Workshop

Workshop brings out the heavy, honest light you find in forges, garages and old studios. Not the polished glow of a studio setup, but the kind of light that falls on a face mid-task. Warm, a little smoky, with shadows that don't get cleaned up but actually do the work.

The preset pulls down the midtone brightness and pushes the shadows lower without sealing them shut. That creates depth without losing detail. Highlights shift toward a warm orange-yellow, as if there's a bare bulb or a welder somewhere just out of frame. Cool tones in the background get quieted, drawing attention toward the warmer centre of the image. The contrast is firm but not dramatic. No hard split between light and dark, just a clear sense of weight.

This preset works best for portraits in industrial or craft environments: a mechanic in his garage, a welder on the shop floor, a chef in a professional kitchen, an artist in an old studio space. It also holds up outside those settings, as long as the light is warm and direct and the background doesn't carry bright competing colours. Think evening light in an old warehouse, or a portrait beside a campfire.

You reach for Workshop when you want a portrait that feels grounded. When you don't want your photo to look corrected or polished, but present and real. The preset builds on what's already there. It doesn't layer in atmosphere that wasn't in the shot to begin with. That also means it performs best on images with some existing warmth in the light and a background that isn't too clean or neutral.

A practical tip: if you're shooting in a space with mixed light sources, set your white balance manually somewhere between 3800 and 4500 Kelvin. That keeps the preset from running too orange or reading too cool after you apply it. Once it's on, use the temperature slider to fine-tune for each individual frame. Small adjustments per photo make the difference between a preset that fits and one that takes over.