A well captured image will allow your presets to work the most seamlessly and effectively.
When shooting, take care to focus on getting it right in camera! - get your focus sharp, your exposure correct, and your image composition as you like it, and lastly, always shoot in RAW for the best best best editing results! Raw image files save the most detail and the most information - this leads to better editing results, and higher quality final product.
Presets tend to work the very best on images shot with a more neutral white balance - not too warm and not too cool. Using the Kelvin scale in your cameras white balance settings for customizing while shooting works great - this is what I do personally! Or stick with Auto white balance setting. No matter how you choose to set your white balance while shooting, editing a raw file allows you to easily adjust this afterwards!
pro tip 2
A preset can/will look entirely different image to image based on that images lighting, quality, white balance, and over all colors your photographing. Apply your favourite preset to an image and make adjustments to the Exposure/Highlights/Shadows sliders to perfect the edit. Lean towards a cooler look? Slide the Temperature slider down just a bit, or the other way to warm it up!
No preset is a one click fix for any single image - a preset is a collection of saved adjustment settings to achieve a particular editing style, most will need some level of simple adjustments and tweaks to perfect the edit - and some images might need more - some images might end up being a one click and done edit!
Have fun playing around and developing your own perfect and unqiue style!
pro tip: