Lightroom: Discovering Your Own Editing Style

1st step:

Prepare Your Photographs

To begin, open the Lightroom app, navigate to All Photos, and then select the image you want to edit.

Then, make any minor edits to the photo that are required, such as cropping and rotating, to prepare it for the more substantial edits, such as color and exposure adjustments.

You can also use the healing brush at this point, especially if you're working with portraits in Lightroom.

This allows you to conceal blemishes or dust spots within the photograph.

Step 2: Adjust the Exposure

Then, in Lightroom, navigate to the Light tab to access the exposure editing tools.

You'll now see several sliders to adjust the lighting in your photo:

• Exposure: This tab allows you to change the overall exposure of the photo.

If your photo is a little too dark, you can slide this to the right to lighten it.

• Contrast: This slider increases the contrast between the photo's dark and light areas, making the darker areas darker and the lighter areas lighter.

• Highlights: The highlights slider focuses solely on the photo's bright areas.

When the highlights are increased, the bright areas become brighter, and when the highlights are decreased, the dark areas become darker.

Step 3: Change the Color

To change the color of an image, go to the Color tab at the bottom of the screen.

You can now convert your photo to black and white by clicking the B&W button on the left side of the screen, or you can edit the color mix by clicking the color wheel on the right side of the screen.

You can use the Color Mix tool to change the hue, saturation, and luminance of each color in the photo.

If you choose yellow, for example, you can adjust the yellow tones within the photo individually.

Below that, you'll find the white balance controls, which affect the "true white" in your image.

If you don't want to adjust each slider individually, you can use the drop-down menu.

Step 4: Adjust the Effects and Details

Aside from the basic edits for exposure and color, Lightroom includes a plethora of other effects and detail adjustments, such as:

• Clarity: This slider is similar to the contrast slider, but on a smaller scale.

Moving this slider to the right can improve the image's sharpness and detail.

• Dehaze: This tool removes haze from an image.

Sliding it to the right reduces haze and softens the image, while sliding it to the right increases haze and softens the image.

• Vignette: This setting simulates the effect of older camera lenses, which produced photos with dark edges.

(The Feather slider adjusts the severity of the vignette effect.)

• Grain: To give your digital image the look of film, use the Grain slider to add texture and detail.

There are also sliders for changing the grain's size and roughness.

• Detail: If an element of your image isn't quite in focus, you can use the Detail slider to sharpen the image.

Step 5: Adjust the Photo

So far, the adjustments and edits you've made have had an impact on the entire image.

Selective Edits, on the other hand, can be used to make the same type of adjustments on a smaller scale.

Instead of applying the edit to the entire image, you can use a brush to "paint" the adjustment on a specific area of the image.

For example, by using the Light tool as a brush, you can darken even small areas of the image (also known as "burning" the image) to increase contrast.

Step 6: Save and share your work.

You're ready to save and share the photo once you've adjusted it to your liking.

Click the Share icon in the upper right corner of the app to bring up the option to save to your camera roll.

Then you're ready to share on Instagram, add to your portfolio, or email to friends.

How to Use Lightroom Presets

Presets are an extremely useful and time-saving tool, especially when batch editing in Lightroom.

A preset is essentially a saved set of photo edits if you're new to this tool.

When you've finished editing a photo to your liking—including all of the exposure, color, and effects adjustments—you can save the changes and apply them to other photos.

This can be useful if you have a consistent style or color scheme that you use for all of your photos.

Rather than editing each photo from scratch, you can apply your custom edits immediately.

After you've applied the preset, you can make additional, individualized adjustments.

You are also not required to create your own presets.

Many photographers sell preset packages, allowing you to pick a style you like, buy the presets, and apply them to your own photos.

Presets can also be tailored to the type of photo you want to edit—for example, if you primarily photograph people, you can purchase presets designed specifically for editing portraits in Lightroom.

If you like to experiment with video, you can also download Lightroom presets for video editing.

Lightroom makes it simple to edit photos from any device, whether it's a laptop or a smartphone.

With a few simple adjustments, you can transform an ordinary photograph into something extraordinary.

Click the link below to start a trial or to purchase your Lightroom Subscription!