Edit Like a Pro in Lightroom!

ALLLIGHTROOM

Mar 7

If you aren't using Lightroom to edit your pictures, what are you waiting for? You can get professional quality photos with some simple editing techniques in Lightroom.

Whether you are taking and editing pictures for yourself or someone else, quality matters. If you are editing images for a website, then quality certainly matters! Today's websites are often the first point of contact for many businesses acting like it's a virtual (and visual) calling card. It's critical that the quality of the photography is stellar.

Getting a photo perfect without any editing is pretty tough to do even for professionals. This is why photo editing software like Lightroom are so handy and so attractive. You don't necessarily have to hire a pro to get professional results if you use Lightroom.

There are two ways to shoot an image, and you can set your camera to do either one: JPEG and RAW. Raw files are larger and contain more data. More data means that you can make edits without having the photo look as if it's been over-edited. Keep in mind, that not all programs can't read RAW files which are why JPEG is so popular. We'll discuss working in RAW. It's the best way to ensure high-quality images you can rework without sacrificing the original image.

IMPORTING:

Once you move your photos from your camera to your computer, make sure you pull them into Lightroom. You'll be able to select "copy" or "add." We recommend you choose "add." If you copy, you'll be making a copy of what is already a huge file. Adding it is sufficient.

Once you have imported your images, you'll find them your Lightroom Library. You can open them there to begin your edits.

EDITING:

To edit your images in Lightroom, you can open the Develop panel and select a picture you would like to edit. Below, we detail how you can make various edits and adjustments to the image. Keep in mind, that every photographer has a different look they're trying to achieve. We recommend you play around with your settings until you are satisfied with the image.

Here are four edits you can make:

1. Tone: You can have a little fun and play around with tone. Adjust the settings for highlights, shadows, blacks, and whites to taste. What you select for your settings in tone really just depends on your taste, the image itself, and the look you are trying to achieve for your image.

2. Presence: Here you can adjust your saturation and vibrancy as you want. It usually will take a few adjustments to get the image to what you want.

3. Clarity: One important feature you'll note in most professional pictures: clarity. Use this setting to get that crisp look. Usually, somewhere around 50-60 can get you crisp edges, but you can adjust as you need or want.

4. Exposure: This setting helps you to change the exposure if it wasn't correctly exposed when the image was taken. You can also choose to adjust the exposure to get a different look regardless of the initial exposure setting. Let's say the image's exposure came out too dark. Use this setting to lighten it. It's one of the handiest of the edit settings in Lightroom!

EXPORTING:

Once you are finished editing your pictures, you'll need to export them. If you plan on using them in a website, you can export them into JPEGs. You can do this in your Library panel.

Highlight the pictures you would like to export and click on Export -> You'll see that a new screen comes up.
Select to where you'd like to export the images.
You can also create a new folder and export them into that folder if you want.
You can select a size for the picture which is handy if you're exporting your images to a website. We recommend a resolution of about 72 but remember to click on "don't enlarge" before you export.

Editing is crucial to great pictures, but it can also be a fun part of post production. You can make edits and adjustments to make corrections or change the overall tone, look, or mood of an image. The more you work in Lightroom editing your images, the better you will get at it and the easier it becomes to edit. We encourage you to forge ahead bravely into the edit settings and enjoy!