I go out and shoot a ton of images at time at various locations in Bangkok. Most of the time it’s those sweet honey-mooners or a family with small children that want to capture their magical time here in Thailand. During the peak seasons, I sometimes go to the Grand Palace and surrounding area 2-3 times a week just to go shoot some vacation photography.

Needless to say, I had to quickly figure out a way to edit my photos in the most efficient time possible while maintaining the highest of quality. There is a fine line of speeding up workflow and keeping quality control in check. I wanted to be able to stamp my own artistic DNA into the edited photos and also make sure it was consistent throughout the whole series.

Help is here…

In comes Lightroom Presets. After many, many years of trying to figure out the best settings to use, I have finally narrowed it down to my own personal preset, that I eventually called the ‘Thai Smile’ preset. It took me countless months of adjusting Split Toning, Hue & Saturation, levels of Shadows and Highlights, you name it; I touched and moved the slider millimeter by millimeter to get exactly what I wanted. I even added that much desirable matte/faded effect that you see on many beautiful travel photos. You’re welcome.

The Thai Smile Preset accentuates the golden colours which is prevalent in Thai architecture. Blues are brought out to draw attention to the (almost) always sunny skies and special whitening is added to pop the images more and give the impression of the endless summer we get around here. There’s a lot more tinkering that went on behind the scenes of course. But the bottom line is, this preset is the ultimate Thai holiday look.

The Thai Smile Preset can be now be purchased!