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Free Lightroom presets

Nightfall

— Evol Light —

For shooting after dark. Receptions, blue hour, city streets — without the flat, dead look.

Download — free
.xmp · 16 presets + 3 masked extras · Lightroom Classic, desktop & mobile · 30 KB · no signup
Why these exist

Night photos usually lose the night

You get the exposure right and the picture still looks like nothing. The blacks go grey, the lights don't glow, and none of it feels like being there.

Most night presets hand you one slider called Glow. But the glow in a film photo is really two things — the haze the lens throws over the whole frame, and the warm bleed that only ever shows up around a bright light. They're separate, so this pack keeps them separate.

How to use it

One click, or build it up

Set your white balance and exposure first. Then click 00a for a reception, 00b for blue hour, or 00c for city and neon, and you're done.

Or build your own. Same number means same job — pick one. Different numbers stack.

01
Air a Coated · b Vintage · c Uncoated
Haze over the whole frame. How old your lens feels.
02
Density a Deep · b Print
Rich blacks that still hold their falloff.
03
Illuminant a Tungsten · b Blue Hour · c Sodium & LED
What colour the light is. Pick the one that matches where you were.
04
Mesopic a Half · b Full
Drains colour the way your eyes do in the dark. Go easy on faces.
05
Sources
Stops neon and streetlights blowing into flat blobs.
06
Grain a Push 800 · b Push 3200
Grain, plus the noise cleanup night shots need.

Everything except the one-click looks has an Amount slider, so if something's too strong, turn it down rather than skipping it.

On real files

Shot and edited with these

My own work, straight out of this pack.

Photos go here.
assets/img/made/nightfall/
The three masked extras

Read this bit before installing them

The bonus folder has three presets that add a mask. They're the only ones in the whole line that do, and masks work differently:

  • Lightroom adds preset masks, it never replaces them.
  • No preset can remove a mask. Not these, not anyone's.
  • Apply one twice and you get two. Delete the spare by hand in the Masking panel.

That's how Lightroom works, not something wrong with these files. It's also why the main pack has no masks at all and none of the one-click looks contains one — the two folders are separate in the download, so you can install the main pack and never see a mask. Needs Lightroom Classic 11 or newer.

M1
Halation — Core
The tight warm glow right at the edge of a bright light.
M2
Halation — Skirt
The wider, fainter bleed further out. Stack it under M1 for the full thing, or use it alone for something subtler.
M3
Sources — Path to White
Lets the middle of a neon tube go white while the glow around it stays coloured, the way film does. Use it with 05, not instead of it.
Using all three packs

With Emulsion and Silver

Nightfall stacks on Emulsion fine. A few things write the same setting, so whichever you click last wins: the curves (Nightfall 02 and Emulsion 01), the grain (both 06), Nightfall 05 against Emulsion 02, and Emulsion's Glow against Nightfall's Air.

Silver and Nightfall mostly don't mix, since Silver takes out the colour these work on. Density and grain are fine on a black and white though.

Installing

Same as the last two

Lightroom Classic

Develop → Presets panel → the + button → Import Presets.

If nothing shows up, quit Lightroom completely and reopen it.

Lightroom desktop

File → Import Profiles & Presets → select the zip.

Lightroom mobile

Open a photo → Edit → Presets → tap Yours → three-dot menu → Import Presets.

The import button only lives under "Yours".
Tell me what's wrong with them

Especially the masked ones

Every fix so far has come from running these on real photos rather than from theory. If something's off, say so — and if you make something with them, post it. I'd like to see.

@rezaevol find me on Threads
The fine print, briefly

Use them on anything

Personal work, client work, prints, commercial jobs — all fine, no attribution needed, though it's always nice. Just please don't resell the files, put them in a paid bundle, or re-host the download somewhere else. Link back here instead so people get the current version. Provided as-is; every photo you make with them is entirely yours.

go shoot something dark
Download Nightfall
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