Lightroom Techniques

[BrettMikaluk]

Not sure if this is the right thread but I wanted to ask anyways.

I'm pretty good with Photoshop, I use it a lot for school and doing manipulation to photos and personal projects but I'm wanting to learn more about Lightroom.

I own it, I bought Adobe CC so I have it installed but I want to actually learn how to use it and understand what the benefits of it are. I've looked for a few tutorials but haven't found anything particularly useful, so I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions to get started!

Thanks in advance

 

[nerwin]

Scott Kelby's Lightroom Killer Tips is a great place to start. Lots of great information there.

Lightroom Killer Tips - Lightroom Presets, Videos, Tips and News

 

[Ido]

Photo editing is just one function of Lightroom—and that it does exactly the same as Adobe Camera Raw, which I believe you're already using. I find Lightroom very useful for cataloging images, quickly finding the ones I'm looking for even years after shooting them; for culling images to choose the few I want to work on; for uploading images to social media (there are some built-in, some with downloadable plug-ins), etc. I do use Photoshop alongside Lightroom fairly often, when editing with layers can be easier or when I want to do some manipulations that can't be done in Lightroom.

The key to using Lightroom efficiently is to develop a good workflow. You can search for suggestions—I did so for a long while—but eventually you'll have to settle on a workflow that makes sense to you, that you can go through as fast as you need, and that you can maintain and stay consistent in without too much hassle. The moment you break your routine and start tweaking your workflow is when things can get a little messy. I recommend starting with a fresh catalog and only importing a few folders, to get the hang of it. Figure out your workflow, and when you're more sure about it, either import the rest of your image library to that existing catalog, or create a new one and start from scratch.