A lot of popular photo editing software have entered the market in recent years, however, Adobe still sits on the top with Lightroom and Photoshop. Both Photoshop and Lightroom have become industry-standard software that every professional photographer will recommend to you. Photoshop covers advanced photo editing such as manipulation while Lightroom is the perfect solution for simple editing and retouching. Lightroom contains everything you need in order to turn your photos from ordinary to extraordinary. In this article, we will dive into the amazing Tips for Lightroom editing that will improve your workflow and also make your photos look professional.
Use Image Rating:
Lightroom is excellent at image management. One of the many functions that will help you to effectively manage your photos is Image Rating.
Photographers usually click hundreds of photos in a single photoshoot. So editing this extensive amount can be quite daunting. Rating your images will let you sort out the images that are worth editing from the rest and you will not need to scroll through all of them every time you need to edit.
You can individually rate the images by clicking on them twice; however, this procedure will take more time. The faster way is to use the number keys from 1-5 to add the rating.
Local Adjustment Filters
Most of the time, there is a certain part of the image that does not look and only that part needs to be adjusted. This is where the local adjustment filters come in handy. With these filters, you can make adjustments to a specific part without affecting the whole photo.
Either enable the radial filter or graduated filter and select the area you want to edit. Then use the adjustment sliders to perform the edits. The edits will also have a faded effect outside the selected area. If it does not look good, then you can use an eraser from the brush panel to further clean out the edits.
Preset Strength - Tips for Lightroom Editing
Presets are surely the most used feature of Lightroom. Editing the photos with one-click presets saves a lot of time when you are working with a bunch of photos. The best part about the presets is that if you are not good at editing, then you can use the presets of your favorite photographers and give your photos a professional look.
However, the presets might not go perfectly will all the photos. For instance, sometimes the colors can become unnecessarily strong. The “Fader Plugin” can solve this problem. It is free to download and works smoothly on both Lightroom and Photoshop.
In order to use it, select ‘File Plugin Extras Fader’ after installing the plugin. After that, a box will pop up on the screen through which you easily adjust the strength of the preset.
Photo edited in Lightroom.
Move Sliders Precisely
What can be better than getting more control over the adjustment sliders? Usually, the sliders on the develop module alter the photo at a higher intensity even if you slightly move them. A simple tip for Lightroom editing can easily solve this.
Drag the develop module from one of the corners to increase the window’s size. A bigger window will give you more precise control over the sliders.
Using the Histogram
Histogram basically provides you everything you need to know about the luminance and exposure of a photo in the form of graphs. It has five sections i.e. Whites, Highlights, Exposure, Black, and Shadows. Use the Histogram while making the adjustments to your photos to understand how much you are affecting them.
You can also hover over the histogram to edit it directly. Click and drag the graph in the sections to any side and alternate the luminance.
Matching the Exposure - Tips for Lightroom Editing
If you are working on a photo series and various photos have different exposures, then matching the luminance and exposure can be a daunting task. Similar colors and exposure will develop consistency in your photos.
Firstly, try copying the exposure settings from the best one to all other photos. It will work differently on each photo making a few bright and others dark. Then, after choosing the best photo, select all of the rest. Select the ‘Match Total Exposures’ from the settings. This will finally fix all the photos according to the reference photo.
Always Edit in Raw
The last tip for Lightroom editing is that always choose the RAW image to edit. JPEG images do save size and are easy to process; however, they can lose information. The RAW format doesn’t compress and also never loses any information. With this format, you will have more control over the editing process. In addition, excessive adjustments will not affect the image quality much.
Conclusion - Tips for Lightroom Editing
In this article, we discussed some of the uncountable ways to make the Lightroom editing workflow effective. Use your creativity to explore them and unlock the full potential of your photos. If you want to learn everything about Lightroom, then you should go for our Lightroom training crafted by professionals for talented photographers like you.
Keep practicing because only practice will make you perfect.
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