Review of the Sleeklens workflow for Lightroom

Lightroom can be really overwhelming for an inexperienced user. Even more experienced users can get lost in Lightroom too. Lightroom has a lot of features, buttons and menu’s which can start to become a timesink if you didn’t figure out a decent workflow for yourself.

Recently I got the opportunity to play around with the “Through the Woods” landscape workflow created by a company called Sleeklens. This workflow is the result of many landscape photographers coming together and giving input on what they use and want in a workflow.

This article contains ‘affiliate’ links to Sleeklens. If you click on them and buy something, I will receive a percentage as commission. Thank you for your support.

How does this workflow work?

After you downloaded the installation package and opening, you will receive the following:

• ~50 Lightroom presets
• ~30 Lightroom brushes
• Installation instructions (Yes, yes. Clear instructions too!)
• A recipe list

I know what you are thinking. A recipe list? What’s that? Cooking lessons? Well…sort of. Keep reading and I’ll explain.

After installing you will see that the presets are categorised in:

Lightroom_screenshot_sleeklens

• All-in-one
• Stackable presets
  • Base
  • Exposure
  • Color correction
  • Tone & Tint
  • Polish
  • Vignette

All-in-one presets are what they say they are. Presets that give you a certain look in one-click. The stackable presets are where it get interesting in my opinion. The stackable presets can be used together. One of these presets doesn’t usually give you the look you want, but several can come very close to your desired look.

Now how does this work? If you start editing a photo in Lightroom, you start with the Base category, then Exposure, Color correction etc etc.

Here is an example:

Almost done in 6 clicks

I was pretty much done in 6 clicks using these stackable presets in Lightroom. However I did find the foreground to dark at this point and wanted to increase the glow of the sun on the water. This is where the supplied brushes become useful.

You can use brushes with Radial or Gradiant filters. I used the “Add Golden Sun”- brush with a Radiant filter and reduced the saturation slightly to not make the effect too much. This can be seen on the below image (left).

After that I used a Gradiant filter to increase the exposure of the foreground (right image)

“Lightroom presets are a huge help and timesaver”

Recipe list

And if you are still learning or want a specific look? Sleeklens supplies a ‘recipe list’ with looks and how to get these looks including which presets and brushes to use.

Would I buy and use this workflow?

Editing this image took only a few minutes with these presets. The good thing is you can make hundreds of different looks with these Sleeklens presets within minutes after downloading and installing. It’s fast, easy and produces good results with little effort. The All-in-one presets work with some images, but the strenght of this workflow comes from the stackable presets. If you need help with Lightroom and always wanted a decent Lightroom package to get you started with your Landscape images, then I would recommend checking out the Sleeklens Through The Woods Presets.

I am going to use these presets in my workflow and experiment some more. If you are interested in using these as your workflow, you can find more information here.

Sleeklens also sells a pretty similar workflow for Photoshop. You can find more information here. I hope this article helps you in your image processing workflow. If you have any questions, you can leave a comment below.