Beginning in Lightroom

Lightroom is awesome even if you only shoot jpg. It has powerful organizing capabilities. I import all my photos, including those taken with my phone. If I ever stop shooting raw photos, I will still use LR for organizing, at least. Jpg photos can even be edited, just not as much as a raw photo because it has less data to work with.

I have tried shooting in RAW+JPG a few times but I always end up switching back to RAW-only so I have less files to handle. If I don’t feel up to processing a bunch of raw files, I will hit the auto button in LR and then tweak the sliders to my liking. Or, I will just edit one or a few and leave the others unedited until some future date when I maybe might get back to them.

I’ve never gotten into editing presets. I process my raw photos myself. However I highly recommend import and export presets.

My workflow is ...

1. Import photos. I’ve created import presets for my phone and DSLR telling LR where to put my photos, a tag or two to attach, maybe a basic edit, and apply copyright info in the metadata. It also changes the filenames to a format I’ve chosen.

2. Usually I title and caption my photos next but occasionally I’m excited and dive right into editing a photo. As I’m captioning I’ll occasionally add keywords but I don’t use those much. I’ve set the program to save captions to the metadata automatically, so later, when I search my files, I get results based on those titles and captions.

3. I switch to the Developer module and process any raw photos. Did you know you can select multiple photos and edit them simultaneously? This is why I always edit in LR and consider PS a scrapbooking tool.

4. If applicable, I copy some photos into collections. And I drag photos into my SmugMug uploader and upload them. And if I wanted a raw photo exported as a jpg I do that. I haven’t been bothering to export ALL of my photos as jpgs for a few years now, which might be a mistake because if I lose my LR catalog I lose all the processing I did on raw photos. But, at least, when I upload them to my SmugMug account, that turns them into jpgs there. And ...

5. I set LR to ask me upon exiting every time whether I want to back up my catalog and I tell it yes 95% of the time. It takes a couple minutes but it’s as important as backing up our files to Backblaze.

I think that pretty much covers what I’ve been doing in Lightroom for about 7 years now. I’m happy to tell more though, if you have any questions.

 

I need this knowledge, too! I have LR now and have never had the nerve to venture in. Thanks @michelepixels for this information!

 

I've been using LR for years and love it! I had an old version for a long time, but when I upgraded to CC, there were so many new and fantastic features! I have Canon 70D, but I don't shoot in RAW. I've tried it a few times, but don't love the file sizes, etc and for most of my photography, I've been happy with the JPG format. I use LR to import my photos from my camera, which is nice since it will automatically date them and sync them to my folders on my hard drive. I have lots of presets (some I've made), but I tend to gravitate to a handful of them. There are still things I prefer to do in PS, but most of my editing is done in LR. The B&W conversion is much better. It's wonderful to use a preset vs. running an action (at least that's my preference because it's so quick and easy to modify). There is a little bit of a learning curve, but it's well-worth the investment IMO!

Features I love:

• Adjustment brushes (especially the ability to use presets effects) - this is my absolute favorite feature beyond presets
• Spot removal
• Rating stars
• Before / After

 

I'm glad to hear that somebody else doesn't like RAW, Sheri. I've tried it several times and much prefer a very large JPEG.

 

Adding to this, you can also "sync" edits that you made to other photos. Sometimes, I have outdoor and indoor photos so I'll sync the applicable ones.

I have mine set up once a week. I figure I'm okay with losing one week of work, and that way I always say yes. When I had it more often, I said no too much!

I only shoot in raw in really dim areas when I know I need the extra editing options. I use Lightroom all.the.time. I like how it edits photos better for me than in Photoshop. Also, it's my organizer.

 

I have some presets from Totally Rad that I use (I don't know if they are available anymore?). Other than those, the most common ones I use are ones I made and saved. I have one I use on almost every scan because I find it reads too green. Another that I use on old scans that lightens them up. I think if you pay attention to the things you almost always do to a photo, you'll find what kind of preset you want/need. There are some presets in the store you can play with too:

 

I've been using Lightroom from the early versions and now use CC. I do only shoot in raw as it gives more flexibility in development of photos and takes only a short time once you have a process. If you are a photographer who loves experimenting with Aperture, ISO, DOF etc then you will really appreciate the difference of raw. Otherwise jpg is fine for most situations.
I will use both Lightroom and Photoshop for some images. For example removal of objects in a photo and cloning etc is so easy in Photoshop and only average in Lightroom. Also Photoshop is great for working on certain areas of the photo eg brightening leaves in a tree etc and easier than lightroom.

 

There are also two different Lightroom options within CC - Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC. I have stuck with Classic as I prefer the interface and the new Lightroom CC requires all your photos to be in the Cloud.
Here's a link to an article on the differences between the two
https://photographylife.com/lightroom-classic-vs-lightroom-cc

 

question about lightroom classic - have never used it. if photos are already on hard drive why do you have to import or am i mistaken

how do you get your photos to show up

does importing mean it makes another copy of them.

 

LR is a non-destructive photo editor. It store the changes you make in a database (called the catalog) and applies then when you are view the photo. So the Import option is how you tell LR that the photo exists, creates a database entry for it, and stores the location of the photo.

The Import tool has several options and you can pick which works best for you.
- Add - let you add the photos to LR and keeps them where ever you have them. It does not copy them but just creates a pointer to the photo.
- Copy - adds the photo to LR and creates a new copy of the file in whatever file folder structure (and naming scheme) you tell LR to use.
- Copy as DNG - converts the photo to Adobe's file format (DNG) and creates that new copy in the file folder structure you tell it to use -- I use this to convert raw files to Adobe's format since the raw formats can vary by camera model and manufacturer. For example, my old LR could not read the raw format from my new camera.
- Move - adds the photo to LR and moves it to the new location file folder structure you tell it. It also deletes it from where it found it.

So you have several choices - if you already like your file structure, then just use Add. If you want to create a new structure, then the Copy or Move choice is better.

p.s. I am on LR version 5, which is old but still works, so I can't guarantee that they did not change something.

 

I have the current version of Lightroom (I have PSCC) so I can confirm what Bev says is accurate! You're not literally bringing photos into Lightroom. Lightroom is just a database with instructions for photo developing and information about photo locations on your hard drives. You could make a second copy when you import (the two Copy options Bev described) but if you Add or Move, that does NOT make a new copy.

 

This is also why if you move the photo outside of Lightroom, Lightroom has no idea where it went.
So, um, don't mess up your catalog and move photos outside of Lightroom once you've told LR where the photos are.

Ask me how I know!

 

thanks - i did use add to import a folder and it created a copy as i checked hard drive space before and after

do you know where to find this copy of photos as i want to delete it.

 

that is reason why i never used acdsee for tagging as you had to use it as file manager - sounds like you have to do that here. And that is something i will never do as fonts are too small

another question - why do you you have to manually install presets you downlaod- that is like installing actions in pse . Am i mistaken or can you just load LR presets . even in pse starting with pse 11 you didnt have to manually install actions ( i still have to as i use pse 10)

 

Not sure how font size relates to LR??

If you go into LR, it will show you where the photos are that it imported, i.e. file folder structure in the left panel.

I have several thousand photos loaded into LR and my catalog database is over 200MB. So using LR will take up some space. Also, there are options to automatically create a backup of that catalog, so that takes space too.

Yes, presets have to be loaded, but once they are loaded, they stay there until you delete them. It is super easy to do.