jagged peaks—where texture and contour define the landscape more than color. The preset uses powerful clarity and dehaze settings to sharpen edges and bring out micro-contrast across the frame.
Instead of a flat monochrome conversion, Shadow Play retains dramatic tonal separation. Whites remain bright, blacks are rich, and grays are nuanced, producing a full-bodied monochrome experience. This preset works especially well when paired with directional lighting or high-noon shadows, where stark contrast naturally occurs in the terrain.
Settings: Clarity: +100 | Dehaze: +7
28. Dark Matter
From: Monoceros by Film Speck One
Dark Matter is a formidable monochrome preset designed for landscapes that demand intensity and structure. Unlike standard black-and-white conversions, this preset plunges deep into the shadows while pulling highlights into a controlled softness. It creates a brooding aesthetic reminiscent of stormy weather or dusk over distant peaks.
This preset works particularly well with stark mountains, granite cliffs, stormy coastlines, or barren highlands—anywhere drama is built into the scene. The high clarity setting sharpens natural textures like jagged rocks or heavy cloud layers, resulting in a moody masterpiece suitable for fine art prints or atmospheric portfolios.
Settings: Highlights: -93 | Clarity: +59
29. Sepia Grain
From: Broken Photocopier by Trey Ratcliff
Sepia Grain resurrects the look and feel of vintage photography by combining a muted sepia palette with subtle fade and texture. The charm of this preset lies in its nostalgic impression, enhancing the tactile qualities of aged materials such as weathered stone, dry wood, or sun-bleached foliage.
Designed for rural landscapes, rustic architecture, or forgotten pathways, Sepia Grain bathes your image in timeless warmth while retaining clarity in the midtones. It's not just a stylistic treatment—it’s a narrative device, transporting viewers to a different time and place.
Settings: Contrast: +50
30. Retro Mono
From: Aged B&W Print by Nicolesy
Retro Mono offers a soft-focus interpretation of classic monochrome photography. It subtly curves the tonal range to bring out midtones while gently fading shadows, mimicking the aesthetic of aged black-and-white prints often found in family albums or historical archives.
A delicate vignette surrounds the image, drawing attention toward the center while preserving the natural grain and organic feel. This preset is best used for portraits within landscapes, nostalgic travel images, or minimalist compositions where form and balance matter more than punchy contrast.
31. IR Vision
From: B&W Infrared by Gumroad
IR Vision replicates the surreal and ethereal appearance of traditional infrared photography—where leafy greens appear glowing white, and skies turn nearly black. Using a customized B&W profile, this preset reinterprets light and shadow in a uniquely spectral manner, perfect for forested areas, botanical gardens, or any scene dominated by lush foliage.
By altering tonal weights within the black-and-white filter panel, IR Vision brings stark visual contrast while preserving photographic harmony. It’s ideal for photographers looking to explore otherworldly aesthetics or offer a creative departure from standard color work.
Settings: Custom profile used via B&W panel and calibration controls
32. Chroma Ghost
From: B&W Infrared by Preset Love
Chroma Ghost leans into a stylized infrared effect that exaggerates the contrast between vegetation and sky. Unlike traditional infrared, it adds strong clarity and lifts shadows to bring more dimension into black-and-white imagery, producing a spectral but clean finish.
This preset is fantastic for photographers working in parks, nature reserves, or rural farmlands who want to create otherworldly visuals without relying on actual IR filters. The blend of high clarity and strategic B&W filter mapping provides depth, movement, and unexpected tonal variety.
Settings: Clarity: +51 | Shadows: +69
Creative Effects and Light Flares for Artistic Landscapes
While tone curves and color balance are the backbone of editing, sometimes a creative flourish—like a sun flare or vintage light leak—can elevate your landscape into the realm of visual storytelling. These last three Lightroom presets provide just that: special effects that simulate light phenomena in ways both tasteful and engaging.
33. Golden Lens Flare
From: Sun Flare by PresetPro
Golden Lens Flare introduces a naturalistic, warm light burst from one side of the image, designed to mimic the sun peeking from just outside the frame. It uses a subtle gradient filter to wash one edge of the composition in amber glow, enriching everything from autumn leaves to ocean waves with soft, directional light.
This preset is best used on photos with clear light sources—like sunrise or sunset shots—where the addition of a flare intensifies emotion without overwhelming the image. The slight exposure drop balances the artificial light, creating a believable and cinematic finish.
Settings: Exposure: -1.00 | Dehaze: +6
34. Highlight Haze
From: Sun Flare by Nicolesy
Highlight Haze creates a soft luminescent overlay across the central part of your image. Rather than simulate a specific light source, this preset brightens the midtones and introduces a glowing softness to the highlights. It’s ideal for forest scenes where sunlight filters through trees or for meadow compositions basked in golden-hour light.
A boosted vibrance paired with reduced saturation prevents overexposure while allowing the warmth to gently flow through the frame. It offers an ethereal, dreamy impression—perfect for wedding landscapes, lifestyle backdrops, or peaceful nature photography.
Settings: Vibrance: +74 | Saturation: -25
35. Red Leak Left
From: Light & Flare Red Line Left by Phlearn
Red Leak Left emulates the light leaks found in old film rolls, applying a reddish vertical streak from the left side of the image. This stylistic choice adds retro character and works beautifully with nostalgic or creative compositions. It’s best applied sparingly and intentionally, as it adds a bold visual element that can easily dominate the frame.
This preset is particularly suited for vintage-themed edits, roadside travel series, or urban decay landscapes where visual imperfection adds to the story. It does not modify the core image settings, relying entirely on gradient overlay magic to evoke analog texture.
Final Thoughts
These carefully chosen 35 free Lightroom presets for landscape photography offer a wide range of post-processing styles—from vivid enhancements to nostalgic hues and creative light effects. They not only improve efficiency but also provide a launching point for your own creative interpretations.
While these presets are powerful, they’re not one-size-fits-all. The true artistry lies in personalization—tweaking these base adjustments to match your image’s unique light, color, and emotion. Use these presets as a foundation and let your editing style evolve with each frame you capture.
Whether you’re new to photo editing or a seasoned landscape photographer, these free tools provide you with the means to consistently produce stunning, gallery-worthy imagery.
