But the counter-argument is stronger: Professional artists use preset packs as starting points . They run the action, then delete the layer they don’t like, mask out the effect from the subject’s face, or reduce the opacity to 35%. The pack handles the boring scaffolding—the curves, the levels, the initial color grade—so the artist can focus on the creative decisions that actually matter.

They have a point. Scroll through Instagram’s digital art hashtags, and you’ll see the same teal-and-orange mountains, the same glitched-out anime eyes, the same double-exposure forests. A bad preset pack is a stylistic straightjacket.

So go ahead. Download that cyberpunk manga action pack. Click the play button. Watch your flat lines twist into neon vectors. And when someone asks, “How did you do that?” just smile and say: “A little magic. And a little automation.” Have you ever used a preset pack to save a project? Or do you consider them a creative shortcut too far?

It starts with a blank canvas and a cursor blinking like a judgmental metronome.

What began as a few scattered .ATN (action) files shared on early-2000s forums has ballooned into a multi-million dollar digital economy. Today, a single preset pack can transform a flat smartphone snapshot into a cyberpunk manga panel, turn a gloomy landscape into a golden-hour postcard, or give a digital painting the exact grain of a 1970s pulp novel—all in one click.

But are preset packs cheating? Or are they the most democratic tool Photoshop has ever seen? To understand the allure, you have to understand the tedium of the alternative. Imagine wanting to create a "double exposure" effect—where a portrait bleeds into a forest scene. Manually, this requires: extracting masks, adjusting levels, brushing opacity, changing blend modes to Screen or Multiply , adding gradient maps, and then fine-tuning curves for contrast. That’s roughly 47 clicks and three minutes of focused work.