This Mac App Will Convert Your Lightroom Presets to Camera Raw Presets in One Click

Last Updated on 01/30/2018 by Mark Beckenbach

Using Lightroom Presets in Camera RAW has always been possible, but also a pain to set up. But not anymore, thanks to Preset Brewery.

While it may not be the most common issue for photographers to run into, it is possible that you have at some point or another wanted to utilize the creative looks made available by some of your Lightroom presets while processing an image in Photoshop. This would usually mean opening the image in Lightroom, applying the preset, and then using Lightroom to open the image in Photoshop. But what if you didn’t want to open Lightroom first?

You could convert your Lightroom presets to Camera RAW presets and just process the image complete in Photoshop. But unfortunately, Lightroom presets and Camera RAW presets are not interchangeable, despite being almost identical. So one must convert their Lightroom presets to Camera RAW presets and the process has always been convoluted and annoying. But that issue, at least for Mac users using macOS 10.10+, is a thing of the past thanks to an app called Preset Brewery.

Preset Brewery is a MacOS app that allows photographers to take their Lightroom presets and convert them into Camera RAW presets by a simple drag and drop process. The app, which is now on version 1.1, takes your Lightroom preset and converts it automatically to a Camera RAW compatible version, and even automatically places it in the correct Camera RAW folder for you so that the next time you open Camera RAW your presets are there waiting for you.

To say this is a long time coming, and honestly, something Adobe should have functionality for, is a huge understatement. But for Mac users, this will be a big benefit if the time ever comes that you need to bring your Lightroom presets into Camera RAW for any reason.

Unfortunately, as noted, this is a Mac only app, and as far as public knowledge goes there is no Windows version in the works (but maybe if enough of you email them they will make one). So, PC users will either need to enlist one of their Mac-owning buddies to do some preset conversion for you, or you will need to just convert them manually – the tedious and annoying way.

MacOS users will still need to convert each individual preset one at a time. But the process will still be much faster than using the old method, and it appears that, in future releases, users will be able to batch convert multiple presets at once. Barton, the app’s developer, told Fstoppers, “in an upcoming release, users will have the ability to batch process presets versus having to convert them one at a time.”

Those of you interested in the app can find it over on the company’s website, but it isn’t free. You will have to pay them a whopping $7.90 for the convenience of this app: a very reasonable price considering the tedious process it is saving you from doing – over, and over, and over again.

Now we just need something like this to convert Lightroom presets into Capture One Styles and we could die happy knowing the world was a better place.