Review: Signature Edit’s Genesis Lightroom Preset Pack

Signature Edit’s Genesis Lightroom Preset Pack is an excellent and affordable option if you are a photographer wanting to up your photo editing game.

These presets are designed to bring added warmth and moodiness to your photos. Emphasis is placed on creating natural but glowing skin tones for portrait photography, as well as rich tones for environmental shots.

In the name of transparency, we were provided with a free copy of these presets to check out. This is a really cool opportunity as we are able to put them to the test for our readers to check out.

The great news about presets like these is that the quality is immediately recognizable when you check out some of our sample image conversions below. Few products out there have this immediate gratification of being able to transform something so significantly at a click of the button. The SE Genesis presets do just that!

What you get with the SE Genesis Preset Pack + LR Workflow

We have purchased quite a few preset packs in the past, and generally the purchase is less than exciting because they tend to be just a simple LR preset file, and that is it.

In the case of Signature Edit’s Genesis pack, you actually get a little more!

Here is what is included:

1). Presets

Of course, the presets are obvious!

With this, you receive 20 total presets that have diverse photo editing applications.

In these, there are 5 primary “looks” to the presets, with some of the presets serving different intensities and editing applications.

For example, the Genesis 01 is a great baseline preset that will apply in a large range of standard lighting scenarios. But, if you switch over to the Genesis 01NIGHT preset, it will allow Lightroom to more seamlessly adapt to images shot later in the evening. Sometimes, these tweaks are pretty minor – like alterations to the Exposure levels – but it allows SE’s product to keep the promise of simple, easy, and one-click edits for most images.

The full preset listing looks like this:

GENESIS 01
GENESIS 01+
GENESIS 01++
GENESIS 01NIGHT

GENESIS 02
GENESIS 02+
GENESIS 02++
GENESIS 02NIGHT

GENESIS 03
GENESIS 03+
GENESIS 03++
GENESIS 03NIGHT

GENESIS 04
GENESIS 04+
GENESIS 04++
GENESIS 04NIGHT

GENESIS X3 B&W Tri
GENESIS X3 B&W Tri +
GENESIS X3 B&W Tri ++
GENESIS X3 B&W Tri Denoise

2). Training Materials

This is one of the best features of this pack and is honestly something we wish was included in other preset products. This Signature Edit’s product comes with video tutorials and sample images that you can drag into Lightroom and practice on.

The tutorial videos are really helpful – especially to those of you who are new to using LR presets and editing photos.

While you may find plenty of free resources on how to edit images in Lightroom online, this is very helpful for editing specifically with these presets.

The training videos included:

• Overview, Tips, and Basic Edits (38 minutes)
• Workflow Demo – Editing a Full Wedding (1.5 hours)
• Workflow Demo – Editing a Full Engagement Session (24 minutes)

As we have learned in the course of YEARS of experience taking photos and editing them, getting the right edit is not a one-trick pony. What we’ve had to learn the hard way, this extra training content helps bring users up to speed quickly.

3). Complete Lightroom Workflow System

The Signature Edit’s Genesis Collection is designed to be more than just presets as we’ve shown, it’s a system for getting the best possible edits from start-to-finish.

Once you’ve loaded everything up in LR, you will want to apply your preset of choice to the image.

From there, you can further enhance your images using a collection of customized Lightroom brushes to make your photos even better. On the surface, you may see this as a more advanced feature of LR, and certainly it takes a little more effort to apply than a one-click preset. But, have no fear, these are really easy to use and you will be AMAZED and how they impact your images overall look.

In total, you get 17 adjustment brushes to retouch, enhance, and add special effects to your edits!

9 RETOUCHING BRUSHES

01 SkinSoften+Desaturate
02 Line Diminisher
03 Hair + Lashes
04 Lip Enhancer
05 Eye Brightener
06 Iris Enhancer
07 Catchlight Enhancer
08 Catchlight Creator
09 Teeth Whitener

5 ENHANCEMENT BRUSHES

01 Add Texture
02 Water | Sky | POP
03 Cloud Enhancer
04 Dreamy Dehaze
05 Brooding Dehaze Darken

3 SPECIAL EFFECTS BRUSHES

01 Sun Flare
02 Sun Flare Subtle
03 Save Blown Out Sky (Range Mask)

4). Lightroom Mobile Bonus

As it’s becoming increasingly common for photographers to edit images on the go, the LR Mobile compatible version of the Genesis Collection presets is a great addition. It’s the same great presets and other features available at your finger tips for seamless editing on mobile devices.

5). Great Customer Support

One of the things I really like about Signature Edit’s is their customer care.

Most places selling Lightroom presets have no refund policies as these are digital goods.

Signature Edit’s offers a 30-day money back guarantee.

This makes your (honestly inexpensive) purchase of the Genesis Preset Collection 100% risk free. If you don’t get what you need from these presets, you can get your money back.

But…you probably won’t need a refund, because the rest of our review will show you exactly what kind of results you can expect.

If you like the editing style…you know, the look-and-feel…then it’s really a no brainer to pick this up!

How to Get a Great Edit with SE’s Genesis Presets

To help show you just how great these presets are, we’ve put together a number of sample images with a before-and-after slider, so you can see for yourself!

All of these images have been taken by us of various subjects – with a large emphasis on couple’s portraits and wedding photography (our professional specialties!). On the left, you will see the raw, unedited image (in JPEG format). And on the right, you’ll be able to see the fully edited photo after applying a Genesis preset to it.

You can drag the slider icon to compare the unedited and edited images! 🙂

If you’re into photography of couples (portraits, engagements, weddings, etc.), then you should also check out Signature Edit’s The Candid Couples Posing Guide. We reviewed that one in depth too, and it’s really helped us up our portrait game big time!

Conclusion

The Signature Edit’s Genesis Lightroom Preset Collection is an excellent value and will impact your photo editing immediately after buying and applying to your photos.

These presets offer a moody and cinematic feel to the images, which is a look you are after, you will feel right at home using these.

From our use of these presets, we can safely say that they work as intended. With one-click (or very minimal adjustments), you can get the right edit. For professional photographers editing up galleries of hundreds of photos, this is extremely beneficial as it will save a lot of time and energy trying to get the right edit. For non-pros out there, these are still a great preset because the results are stunning – they speak for themselves as you have seen.

Feel convinced that Genesis is right for you? Buy the Collection today!