Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 4 i Photoshop Lightroom The Complete Manual

The HSL panel in Lightroom is perhaps more powerful that you might at first think. It can enable you to take greater creative control over your images and allow you to selectively adjust the Hue, Saturation, and Luminance of the unique colours in an image. Our example is a simple application of this. The foreground rocks are a bit murky and the sky quite pale. Adjusting the Luminance and Saturation of just the reds, yellows and aquas in the image, brings more depth and colour back into them. 1 Quick Develop Additions The Quick Develop panel is found in the Library module. Your Library module allows you to view the Metadata of your images, add comments, and set up the keywords for your selected photos. Over and above that, is…

Lr or Ps? It’s not always an easy choice but there are vast differences between Lightroom and Photoshop that can help make your mind up. These differences depend on the situation and what you intend to do with the finished product. Let’s break down a few strengths of each. Lightroom Classic Strengths Lightroom can manipulate and edit Raw files directly from your camera, without the need to install or use another plugin. Workflow and image management is one of Lightroom’s main draws. You can easily import, organise, edit and manage each of your images without too much in-depth knowledge of advanced design techniques. There are less features than with Photoshop, which lessens its learning curve and thanks to a well-planned user interface, it’s relatively easy to adapt to if you’re…

1 Lr This is the Identity Plate for Lightroom, displaying the user’s logged in account name, with further options available to be expanded that connect to Adobe’s cloud services. The Identity Plate can be further personalised, using either set templates or customising your own for branding your own photos. These can be text-based, or even a graphical Identity Plate to add that little extra personal touch to your Workspace view and image edits. 2 Presets: Catalog The Catalog Preset is a database that stores a record for each of your photos. This record contains key pieces of information regarding each of the photos you import into Lightroom, such as a reference to where the photo is stored on your system, instructions for how to process the photo and metadata relating to the…

1 Select Grid view by pressing G. By default, photos are listed in the order of shooting date, with the newest at the bottom. You can change the sorting criteria to Rating with the Sort: pop-up menu on the toolbar at the bottom of the view window. You can reverse the order so the highest rated are at the top by clicking the A-Z button. 2 The rating of an image is shown by a row of 0-5 stars below the image in all view modes. You can change the rating in several ways: by clicking on the row of stars below the image and dragging to the appropriate position, by tapping the number keys 0-5, or by right-clicking and selecting Set Rating from the menu. 3 As well as setting a star…

1 To get started with the facial recognition system, go to the Library Grid view. On the bar at the bottom of the view window you’ll see the row of viewing option buttons that we discussed earlier, and next to them a button with a face on it. This is the People button; click on it or alternatively use the hotkey shortcut O. 2 If this is your first time using the facial recognition system, you’ll see an introduction screen with two options. You can choose either to fun face recognition on your entire catalogue of images or to just use it as needed. The first option will produce more useful results in the long run but the second is more convenient for a single image. 3 Click on the ‘Start finding faces…’…

Like the Library module, the Develop module window is divided into three main areas, the left sidebar, the main viewing area and the right sidebar. The filmstrip view is also available at the bottom of the screen. The filmstrip and both sidebars can be permanently in view or set to auto-hide by clicking on the arrow symbols on the edge of the screen. The left sidebar holds the Navigator thumbnail, a list of available Presets, the Snapshot and History views and the Collections. The right-hand sidebar holds all the actual editing and enhancement tools, as well as the Histogram. 1 Navigator This shows you a view of the whole image, useful if you zoom in when using the spot correction tool and need to navigate around the frame. 2 Presets This…

1 You’ll find the Basic panel in the right-hand sidebar of the Develop module. Click on the title bar to open the panel and you’ll see an array of sliders for things like colour temperature, tint, exposure and contrast; also a panel of Tone controls and another one for Presence controls that adjust Clarity, Vibrance and Saturation. 2 Near the top of the Basic panel you’ll find the White Balance controls. This will usually show As Shot by default, indicating that Lightroom is using the white balance setting determined by your camera. If you click on this, you’ll see a context menu with more options. We’ll look more closely at correcting white balance elsewhere. 3 To the left of the White Balance selector you’ll see another tool with an icon shaped like…

1 For our basic image, we’ll use this woodland scene. It’s a decent shot with good composition and a nice bright sunny glow to the light; but the colours look a little muted, it lacks punch and it doesn’t really capture the full potential of what should be a striking scene. There are several things we can do to adjust the colours in this photo. 2 Simply boosting the saturation by +65 does make the colours pop but the Saturation slider is a very indiscriminate control when used on its own. The colours are certainly richer but it makes the already bright greens of the grass look too bright and unnatural. It also does nothing to help boost the contrast. 3 The Vibrance control is more subtle. Instead of boosting the saturation of…

1 Successful monochrome photography is all about lighting, contrast and texture, so the best monochrome conversions will be images that emphasise these qualities. Artistic portrait studies, modern urban architecture and rugged rural landscapes are all good candidates. For our example, we’ll be using this shot of a coastal sunrise. 2 For quick results, Lightroom comes with a number of built-in presets for converting colour photos to monochrome. You can find them in the left-hand sidebar, not too surprisingly in the Presets tab. There are presets for B&W Filters, B&W Toned processing and also for simple B&W conversion. Let’s take a closer look at these first. 3 Open the Presets tab and then click on Lightroom B&W Presets to see the list of available built-in options. They include high and low contrast settings, as…

1 If you followed the tutorial from a couple of pages ago, you know how to add a Linear Gradient over it. However, in some cases the filter you've added can darken the background nicely but it can also darken foreground objects, reducing detail and texture visible. You can erase part of the gradient to correct this. 2 Using the Linear Gradient tutorial mentioned above, follow steps 1-5 and add a new graduated filter to your image. Once you’ve done so, you can see that in the masks layer panel, that appears next to the Histogram, there are Add and Subtract options. You can use a Brush to subtract data from the filter as if it were an eraser tool. 3 With the Subtract Using Brush option active, you can see some Brush…

HDR (High Dynamic Range) merging is a relatively new technique that has become very popular, to the point that it is often over-used. It works by merging several nearly identical photos, taken at different exposure settings, into one image with expanded dynamic range. Many cameras, including some mobile phone cameras, can produce HDR images in-camera, but you will get better results merging specially shot images in Lightroom. You can find HDR merging in the Photo menu, under Photo Merge > HDR.…

1 Select the image that you want to sharpen and open it in the Develop module. To get a really close look at it, go to the view options on the Navigator panel at the top of the left sidebar and select the 1:1 view ratio, to see the image at 100 per cent size. If you want, you can zoom in even further with the expanded view options, but 1:1 should be enough. 2 Open the Detail panel, which you can find in the right-hand sidebar. We’ve already looked at the noise reduction functions but the Sharpening functions are in the top half of the panel. There is also a detail view available but to be honest it’s far too small to be much use. You’re better off checking your progress…

1 Color Grading is a process whereby the image is divided into highlights, mid-tones and shadows. Different tones are applied to each. It was a popular print processing technique in the 1970s and was used to create psychedelic pop-art posters. You can replicate the effect in Lightroom using the controls found in the Color Grading panel, located in the right sidebar. 2 Before we get started, we need to choose a good base image. Color Grading can produce abstract results, so it’s a good idea to work on an image that you feel will benefit from it. You need an image that has both light and dark areas and preferably some interesting detail and texture. Our photo should do as an example. 3 As with the darkroom techniques upon which…

1 You can find the Presets panel near the top of the left-hand sidebar. When selecting presets to use, the Navigator panel is very useful, because it shows a preview of the effect that the preset will have on the image. It’s a good idea to pull the left sidebar out to its maximum extent to maximise the size of the Navigator preview window. 2 Lightroom’s built-in presets are divided into seven categories. The first three are labelled as B&W presets, although not all of them are strictly for monochrome images as you’ll see shortly. The Effect and General presets produce a wide range of results, while the Video presets, as the name suggests, are for editing and improving video clips. 3 The largest and most varied category is B&W…

The Map Module is an interesting part of Lightroom but not everyone will find it useful. If your camera isn’t equipped with satellite positioning and you don’t regularly tag your images with location data then you may not need to use it at all, and if so you can just skip ahead to the next section. However, you may find that it’s worth your time to learn a bit more about the Map Module, because it provides another great way to organise your image library and find images based on their location. The main part of the Map Module is, not too surprisingly, a map. This is based on Google Maps terrain and satellite data, is fully zoomable and draggable, and shows the whole world complete with satellite imagery. The…

1 Saved Locations is a powerful tool within the Map Module that lets you quickly select frequently used locations, view those locations and tag photos to those locations. To get started, pick a location that you have visited and photographed, in the case of our example shown here, Haytor Rocks, Dartmoor, Devon. 2 To create a Saved Location, look at the left-hand sidebar, at the Saved Locations panel. On the title bar of the panel, at the right-hand end, is a + symbol. Click on this and the New Location dialogue box opens up. At the same time, a white circle appears on the map screen, centred in the middle of the visible map area. 3 The default name for the new location is just the broader geographical area, in…

1 Before you start printing, you need to tell Lightroom which printer and what size and type of paper you’re using. To do this, you click on the Page and Print Setup buttons in the lower left of the screen, which opens the Print Setup options panel. Note that our screen is on a Mac. It will look slightly different on a PC. 2 Your system’s default printer will be preselected but if you have more than one you can choose which one you want to use from the drop-down menu. You can also choose to output to PDF. In the lower drop-down menu you can choose the paper size that you want to use. Lightroom defaults to 8.5 x 11in US Letter size, so do check this. 3 The…

1 To get started with creating a custom print layout, first open the Print Module. At the top of the right-hand sidebar, in the Layout Style panel, click on the third item on the list, Custom Package. This opens up the Cells panels and creates a new project page that appears as a blank page in the main viewing area. 2 Before you can start adding cells to our page, you need to set up the page dimensions and orientation. In the bottom left of the screen, click on the Page Setup button. This will take you to the Print Setup dialogue, showing your installed printer. If you don’t have a printer on your system it should show Print to PDF as a default. 3 In the Print Setup screen,…

1 As we mentioned, start in the Library module and take some time to choose the images you want in the book. Make any alterations, then expand the Metadata section and enter a Title for each of the images. You can do this after applying the Book module but it’s often recommended to make any alterations prior to running it. 2 Once you’ve selected the images you want to use as part of your creation, click on the Book module title from the top menu. If it’s the first time you’ve clicked the Book module, it runs through some starter tips displaying the various sections available and what you can achieve with it. If you prefer, you can exit out of the tips and carry on. 3 Scroll to the…

1 Take each image you have chosen to share on social media and enter the Develop module. Now you can examine each one and see where they can be touched up, or have the colour, contrast and exposure settings altered to improve them. Remember, Lightroom is non-destructive, so the original images won’t be altered. 2 Consider cropping unnecessary clutter from an image prior to it being used online or in a presentation. Whilst the entire image may look great, it’s often best to fit the relevant areas to the page rather than asking the audience to look to a certain section. 3 Don’t forget to use the Sharpening tool on your photos. This can help to focus on certain areas of an image that are key to the viewer and…

Not all Lightroom effects have to be dramatic. The great strength of the program is that it can be used to make some subtle improvements to images, making great shots even better. The difference between these two images may appear fairly subtle at first glance but the exposure, saturation and colour balance of the main image has been carefully tweaked using the Basic panel, found in the top right sidebar of the Develop module. Sometimes, the key to Lightroom is subtlety.…

1 Exposure Controls the brightness of your photo with a slider. Move left to make the image darker and mimic underexposure; move right to make the image look overexposed. 2 Contrast Determines the contrast between light and dark colours. Move left to flatten the contrast; move right to make the contrast more extreme and dramatic. 3 Highlights Controls the brightness of the lighter parts of your photo. Move left to darken highlights and recover details; move right to brighten them and reduce details. 4 Shadows Controls the brightness of the darker parts of your photo. Move left to deepen shadows; move right to brighten them and recover more details. 5 Whites Use Whites to set the white point of the image. Move slider to the right to make more colours appear completely white. Move…

1 First you need to browse your images and find a photograph that is in need of some editing. Pick any from the Albums you currently have, or take a new image via the camera function on your phone and add it to an Album. When you’re ready, you can tap the image to select it to begin editing. 2 When the image is loaded, notice that the editing tools are spread across the bottom of the screen in a strip. You can change images, if there’s more than one in the Album, by swiping left and right. For now though, tap on the first editing option, Masking. Masking is the latest update to the Lightroom app. 3 The Masking tool enables you to specify an area on the image…

1 We have an example of an image we are going to convert to black and white and adjust it using a number of methods that let you interact with the image in some interesting ways. How your black and white images finally end up is ultimately down to your own preferences. 2 It begins with a simple landscape photo of a tree and fields taken on a crisp clear day. It is reasonably well balanced, certainly the sky is not too overexposed and there is still detail in the shadows, even in its unprocessed Raw state. This is a good starting point for the conversion. 3 A look at the Histogram in the top right corner of the Lightroom workspace will confirm this. The right side of the histogram…

Powerful AI technology has been brought to bear in the recent release of Adobe’s Lightroom suite of products. Masking a subject or just making a selection of the sky is easier now than it’s ever been. As you progress with the new versions, you will need to bear in mind that the AI that analyses your images is only as good as the image itself. Photos with very low contrast and an over-abundance of detail will hinder the AI’s ability to accurately pick out the area for masking that you need. 1 Color Grading Color Grading is one of the adjustment tools found in the Develop Module. It is a graphical user interface replacement of the Split Toning panel. It works in the same way by letting you adjust the…

This striking wide-angle shot of a brooding harbour sunrise started out looking a little lacklustre, but, thanks to Lightroom, there’s huge scope for adjustment and improvement. We can emphasise the dramatic light of the sun’s colours on the horizon and boost Clarity, Shadows, and Saturation; the image is transformed. Additional use of adjustment brushes on both the sky, the cobblestones and the sea ensures a good tonal balance between foreground and background.…

If you’ve bought this book, we can safely assume that you know something about digital photography, so you’re probably already aware that the vast majority of digital images are stored in a file format known as JPEG. Nearly all digital cameras and mobile phones record their images as JPEG files. You can spot a JPEG file because it will usually have the filename extension. jpg or. jpeg. The JPEG format has been around since 1992, when the standard was first specified by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (after which it takes its name), a standing committee of imaging and software industry experts. There have been various attempts to update or replace the JPEG format over the years but it is now so entrenched in the digital world that it will…

Shots like this, that combine dark foreground with bright sky, are prime candidates for a graduated filter. In this case, we’ve increased the overall exposure slightly, pulled back the highlights to bring detail into the sky, and reduced the shadows to bring out texture in the rocks. We then applied Texture and Clarity too bring out all the little details in the rocks and increased colour saturation. The result is a striking and colourful shot worthy of any picture postcard.…

1 Quick Collections are a temporary method of quickly organising a group of photos that you want to be able to find easily. In this example, we’ve got a series of macro close up photos of flowers and we want to group all the photos of certain colours of flower. First, find the folder containing the photos in the Folders sidebar tab. 2 Go through your photos and use CTRL-click to select all the photos that you want to add to the Quick Collection, in this case all the shots of flowers that are red, orange and yellow. Once you’ve highlighted a few, right-click on any of the selected shots and select Add to Quick Collection from the menu that appears. 3 You can see that photos are added to the Quick Collection…

1 You can find the Quick Develop tab in the right-hand sidebar of the Library module. To get the best use out of it, it’s a good idea to make sure you have the Histogram tab open at the same time, to help get the exposure right, and use the Loupe view in zoomed-out mode so you can see the whole picture much more clearly. 2 At the top of the Quick Develop panel you’ll see a dropdown menu offering a wide range of preset developing settings. These are great for experimenting with different looks and styles and include a range of monochrome filter and toning effects, various colour processing styles, sharpening, contrast enhancement and more. There are also video effects available. 3 The next feature is the white balance control. This lets…

1 The main tools that you’ll need to straighten your shots are found in the Crop & Straighten tool, located on the editing tools panel that we looked at before. Click on the tool and you can see a grid with corner handles appear over your image, as well as a panel of other tools and options appear below the panel. Note the icon change in the 2022 update. 2 If you place your mouse cursor anywhere on the grey border of the workspace outside the image, you can see that it changes to a double-ended curved arrow, indicating rotation. Click anywhere in this area and you’ll see a grid appear over your image. You can simply drag the image around until your horizon lines up with the grid. 3 A quicker and…

1 You can spot an incorrectly set white balance straight away by the colour cast over the entire image. Open the Basic panel and look at the white balance setting; you can see it’s ‘As Shot’ and that the colour temperature is 3250K, a typical setting for incandescent or tungsten lighting. The camera was incorrectly set when the shot was taken. 2 The quickest way to correct the white balance is to let Lightroom do it automatically. Click on the white balance setting and you’ll see a drop-down menu appear. Select Auto and Lightroom will analyse the photo and attempt to set the correct balance based on the histogram. The results will usually be good for most common lighting. 3 As you can see, the results are pretty good in this example. Lightroom…

1 Even with a good quality digital SLR it’s possible to produce a shot with limited contrast. Reasons include incorrect metering, poor lighting or simply a low-contrast scene. In our example shot here it’s a combination of all three. The shot is under-exposed, the lighting is flat and it’s simply not a contrasted scene. Let’s see how we can help. 2 One look at the histogram reveals the nature of the problem. The image lacks both highlights and shadows and the histogram curve is bunched up towards the darker end of the scale, indicating under exposure. The first step is to correct that under-exposure, so we need to open up the Basic tab on the right-hand sidebar. 3 To increase the exposure, simply take the Exposure slider in the Basic panel and move…

1 You can find linear and radial gradients under the new Masking icon, just below the histogram on the right-hand sidebar. In older versions of Lightroom, the Graduated filter was under the vertical rectangular icon, while the radial filters are under the circular icon to the right. Click your choice and you’ll see an array of sliders for controlling the filter’s effects. 2 As you can see, Lightroom’s graduated filter tool can apply a wide range of effects, far more than the simple darkening or tinting of a camera mounted filter. Start with something simple though and try to darken the sky of our example image. Locate the Exposure slider and drag it to the left until the value is -2.00. 3 Click your mouse at the top of the image and drag…

1 The camera presets that are available for any given photo will depend on the type of camera and the Raw file format in which it was captured. Proprietary Raw formats such as CR2 (Canon), NEF (Nikon) or ARW (Sony) offer the greatest range. You can find the camera presets in the Camera Calibration panel, at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar. 2 At the top of the panel you can see a bar labelled Process. It should be set to 2012 (Current). Click on the drop-down menu and you can see that the other options are 2010 and 2003. These are the Adobe Camera Raw process versions that Lightroom uses to render your photos. The 2012 version offers the best tone control options. 3 The next line down on the panel is…

So far we’ve covered the basics of image adjustment and correction using the tools found in the Develop module. However, Lightroom includes a range of powerful features that can let you get truly creative with your photographs. For anyone who is familiar with Adobe Photoshop and the often extremely complicated methods for producing photographic effects in that program, the ease with which striking and beautiful results can be achieved in Lightroom will come as something of a revelation. Many Photographers and designers may prefer to do as much processing at this stage rather than relying on Photoshop later in the workflow. With a range of dedicated, powerful and versatile tools at your disposal, effects such as advanced tone control, colour channel balance, vignette and film grain are just a few…

1 Image noise comes in two varieties: luminance noise, which is random variations in brightness, and colour noise, which as the name suggests is random variations in colour. Both are caused by amplified random signal noise from the camera’s sensor when operating in low light conditions at high ISO settings. 2 To reduce luminance noise you can simply adjust the luminance slider but if you simultaneously hold down the left ALT key, the view in the image window will be turned monochrome; this will make it much easier to see the random light and dark pixels that make up the noise. Using the split-screen view helps to judge the comparison. 3 Reducing noise inevitably means sacrificing some fine detail, since noise reduction works by averaging out pixels over a certain radius. You…

1 To create a good merged panorama, it’s vital to start with a suitable sequence of images. First, to avoid distortion don’t use extremely wide angle lenses. It’s better to use a focal length of around 25-50mm. Second, use a tripod to help you to pan around smoothly. Finally, make sure that there is some overlap between successive frames. 2 Once you’ve imported your sequence of frames into Lightroom, locate them in your library and highlight all the shots that you want to merge, by holding down the CTRL (CMD on a Mac) key and clicking on each one. Note that the sequence doesn’t have to be in the right order, the photo merging process will match them up automatically. 3 Still in the Library module, with the sequence highlighted,…

1 If you have a set of processing steps that you use regularly, or if you need to perform the same operation on batches of photos, it makes sense to turn that operation into a preset. To get started with this, open an example image in the Develop module and carry out the processing steps on it that you want to save as a preset. 2 Once you’re happy with your processing settings, take a look at the left-hand sidebar. On the right-hand end of the title bar of the Presets panel, you can see a small button with a + symbol; if you mouse over it you can see the tooltip text Create New Preset. Click on this button to go to the New Develop Preset window. 3 The…

1 Mobile phones, many compact cameras and some other devices have built-in satellite location technology (GPS) and automatically add location data into the metadata of all recorded images. For example, this photo of the Church of St. Michael on Brentor on Dartmoor, was shot using a camera drone that has built-in GPS. 2 If you look more closely at the metadata panel you can see that it includes very precise map coordinates and even an altitude value. Using this data, Lightroom automatically adds the information in the city, province and country fields. However, what if your camera doesn’t have built-in GPS, how can you add this data manually? 3 As long as you know where a photo was taken, it’s relatively easy to find and add location data manually. Let’s…

Color Grading is a way of adding separate tints to the highlights, shadows and midtones of an image. Like most processing techniques, it’s best to use it with subtlety rather than going straight for maximum saturation. It’s also a good idea to use complimentary colours that enhance the atmosphere of the image.…

1 Adding a basic identity plate is very simple. In the righthand sidebar, open up the Page panel and click in the check-box for Identity Plate. The default name that is added is the name on the account that you used to register Lightroom, in large letters in the Tahoma sans-serif typeface, positioned in the centre of the image. 2 You can move the identity plate to anywhere on the page by simply clicking and dragging it; it doesn’t have to be on the image itself. if you want, you can increase the size of a border using the sliders in the Layout panel and move the identity plate onto that border, leaving an unobstructed view of your image. 3 You can rotate the identity plate by clicking on the…

The Tone Curve panel is one of the most powerful tools in Lightroom’s arsenal. It allows you to selectively alter that relative brightness of different tonal ranges within an image, but does so smoothly, blending from one tone into another on a curve. When combined with the Masking Tool's Select Subject option, it can create some terrific effects, as seen on this dramatic portrait shot.…

1 Begin the process by starting off in the Library module and take a moment to select the images you want to include in the slideshow. You can add Metadata information at this point if you want but it’s not necessary. Then, take a moment to edit any of the images you want to have in the slideshow, as it saves time later. 2 The Slideshow module is located along the top menu bar, in between Book and Print. If this is the first time that you’ve clicked it, you can view a quick four step introduction tutorial to the various features in contains. If you missed the intro, you can click on Help > Slideshow Module Tips in order to start it again. 3 To the right-hand panel you…

1 Lightroom offers a Quick-upload button to Facebook and Flickr by default but there are more services available from the Adobe Add-on store if you’re prepared to trawl through it. Use the Library module to collate the images you plan to upload to your social media platform – let’s use Facebook in this instance. 2 Once you have chosen an image you want to upload, it may be necessary drop into the Develop module to make any adjustments and fine-tune the photograph to make it sharper, more saturated and containing plenty of contrast. Remember the tips we looked at in the previous section when applying any updates and edits to an image. 3 When the image is looking its best, click back into the Library module and expand the Publish…

Photographers as a general rule do not tend to like images that are way overprocessed and have every preset and colour effect thrown at them. The truth is, if you want to go crazy with your processing, Lightroom has the power to do that but it also has the subtlety when you need it. The kind of adjustments shown here, which we cover in more detail over the following pages, are a good example of less being more; allowing your images to look their best.…

Transformation Guidance The eight geometry controls allow you to physically alter the shape of your photos. The geometry can be manually controlled by moving each of the sliders between values of -100% and +100% for some extreme transformations. There are also options that let you specify which parts of your photo are level, on either the vertical or horizontal plane, by placing control points and letting the software work out the transformations required to bring those parts of the image back to straight and level.…

Adobe Bridge Bridge is a browser application produced by Adobe Systems as part of the Creative Suite and is usually installed alongside Photoshop. Its main function is as the file management hub of the Creative Suite. It can also be used to locate, open, manage, rate and rename files as well as edit their metadata. Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) ACR is the Raw processing application that comes supplied with Adobe Photoshop. At its core, it behaves much the same as the Develop module in Lightroom but with less features. Adobe RGB A device independent colour space developed by Adobe. It provides a relatively large range of colours, i.e. grey-balanced and perceptually uniform. It is widely used for image editing. Anti-Aliasing Filter This is an optical filter, known as low-pass filter,…

1 We begin with a photo taken on a hilltop of a Chapel with a bright morning sun rising behind it. The camera has recorded the sky reasonably well and maintained most of its detail, but the foreground is quite underexposed. Luckily, the foreground is not so dark that detail is lost. With some careful masking, we should be able to balance sky and ground. 2 The first task is to make some basic global adjustments to balance the image as much as possible before relying on masking and more complex adjustments. Exposure was increased first of all to bring out the foreground. This resulted in the sky being too bright, but we can remedy that later. Highlights and Shadows were tweaked as well as Texture and Saturation. 3 If you click on…

Ever since digital cameras first became popular in the early 1990s, photographers have sought ways to adjust and improve digital images and replicate the darkroom tricks and techniques that film photographers have used for decades to get the most out of their pictures. There are dozens of digital image editing programs available and almost everyone who’s ever taken a digital photo, whether they use a top-end digital SLR or just the camera on their mobile phone, has used some sort of editing software to adjust and enhance the image. Most smartphones come with some sort of image editing app as a standard feature. Adobe Photoshop For more than two decades the industry standard for image editing software has been Adobe Photoshop and ever since it was first introduced in 1990…

1 The first step after installing Lightroom Classic for the first time is to import your photos into the program’s catalogue. Lightroom uses this catalogue to organise your photo collection and to help you find them by applying keywords and other search criteria. By keeping a separate database it means that the files on your hard drive are not affected. 2 When you open Lightroom for the first time, you’ll see a blank screen with the words ‘No photo source selected’ in the middle. To get started with importing your photos, take a look in the bottom left corner. You should see a button labelled Import. Click on this and you’ll be taken to a new screen to begin the import process. 3 On the next screen, you’ll see a message saying ‘Please…

In the last section, you imported your images into Lightroom and the Library module is where you’ll see the result of that process. The Library module is where you can view and scroll through your image catalogue, select images for sharing or development, add and search for keywords and build collections. It’s comparable to Adobe Bridge, the file browsing and viewing app that installs alongside Photoshop, but the Library module has a lot more functionality. Loupe View After the Grid view, the other one that you’ll find yourself using most often is the Loupe view. A Loupe is a small handheld magnifier used by photographers to closely examine a negative or print, to check sharpness and spot minor flaws. Lightroom’s Loupe view performs a similar function. It magnifies the selected…

1 The best way to make your library searchable is by applying keywords to your photos. Keywording is more art than science; you should add words that describe the image but also ones that describe the circumstances. For example, this shot has the keywords: Africa, animal, big cat, camouflage, cheetah, endangered, fast, predator and speed. 2 The quickest and easiest way to apply keywords is during the import process. When you click on the Import button, along with your images you’ll see the Apply During Import option, including a panel for keywords that will be added to all the images imported in that batch. You can always apply more keywords later but these first few will help. 3 You can apply keywords manually to images that have already been imported. In the Library…

Portrait shots can look great in black and white and this simple fashion shot especially benefits from an application of the Sepia processing preset. You can find it in the left sidebar of the Develop module, under Lightroom B&W Toned Presets. We’ve added a slight boost to the contrast, as well as the toning preset and -60 points of post-crop vignetting to slightly darken the edges and corners. The result is a nice atmospheric portrait.…

Removing Spots 1 If you scan film photos or use an older DSLR, you may have problems with dust and blemishes on your images. Fortunately, Lightroom includes a handy tool to get rid of them. It’s the Spot Removal tool and you use it by clicking on the icon in the editing tools panel or by using the keyboard shortcut Q. Note the icon change in the 2022 update. 2 The Lightroom Spot Removal tool operates in the same way as the matching tool in Photoshop. You can adjust the brush size by using the slider in the control panel or by using the square brackets keys [and]. Simply click on a spot and it will be replaced by a matching background colour sampled from elsewhere on the image. 3 As you click…

1 The Histogram is a graphical representation showing the ratio of pixels of any given brightness that are present in an image, with black on the left and white on the right. In a correctly exposed image, like this example, the distribution is spread across the graph, without being cut off at the ends and with most of the peaks in the middle. 2 In an under-exposed image such as this one, you can see that the peaks of the histogram are clustered at the left-hand edge of the graph, which is the darker tones, indicating that there are more dark pixels. The curve actually runs into the edge of the graph, which is known as ‘clipping’. Any clipped pixels are pure black, with no detail. 3 The histogram can show you where…

1 All digital cameras suffer from noise but some control it better than others. Modern top-end digital SLRs can comfortably shoot at 6400 ISO without too much trouble but older or cheaper cameras can suffer image ruining noise problems as low as 1600 ISO. This example was shot on a five year old Panasonic compact at 3200 ISO and is very noisy. 2 Working on reducing noise requires a close-up view of the image, to be able to judge fine detail, so we need to zoom in. At the top of the left sidebar, on the right-hand end of the title bar of the Navigator panel, you’ll see a button for a drop-down menu. Click on it and select 2:1 or even 3:1 for a zoomed-in view. 3 In the right-hand sidebar, open…

1 Our example photo here is a potential rural landscape but the foreground rocks are very badly under-exposed. Using the Brush we can selectively increase the exposure in just this area, leaving the rest of the image unchanged. To get started, click on the Brush icon having first clicked on the Masking icon in the tools section above. 2 You can set up the adjustment that you want to make. In this case it’s very simple, you just want to boost the exposure to selectively lighten one area of the image. This shot was taken on a Canon EOS 5D Mk III, so the raw file should easily allow three stops of exposure latitude, but you only need to boost it by two stops. 3 Next, we need to set up the brushes.…

1 There are three main types of optical defects that Adobe Lightroom can help to correct. These are: optical distortion, either barrel or pincushion; vignetting, a darkening around the edges of the frame; and chromatic aberration. Not all lenses produce all three of these effects but very wide angle and zoom lenses are especially prone to them. 2 Lightroom offers two main options for dealing with lens correction: either manually or by using the built-in Lens Profiles. Lightroom has a database of popular lenses, including most lenses from the main camera manufacturers, as well as third party manufacturers such as Sigma, Tamron and Tokina. If you use a digital SLR this is your easiest option. 3 In the Develop module, open the Lens Corrections tab. At the top of the tab you’ll see…

1 The basis of the Tone Curve is a histogram. Ignore the diagonal line for a moment and look at the graph in the background. It shows the distribution of pixels of any given brightness, with dark to the left and bright to the right. Large areas of our example image are dark, so the peaks of the graph are mostly on the left, with very few on the right. 2 The diagonal line across the graph represents the ratio between input brightness and output brightness. When the line is straight, the brightness ratio at any given point is 1:1. By moving a point on the line to change its shape, you can increase or decrease the brightness of the pixels at that point on the histogram. 3 To move the line, simply…

1 The key to creating an attractive film grain effect is starting off with a suitable image. It is most commonly seen in high contrast black and white images, so choose an image that will look good in monochrome, with plenty of deep blacks and bright highlights. This detail shot of local musician Oli Syrett should do nicely. 2 The first thing we need to do is to turn the colour image into monochrome, while maintaining its high contrast appearance. The quickest and easiest way to do this is by using one of Lightroom’s black and white presets. We’ll use the standard B&W High Contrast preset, which is just about perfect for this particular image. 3 If you’re in a hurry then there are presets available for adding film grain…

1 To get started with HDR Merge you need a sequence of photos of the same scene, with varying of the exposure between shots: some under-exposed, some over-exposed and one of the “correct” exposure. It’s best to use a tripod to make sure that the shots are properly aligned. You get the best results if you use three or more shots. 2 Import the images for HDR merging into your Lightroom library and then highlight them all by holding down CTRL (CMD on a Mac) and clicking on each of them. Alternatively, click on the first one, hold down SHIFT and click on the last one. You should see all of your selected images highlighted, as shown above. 3 Staying in the Library module, with the candidate shots highlighted, go…

Here’s an example image that is in need of a little creative makeover. Film grain can look great on the right kind of image, giving a nice gritty journalistic look to high-contrast black and white images. In this case, it’s a fairly simple transformation. We just converted the image to monochrome, reduced the exposure and boosted the contrast a bit, and then added the film grain effect from the Effects panel. The result is a great study in texture and contrast.…

1 If you have photos that were taken in a specific area, for instance on a foreign holiday, you can quickly sort and organise them based on their location using the map module. To get started, it makes things a lot easier if you already have them organised into collections, since the folder view is not available in the Map Module. 2 For this tutorial, we’ll use a collection of photos that were shot on a trip to Australia, specifically around Sydney. Open the Map Module, and in the top right of the main viewing area you can see a search box. We’ll type in Sydney, NSW and press return. The map will quickly focus on the Sydney area, with a pin in the location. 3 To zoom in more…

In the previous chapters we’ve concentrated on organising, editing and improving your photographs, but now we move on to the Lightroom modules that deal with presentation, starting with the Print Module. In the modern connected world, where photographs can be shared instantly with people all around the world via online galleries, instant messaging and email, many people don’t bother to print their photos. This is a pity, because a well-presented framed and mounted print is still one of the best ways to appreciate photography as an art form. Even the best monitors have trouble matching the sharpness and detail of a printed image and there’s something about producing an actual tangible object from your photographs that is infinitely more satisfying than posting an image to a website. A printed image…

1 We have already covered details about adding an identity plate to your prints in the previous section. Adding a copyright watermark is very similar and can be used in conjunction with an identity plate for additional security; or you can uncheck the Identity Plate option to turn it off and just use your own edited version. 2 If you’re in the Print Module, you can find the Watermarking option on the Page panel just below the Identity Plate options. Check the Watermarking box and change the option from None to Edit Watermarks. This will open the watermark editor where you begin the watermarking process. 3 Bear in mind you can also access the Watermarks Editor from any module by selecting either Lightroom > Edit Watermarks (Mac) or Edit >…

1 The Lightroom Identity Plate The Lightroom Identity Plate is also worth looking at when you’re considering uploading or creating published works. Use it to create your own unique signature or graphical logo and further personalise your photos, slideshows and potential bestselling books. It’s also something worth considering in addition to any watermarks you may be using, to help stop someone else online from stealing your photos and much valued hard work. 2 Publish Services The Publish Services module can be found in the left-hand panels, under the navigator window. It’s minimised by default, so you need to click the arrow to the left of it, to expand the module selection and the options within. Doing so reveals the basic, default publishing options: Hard Drive, Adobe Stock, Facebook and Flickr;…

1 Just as we've mentioned before, make sure you take the time to prepare your images prior to clicking on the Web module. Select the ones you want to have as a web page, edit them if necessary to ensure they are looking their best or any unwanted aspects have been removed or obscured and if they’re a part of a wider library, save them as a collection. 2 When you have the images ready, click on the Web module located in the top menu at the very end of the available modules. The first list will display a series of tips, as with the other modules we’ve looked at. Take a moment to browse through the tips; if they’re not appearing, click Help > Web Module Tips. 3 If…

1 To begin with, we are going to assume that you have a beautiful web gallery full of lovely images that is ready for uploading to the web. However, before we start the upload process, we think it’s best to recap a couple of crucial elements that can make all the difference. First, ensure you’ve looked through the various Templates on offer. 2 Next, make sure you’ve filled in the relevant sections for the Site Title, Collection Title, Collection Description, Contact Info, and insert a valid Web or Mail Link. These can be done either from the right-hand panel or by clicking on the text box titles on the web gallery itself. The preview pane will update and you can see the changes you've made and how they display. 3…

1 Add Photos If you want to import new photographs into your Lightroom catalogue or if you are starting from scratch, clicking this button will begin the process. 2 Learn & Discover Clicking this button will reveal panels dedicated to helping you learn more about Lightroom and discovering work by other artists around the world. 3 All Photos This is simply a complete listing of every photo you currently have in your library. 4 Recently Added This filters your photos by the date you added them to your collection. 5 Recent Edits This is a history of all the edits you've made to your current photo. 6 By Date This breaks down your photo collection by the year they were taken. 7 People Lightroom will scan your images and can…

1 Start the process by opening Lightroom and, if you haven't already imported the photos with which you want to work, begin to add new images by clicking the plus symbol in the top left corner and then clicking on Browse. For our processing workflow example, we browsed to a Raw file of a rocky landscape and double-clicked it to continue. 2 The ‘example 2.NEF’ file will be imported to Lightroom. In the top right corner of your workspace, click on the Add 1 Photo button to add the image to your current library. You have the option of importing to any of the named libraries you may have created. You can view your most recently added images under the Recently Added tab. 3 Ranged down the right side of…

1 We have a simple example portrait in our Library Module that we want to edit. The shot is reasonably exposed as the photographer intended but it could do with a number of edits to really make it shine. The aim of this workflow, is to do as much in Lightroom as possible without the aid of Photoshop. 2 Having had a chance to look at the image in the Develop Module, a couple of things are already apparent. The colour balance is a little off, since the background was having an effect, and the skin looks a little too orange. Her forehead also has a few blemishes that could do with some attention. 3 You can address the colour balance first by opening the Basic Tools panel and clicking…