Cross-Processing

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Cross-Processing free Lightroom preset makes images look cross-processed by coating them with warm green tones. It also produces rich and vibrant colors to complement its vintage aesthetic.

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Creates a Vibrant Vintage Look

Produces Vivid Dark Regions

Optimizes Color Intensity

Cross-Processing is for Lightroom Mobile, Desktop and…

Thanks to this preset, you can now apply a cross-processed look to your digital photos. With a single click, even without knowing how to process slide film, you can apply this iconic analog style. After all, even if it is a retro look, the entire aesthetic remains timeless and always in fashion.

Because of its professional yet distinct look, Cross-Processing preset makes an ideal Instagram film. It would enhance your images and give them a polished look. You can even use it to set a visual identity for your brand or name on social media.

Creates a Vibrant Vintage Look

A bright and vibrant outdoor portrait of a woman wearing a soft blue top

Vintage Film. Cross-Processing preset recreates the cross-processed look that is unique to analog photography. It adds an orange tone to highlights and a deep blue to shadows. As a result, bright white areas have a tinge of warmth, while the dark tones are accented with blue hues.

In the portrait above, try to examine how Cross-Processing enhances skin tones. The woman’s skin now looks sunkissed, with a mix of golden hues. The shadows on her face and neck look bold in a cool dark gray. Notice how these effects create a nice film contrast throughout the image.

Produces Vivid Dark Regions

Crisp Darks. As you can observe in the example above, this preset produces strong dark tones. To produce this look, Cross-Processing increases contrast levels and reinforces the result by darkening tones further. It pulls dark regions closer to true blacks, but it subdues shadows a bit to preserve detail. It does a similar process to the highlights; it mutes the brightest regions to make sure that textures do not become washed out.

Examine the crisp blacks and texture throughout the landscape. You can even notice how this amplification affects the finer details in the water. Its vibrant waves look more defined now, giving us a clear impression of movement.

A bright and vibrant vintage photo of a woman wearing a black jacket and pants

Rich and Bold Grays. You can see more of the preset’s tonal adjustments in the After photo above, particularly on the model’s black clothing. Notice how the dark tones are intensified without masking textures. You can still see the folds on the woman’s jacket and pants.

The lightened shadows now only keep details apparent but also make the added tint more visible. In this case, you can see the soft tinge of blue in the darkest areas. Overall, all these settings aim to optimize the preset’s retro aesthetic.

Optimizes Color Intensity

A bright and vibrant vintage photo of two children embracing

Vibrant Colors. Cross-Processing preset intensifies colors by increasing vibrance levels. Unlike saturation, this attribute only affects the midtones; this setting is ideal for portraits as it keeps skin tones looking natural, but enhanced. On the other hand, the preset highly decreases the saturation levels under the same Presence panel. As you can tell, these two settings complement each other and are designed to produce subdued yet vibrant hues.

A bright and vibrant vintage photo of a building with a roll-up door and bricks on the facade

Warm and Cool. Although the preset initially lowers the saturation levels in the Presence panel, it recovers much of red and blue hues. It is because it specifically saturates these colors in the HSL panel. As a result, you get a nice contrast between cool and warm tones.

You can examine the result in the After photo above. Take note of the vibrant blue roll-up door and the vivid red bricks above it. Combined with Cross-Processing preset’s orange and blue tints, you get a dramatic classic vintage photo.