Your image is just one of them.

Even worse, Microsoft research found out that you only have 8 seconds to grab the attention of your viewer before losing their attention forever.

If you want to stand out, your images need to stand out. But you won't be able to with digital photography. How so? Let me explain…

Imagine you just made a nice shot. You go home, fire up the computer, load up the images. Your heart is pounding, and then you look at the computer…your heart sinks. What you see is all you wanted, but there's just something missing. Something you just can't put your finger on.

It's not your fault. No matter how great digital is, it has one flaw: The images are always a bit bland. So left to themselves they usually can't grab the attention because the eye is attracted to contrast. It's simply the nature of digital photography: It's function is to get you a straight, boring, bland representation of reality. 

Film users had an advantage in that sense, the film they used had preset looks built into them. The images always looked like something you could use right away. You can almost call it pre-processing. But digital photography needs a little push in the right way with post-processing. 

Unfortunately post processing can be a huge pain. It's very time consuming and if you have a lot of images to process, you are going to spend a lot of time in front of the computer instead of enjoying yourself shooting.

Even worse, the more you try to make an image work, the more likely you are to have tunnel vision and simply give up on it. It's like trying to read a book with your nose close touching the page. It's just hard to get the objectivity you need to explore other creative options. 

So, how do you grab the attention of your viewers, save precious time and explore creative options? You use presets. Simply click on them and voilà, your images are done-for-you, or at the very least you have an excellent starting point for you to explore.

Look at the image up top. I'm no magician but I knew you looked at the image to the right first. How do I know? Because the eye is attracted to contrast. But beyond that, you can see how the image was flat and after the image is boiled down to it's BW essence for a punch-in-your-gut effect. These presets, applied on any other type of image would fail.

Here's what I am saying: don't expect these to work on anything but street photography. Try it on a wedding image and the bride and groom will look like monsters. Heck, I tried one of the presets on my wife's portrait…unfortunately she was looking over my shoulder…and let's just say that she didn't talk to me for a while. 

These presets will give you the opposite of glamour, of pretty. They will however give your Street Photography grit, punch, mojo.

When you look at your images for too long, you will get tunnel vision. Applying a few presets allows you to see the creative potential and boom, you are jolted out of your tunnel vision and you are once more exited about your images.

Fun Fact: Because I needed some images to show some before and afters in these pages, I went aead and processed some of my photographs with them. One image in particular, the one above, I passed by. But then I stumbled upon a preset that made it look real nice. I actually went ahead and pretty much abandoned my writing this piece. Careful: These might just be addicting.

Truth be told, the potential of your images has always been there but you preobably couldn't see it, because you've been looking at the same image over and over again for too long. Can you imagine getting exited for an image that you shot 5 years ago as if it was brand new?

Presets allow you to make the most out of what you already have. It's like having a few extra pairs of eyes looking at your work, showing exciting creative possibilities of images you already have.

Having coached photographers from all over the world, I can tell you from experience that what keeps many images from being remarkable is the post processing. 

Fair enough… until we consider two things.

First of all, if you do not process your images, you are part of the large majority that uploads 270 million images per day. If that's not being like everyone else I don't know what is!

Second, let's look at how it's no isse at all with film photography

For most of the history of photography, people have used the same film stock over and over and over again, and no one ever accused any of them that their images look like everyone elses. 

Presets, like film stock simply give your images a certain look. The content of the photo is up to you. 

Plus we can take this a little further. What about cameras? Go to any crowded metropolitan street, chances are you will find a few people who have the EXACT camera model as you. Won't your images look like theirs? Of course not, because no one looks at that, they look at what the images are about.

Even if you can get images that are ready to use with the presets, you can make your own “special blend” and make them to your own taste with your own unique spin.