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The dPS Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

Note: this is one of the most comprehensive articles we’ve written on Lightroom. Read it below or get a free downloadable copy to print and/or refer to later by adding your email address below and we’ll send you a copy.

The dPS Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

If you’re new to Lightroom you may be wondering what it does, how it differs from other programs (like Photoshop), and how to use it to its full potential – this article will answer a lot of questions and help you get started.The dPS Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

The reason that Lightroom has become so popular is because it is a workflow application. You use it to manage your photos the moment they are downloaded from your camera’s memory card and saved on your hard drive. Once they are inside Lightroom you can organize them into Collections (a type of virtual folder) and process RAW, JPG, and TIF files.

You can also add photos to a map to organize them by location, create a photo book or slide show, print photos, or export them to other programs for further processing. Lightroom remains at the heart of your workflow as you do it all.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

Lightroom can be used for printing photos as well as processing and organizing them. It’s the complete workflow tool.

The Lightroom Catalog

The Lightroom Catalog is a database containing a preview of every photo you have imported into Lightroom. It also contains a record of each photo’s metadata (which includes all processing done to it) and the location where it is saved on your hard drive. Lightroom works by saving the edits you make to your photos as a series of text commands in the Catalog. This includes any and all processing instructions you set up for each image.

The benefit of working this way is that it saves a lot of hard drive space. This is especially true when working with RAW files, as there is no need to convert them to 16-bit TIF files first (as you do in Photoshop) to work on them. All processing in Lightroom is non-destructive, meaning you can undo any steps or everything, and return to the original state of the file at any time.

Lightroom Modules

Lightroom has seven modules (Library, Develop, Map, Book, Slideshow, Print, and Web). You can only work in one module at a time. This article concentrates on the Library and Develop modules, as they are the most important to learn first, and one you’ll use most often.

Scroll down to the end of the article for links to other articles I have written that explain how to use the other Lightroom modules. I’ve also linked to other articles throughout this guide that expand on the points within.
The Library Module

The Library module is the heart of Lightroom. It’s where you view, search, filter, and organize your imported photos. For example, if you want to find all your photos taken with a particular camera or lens, that’s easy in Lightroom (it takes seconds).

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

This example search shows all the photos taken with my Fuji X-T1 camera and a 35mm lens in 2016.

But the real benefit of the Library module is that it lets you organize your photos any way you want. It does this by using Collections, a type of virtual folder system.

Folders are limited for organization purposes. Let’s say you took some photos of a friend called Peter in New York in September. You can only save those photos in one folder on your hard drive (which may be named Peter-New York-September or something similar).

But in the Library module you are free to add the photos to as many Collections as you want. In this example, you could have a collection named Peter, another called New York, and another named September. In fact, you can add the photos to as many Collections as you want. You have complete freedom to organize your photos how you see fit.
How to Import Photos Into Lightroom

As Lightroom is built on a database (the Catalog) you have to import photos before you can do anything with them. During the import process, Lightroom adds your selected photos to the Catalog and generates previews for viewing. Imported photos stay in the Catalog forever (or until you remove them) and don’t have to be imported again.

If this is the first time you have used Lightroom, then it will look something like this when you open it. There are no photos to see because nothing has been imported yet.

Lightroom tutorial 03

The screen is divided into four. This basic layout is repeated throughout the seven modules.

1. The Module picker: The bar at the top that tells you which module is currently active. Click the grey triangle (arrow) at the top to make it disappear, saving screen space.

2. The side panels: The left and right-hand panels containing all the Library module tools. Click on the grey triangles (arrows) to hide them.

3. The Filmstrip: This displays thumbnails of the photos in the currently selected Folders, Collection, or search results. Click the grey triangle (arrow) at the bottom of the screen hide it.

4. The Content window: This is the central display area. You view photos here after they have been imported into Lightroom. Use the keyboard shortcut Shift + Tab to hide all four side panels and see only the middle content window portion. This is handy when you are sorting and flagging images.

More on sorting and flagging images in Lightroom here: 4 of the Most Important Elements of the Lightroom Library Module.

Importing Photos into Lightroom

If this if your first import you will probably be adding photos that you have already downloaded from memory cards to your hard drive. You can also import photos directly from a memory card, or a connected camera or smartphone.

If you have already saved your photos in folders it is best to import one folder at a time. This gives you time to organize your images as you go along. Be aware that Lightroom will make you wait a long time while it builds previews if you import too many images in one go.

This is what happens during the import process:

  • Lightroom notes where the imported photos are saved and adds this information to the Catalog.
  • Lightroom reads each photo’s metadata and saves that in the Catalog. This includes the camera settings and file names, data that is used to help search images.
  • Lightroom creates a preview of each imported photo and saves it on your computer’s hard drive.
  • The previews are saved in a previews (.lrdata) file.

Please note the following: This is important and often trips up first-time Lightroom users. Your photos are not stored in the Catalog. Backing up the Catalog does not back up your images. Nor are your photos stored in the cloud if you’re a Lightroom CC subscriber. The Catalog only stores the metadata and processing information.

Always remember that your photos are saved on your hard drive. You can only back up your photos by backing up the hard drive on which you’ve saved them.

The Import Window

Get started by clicking the Import button. Lightroom opens the Import window. It’s divided into four areas.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

1. Source: This designates from where Lightroom will be importing the photos. All devices and hard drives connected to your computer are shown here.

2. Photo thumbnails: Ticked photos will be imported into the Lightroom Catalog when you press the Import button. You can choose Check All or Uncheck All at the bottom of the thumbnail window. To select several in a row tick one, hold the Shift key and select another – Lightroom will tick all of the images in between. To select random images hold the CMD/CTRL key and click each one individually.

3. Import options: These tell Lightroom what to do with the photos. You have four options, they are:

  • Copy as DNG – Lightroom copies your files and converts any non-DNG Raw files to the DNG format. Only select this if you understand the benefits (and disadvantages) of using the DNG format.
  • Copy – Lightroom copies the selected files without changing the format. Use this to copy files from a device or memory card over to a hard drive.
  • Move – Lightroom moves the selected files from their current location to a new one. This is the same as Copy, except that Lightroom deletes the originals afterwards. This option is NOT recommended if you are downloading from your memory card! Always use Copy for that, so that if anything goes wrong during the import process you still have your original images on the car.
  • Add – Lightroom adds the selected photos to the Catalog, without copying them. Use this if the imported photos are already saved in the correct place on your hard drive (i.e. you aren’t downloading them from a card).

4. Destination: Where you tell Lightroom to save the imported photos and what to do with them along the way.

If you select the Add option you’ll see two panels here. File Handling (where you can select the preview options and save a second copy to another drive) and Apply During Import (which allows you to apply Lightroom develop presets to all the images being imported, this can save a lot of time if you wish to apply things like Lens Corrections, a slight edge vignette, etc., to all your images).

If you select Copy as DNG, Copy or Move you’ll also see the File Renaming (where you can rename and number your images) and Destination (tell Lightroom where to put your actual images) panels.

Further reading: Make Lightroom Faster by Using DNG.

Putting it Together

Now it’s time to import your first photos. This initial workflow assumes that you’re importing files that you have already previously saved to a hard drive.

  1. Under “Source”, navigate to the folder containing your photo files.
  2. Select the Add option from the top section.
  3. Open the File Handling panel (on the right, click on the heading to open and close panels). Set Build Previews to 1:1.
  4. Open the Apply During Import panel and set Develop Settings and Metadata to None. This is just to keep your first import simple.
  5. Click the Import button. Lightroom takes you to the Library module and starts importing the selected photos. It takes a while to create the 1:1 previews, but the wait is worth it as it makes viewing your photos much quicker.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

At some point, you’ll want to import photos directly from a memory card, camera, or Smartphone. There are a couple of extra steps in this process.

  1. Under “Source”, navigate to your memory card containing your photo files.
  2. Select Copy (instead of Add) at the top of the Import window.
  3. Set the File Handling and Apply During Import panel settings as above.
  4. Ignore the File Renaming panel (advanced users only).
  5. Under “Destination Folder”, select where you would like to save the imported photos. You can create a new folder by right-clicking on an existing one and selecting Create New Folder.
  6. Click the Import button when you’re ready.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

How to Organize Your Photos in Lightroom

Photos are saved in folders (on your hard drive) and organized in Collections (in Lightroom). You can view both Folders and Collections in the Library module, but you can only view Collections in the other modules. This is one of the reasons why you will want to use Collections to organize your images.

You can create as many Collections as you like. The more you use Collections, the more you will appreciate how useful they are.

Lightroom has several types of Collections

Collections: Virtual folders to which you can add any photos imported into Lightroom.

Collection Sets: Another type of virtual folder. You can add Collections and other Collection Sets to a Collection Set, but not photos. They are for organizing Collections.

Smart Collections: Collections populated automatically according to criteria set by you. Lightroom already contains several Smart Collections, you can add more as you see fit.

Published Collections: These have a lot of uses, but the most common is for sending images to photo sharing websites like 500px and Flickr. This is for advanced users only.

For Further reading on this topic, check out:

Book, Slideshow, Print, and Web Collections: Created in Book, Slideshow, Print, and Web modules. These collections keep track of images used in these modules for specific projects you create.

This screenshot shows the icons used to represent Collections in Lightroom.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

  1. Devon (1) is a Collection Set that contains a Collection.
  2. Speke’s Mill Walk (2) is a Collection containing photos.
  3. Print (3) is a Print Collection.
  4. Web Gallery (4) is a Web Collection.
  5. The Collection Set Smart Collections (5) contains . . .
  6. The default Smart Collections (6) that come with Lightroom.

The numbers on the right tell you how many photos are in each Collection. We will concentrate on Collection Sets and Collections in this article.

Creating Collection Sets

1. Go to the Collections panel and click on the plus (+) icon. Select Create Collection Set.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

2. Give the Collection set a name. This might be something like the year or the country where the photos you imported earlier were taken.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

3. Right-click on the Collection Set you created and choose Create Collection. Give it a name (relevant to the photos you just imported), tick the Set as Target Collection Box and click Create.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

4. Go to the Catalog panel and click Previous Import. Lightroom displays the images you imported earlier in the Content window. Go to Edit > Select All to select all the photos and press the B key. Lightroom adds the selected photos to the Target Collection – the one you just created.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

Further reading

Now that you understand the basics of the Library module, you can learn more about organizing and searching your photos with these articles.

The Develop Module

Now that you understand the basics of the Lightroom Library module, it’s time to get started post-processing some photos. To do so, select an image by clicking on it, then press the D key. This keyboard shortcut takes you straight to the Develop module.

The layout of the Develop module is similar to that of the Library module. The Filmstrip (bottom) and Module Picker (top) are the same. What have changed are the panels on the left and right-hand sides.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

When you’re ready, hide the Module Picker, Filmstrip and left-hand panels by clicking on the grey arrows (triangles). Your screen should look something like this – the photo you’re working on is in the centre of the screen (the content window) and there are some panels on the right.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

The panels on the right contain most of Lightroom’s RAW processing tools. You can jump around these in whichever order you want, but it makes sense to use a purposeful workflow and approach them in a logical order.

I’m going to show you my workflow. Follow this to start with (it works) but don’t be afraid to switch things around if you find a way that works better for you.

This article isn’t long enough to cover every tool in the Develop module, but I will cover the most important ones, and include links to articles that explore the other tools in more depth.

Camera Calibration Panel

There are two important settings you will want to take note of in this panel:

  1. Process: This should be set to 2012 (Current).
  2. Profile: The options here match the color profiles of the camera used to take the photo (and vary by manufacturer), plus the Adobe Standard option. Select the most appropriate for your photo. This should be done at the beginning of your post-processing as the profile affects both color and contrast.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

Don’t worry about the other sliders in the Camera Calibration panel they are for advanced users only.

I set Profile to Camera Landscape for this photo. This is the best profile to use as it brings out the soft blue hues of the early evening sky.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

By comparison, this version using the Camera Standard profile, is not as effective. There is a big difference between the colors in both photos, which shows why it is important to set the most appropriate profile at the beginning of your workflow.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

Lens Corrections Panel

Some photographers like to work with this panel near the end of their workflow. I place it near the beginning because it’s important to correct barrel distortion in landscape and architectural photos, otherwise you can’t straighten horizons using the Crop tool accurately.

To get started there are only two things you need to do inside the Lens Corrections panel. Both are found under the Profile tab.

1. Tick the Remove Chromatic Aberrations box. This tells Lightroom to automatically remove any chromatic aberrations in the photo. {Link to this URL with the highlighted text https://digital-photography-school.com/chromatic-aberration-what-is-it-and-how-to-avoid-it/ }

2. Tick the Enable Profile Corrections box. Lightroom should automatically detect the lens used to take the photo and apply the correct profile to eliminate barrel distortion and any edge vignetting that is present.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

There are two things to note here:

  1. The screenshot shown is from Lightroom CC. If you have Lightroom 6 or an earlier version of Lightroom the Lens Corrections panel has a different layout.
  2. Don’t tick the Enable Profile Corrections box if the Built-in Lens Profile applied message is displayed underneath. Some cameras have built-in lens profiles that are automatically applied by Lightroom. You won’t find profiles for them in the menu.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

If you have Lightroom 5 or earlier, the Built-in Lens Profile applied message isn’t displayed, even if the photo has one. If you can’t find the profile for your lens in the menu, it is either an old lens that Adobe hasn’t profiled or a new lens with a built-in profile (this mainly applies to lenses from Mirrorless camera systems).

Ignore the other tools in the Lens Corrections panel for the moment, they are for more advanced users.

Basic Panel

The Basic Panel is quite important as the work you do here establishes the tonal values and colors of your photo. Most of your post-processing is done here, and the tools in the other panels are used for refining the image.

White Balance Sliders

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

Here you can use one of the presets (Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, etc.) or adjust the Temp and Tint sliders yourself. Move the Temp slider left to make the image cooler or move it right to make it warmer. The Tint slider is for removing green or magenta color casts (usually caused by fluorescent lights).

Alternatively, select on the eyedropper icon and click a neutral grey or white area in the image. Lightroom analyzes the pixels under the cursor and sets the White Balance sliders to remove any color cast (making the image color neutral).

There are three ways to use White Balance:

  1. Create an image with neutral color.
  2. Give the image a warm color tone. You might do this with a landscape taken during the golden hour (when the light is naturally warm) or a portrait (as warm colors are more flattering for skin tones than cool ones).
  3. Create a cool color tone to give the photo a cold feel (perhaps for a landscape photo taken in the winter).

Once you have decided which of these three paths you want to go down, you can adjust the sliders to suit. For example, I gave this portrait a warm tone by setting the White Balance to the Shade preset.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

Here, I set White Balance to Daylight. This gave the portrait a blue cast which is much less pleasing to the eye.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

Presence Sliders

There are two more sliders at the bottom of the Basic panel that affect color. They are called Vibrance and Saturation. Move them left to reduce the color intensity, or right to increase it.

The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Lightroom for Beginners

The Saturation slider affects all colors equally. The Vibrance slider has a greater affect on saturated colors. Play around with them on a few different photos to get a feel for how they work. Be careful – these sliders are best used for desaturation of colors (lowering the intensity) rather than increasing them (which often looks false).

The Clarity slider emphasizes texture when you move it right, and reduces texture when you move it to the left. Setting Clarity to +20 or +30 improves most photos (but beware of using it on portraits where it can over-emphasize skin texture and wrinkles and become unflattering to the subject). It may also change the brightness of the image.

This photo has Clarity set to zero.

Lightroom tutorial 16a

This version has Clarity set to +30, bringing out the texture in the bricks and roof tiles.

Lightroom tutorial 16b

Further reading: Four Ways to Improve Your Photos with the Clarity Slider.

Tone Sliders

The Tone sliders are for adjusting brightness and contrast. If you’re feeling lucky press the Auto button to see what happens. If you don’t like the effect simply go to Edit > Undo to step backward.

Lightroom tutorial 17

  • Exposure slider: Move it left to make the photo darker, right to make it brighter.
  • Contrast slider: Move it left to decrease contrast, right to increase it.
  • Highlights slider: Move it left to make only light tones darker, or right to make them lighter.
  • Shadows slider: Move it left to make only dark tones darker, or right to make them lighter.
  • Whites and Blacks sliders: Don’t worry about these sliders at this stage.

The best way to learn how to use the tone sliders is to use them and see what happens. Take the following photo as an example. This is how it looked before making any adjustments.

Lightroom tutorial 17a

In this version I set Shadows to -68 to make the bottom part of the image darker, and Highlights to +43 to make the sky lighter. Notice that this effectively increased the overall contrast of the image as well.

Lightroom tutorial 17b

Tone Curve Panel

This is an easy one for newcomers to Lightroom, as my recommendation is that you avoid it for the moment. You can work just as effectively with the Tone sliders in the Basic panel.

There’s just one exception to this – some of you may be comfortable with the Tone Curve because you have used in extensively in another program like Photoshop. In that case you can go right ahead and use it in Lightroom too.

Lightroom tutorial 19

HSL / Color / B&W Panel

The sliders in this panel give you much greater control over the colors in your image. You can also use them to convert your photo to black and white. The complexities of this panel are a little beyond the scope of this article, so I’ll point you towards the following articles to learn more.

Further reading:

Lightroom tutorial 20

Split Toning Panel

This is another panel that is useful both when working in color (for color grading – adjusting the overall color balance of the image) and in black and white (for toning photos). Once again, it’s a little advanced for Lightroom newcomers, but you can learn more with these articles.

Lightroom tutorial 21

Further reading:

Detail Panel

The controls in this panel have two purposes. The Sharpening sliders are there because RAW files are slightly soft (they are unsharpened) straight out of the camera. The Noise Reduction sliders are for reducing noise caused by using high ISO settings or long exposures (longer than five minutes).

Lightroom tutorial 22

The best thing to do is leave them at their default settings. They are good enough for most photos.

Effects Panel

The Effects panel is used for adding vignettes, adding grain (to imitate the look of film) and (with the Dehaze slider, available only in Lightroom CC) for removing atmospheric haze.

Lightroom tutorial 23

It’s another panel you can skip over for the moment. This will give me space to tell you about something that will really help improve your photo processing in Lightroom – making local adjustments.

Local Adjustments

Local adjustments are kind of a big deal in Lightroom because they are what elevate your post-processing technique from good to great. There are very few photos that can’t be improved by some sort of local adjustment.

First, let’s look at a definition. A global adjustment is one that affects the entire image. All the Develop module tools you have learned to use so far are global adjustments.

Local adjustments affect only part of the image. If you have a Photoshop background, then you know that you can make local adjustments in Photoshop using selections or masks. The theory is the same in Lightroom, but the tools are different.

Lightroom has three tools for making local adjustments; the Graduated Filter, the Radial Filter and the Adjustment Brush. You have the same options for each one.

Lightroom tutorial 30

The most obvious use of a local adjustment is to make part of the image lighter or darker (using the Exposure slider). But you can also adjust contrast (with the Contrast slider), color (with the Temp, Tint or Saturation sliders) or emphasize texture (with the Clarity slider). The more you use your imagination the more uses you will figure out for local adjustments.

The Graduated Filter

This tool is named after graduated neutral density filters used by landscape photographers to make the sky darker. The Graduated Filter inside Lightroom does something similar. The key to making the most of the Graduated Filter is to look past its most obvious use in landscape photography, and think about how it can be used elsewhere.

To start, click the Graduated filter icon (marked below), or use the keyboard shortcut M. The Graduated filter panel opens beneath the histogram.

Lightroom tutorial 29

Add a Graduated filter by clicking on the photo and holding the left mouse button down. Hold it and drag the mouse down over the image.

The Graduated filter is marked by three lines, which spread farther apart as you move the mouse. The further apart you pull the lines, the softer the graduation of the effect you’re applying will be. You can move the Graduated Filter by clicking and dragging the grey pin at the center.

This may sound complicated, but a few minutes playing with the Graduated Filter tool is all that’s required to get the hang of it.

I used three Graduated Filters on the following image. This is what I started with:

Lightroom tutorial 24

This is the result:

Lightroom tutorial 25

These screenshots show you the location of each Graduated Filter (shown in red) and the settings used for each one.

Lightroom tutorial 26

Lightroom tutorial 27

Lightroom tutorial 28

The Radial Filter

The Radial Filter was introduced in Lightroom 5. It creates a circle or oval shaped selection. You can apply the affect to the area inside or outside the selection.

Click on the Radial Filter icon (marked below) or use the keyboard shortcut Shift+M. Hold the left mouse button down and drag the mouse across the photo to create the filter.

Lightroom tutorial 31

You can change the size and shape of the Radial Filter by clicking and dragging the four white squares around the edge. Rotate it by moving the cursor to the edge of the filter until it changes from a hand or plus icon to a double curly arrow. Click and drag on the arrow to rotate the Radial filter.

Use the Feather slider to set the softness of the gradient at the edges of the Radial filter. The default setting of 50 seems to work well, but you can change it as needed.

Lightroom applies the adjustments to the area outside the Radial filter by default. Tick the Invert Mask box to apply the adjustments to the area inside it instead.

One use for the Radial filter is to darken the edges of your image to draw the eye towards the subject. Here’s an example, using a photo of a dandelion that I decided would look better if I made the green area darker. This is what I started with:

Lightroom tutorial 32

Original image.

Lightroom tutorial 33

This is the difference with the Radial Filter applied.

This screenshot shows the location of the filter, the area affected by the adjustment (in red), and the settings used.

Lightroom tutorial 34

Further reading:

The Adjustment Brush

The Adjustment Brush is for making local adjustments that can’t be easily carried out with either of the Graduated or Radial filters. Click the Adjustment Brush icon (marked below) or use the keyboard shortcut key K. The Adjustment Brush panel opens up underneath the histogram.

Lightroom tutorial 35

You’ll find sliders for setting the size, softness (feather0, and strength of the brush at the bottom. Start by selecting Brush A (if it’s not already selected). Use the [ and ] keys to adjust the brush (you can also use the Size slider).

Use the Feather slider to adjust the softness of the brush (or hold the Shift key down and use the [ and ] keys). The size of the Adjustment Brush is displayed with two circles. The inner circle shows the area fully covered by the brush. The outer circle shows the feathered area. The gap between the two circles changes as you adjust the Feather setting (make it bigger for a more gradual effect).

Lightroom tutorial 36

Here’s an example of the how to use the Adjustment Brush. I wanted to emphasize the texture in the baboon’s face. The Adjustment Brush is the best tool to use for this because I could paint over an area that matched the shape of his face.

This screenshot shows the masked area (in red) which will be affected. I set Clarity to +51 to bring out the texture in the animal’s skin and fur.

Lightroom tutorial 37

Lightroom tutorial 38

This is the starting image.

Lightroom tutorial 39

This is how it looks with the adjustment made.

You can create another Adjustment Brush by clicking on B and changing the settings. You can switch between the A and B brushes whenever you like. If you want another that is different just click New and you can add as many Adjustment Brushes as you need.

If you paint over an area you don’t want to effect, just select Erase then paint over the parts where you want to remove the mask.

Flow controls the opacity of the brush; density sets the maximum strength. For now, keep both at 100 (you can learn more about these controls if you get into advanced retouching techniques) and vary the strength of the effect with the slider settings.

Leave the Auto Mask box unticked for now. It’s bit of a specialized tool that often doesn’t work very well.

Further reading:

Combining Local Adjustment Tools

In Lightroom 6 and Lightroom CC you can use the Adjustment Brush to refine the mask created by the Graduated and Radial filters. This is an advanced tool that is very useful for creating precise selections.

Further reading:

The Other Lightroom Modules

Lightroom has several other modules, which aren’t possible to cover here. These articles will help you learn more about the Map, Slideshow, Print, Book, and Web modules.

Further reading:

Conclusion

Lightroom may seem intimidating when you are new to the program, but the reality is that once you understand the basics of importing and processing images it really is surprisingly straightforward to use. The lessons learned from this article lay a foundation on which you can build to truly master Lightroom. This powerful program will become the center of a new and efficient workflow that saves you time and is easy and enjoyable to use.

If you have questions about the content of this article then please let us know in the comments below. I’ll do my best to help.

For more Lightroom learning you can also check out our course Lightroom Mastery here on dPS.

Author bio: Andrew S. Gibson is a long time Digital Photography School contributor and the author of the Mastering Lightroom ebooks.

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Andrew S. Gibson
Andrew S. Gibson

is a writer, photographer, traveler and workshop leader. He’s an experienced teacher who enjoys helping people learn about photography and Lightroom. Join his free Introducing Lightroom course or download his free Composition PhotoTips Cards!

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