March

March is not a gentle preset. It resembles the month itself: restless, sharp, full of contradiction. Light breaks through and disappears again. The street shines with rain, then suddenly pulls hard white light across everything. This preset captures that moment between winter and spring, the short period when the world has not yet decided what it wants to be. Black and white, because colour would lie here.

Technically, March works with high contrast and hard tonal separation. The highlights go bright, almost aggressively bright. The shadows drop deep but hold detail where it counts. The midtones are narrow, which produces a rendering with little room for ambiguity. There is no smooth curve blending everything together. Texture in faces, pavements, coats, wet walls, all of it comes forward. The preset uses a firm black point setting and a slight grain adjustment, so the result feels analogue without trying to imitate it.

March works best in hard light conditions: overcast skies with breaks of sun, backlight in the city, rain on glass, people in hoods moving fast. Outdoor portraits in daylight, with raw and unfiltered light, respond well. Street scenes with strong lines and diagonals, architecture with falling shadows, crowds on a grey square. Anywhere the light has something to say but has not decided yet.

You reach for March when you want a photo that does not ask for attention but demands it. When the scene was already dramatic and you want to honour that rather than smooth it over. When you have a portrait where atmosphere matters more than the smile. The preset suits photographers who prefer minimal editing and still want a clear, committed result.

One practical tip: after applying the preset, lower the exposure by a third to half a stop when shooting in strong outdoor light. March is calibrated for average ambient light conditions. In high light situations the highlights can clip quickly, and that costs you the detail in the upper tonal range, which is where a lot of the character sits.