Editing with Adobe Lightroom
I’m going to share with you why Adobe Lightroom is my go to photo editing software. It’s easy and quick. I have other programs that I use for a variety of other reasons. But when downloading product shots or images from Chic & Shabby or Inspired To Restore to use on Social media, I want it to be quick. I’m still using Adobe Lightroom 4 because it works for what I need. I should be updating soon but can’t decide if I want to upgrade to Adobe Lightroom 6 or Creative Cloud.
Today I will show you some before and after images using Lightroom sliders.
The sliders that I use in almost every edit are temperature, exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, blacks and clarity. If I’m editing portrait work, I would be adding a few more sliders. In a future post we will go over editing portraits.
If you want to order Adobe Lightroom I would suggest buying the latest version. You can order here at Amazon and get it in no time. It’s very easy to learn and Adobe and Youtube have tons of video tutorials to help you learn.
I always shoot in RAW. If you shoot in RAW you’ll have more control over the final outcome of your image, if you’re a JPEG shooter some of these options will be limited as a result of smaller file sizes and the compression that has already taken place in your camera.
For this post, I’m going to start with the straight out of the camera shot. I will then show you what the image looks like when you decrease and increase with each slider. Before going on to the next slider I will return the image to the original shot.
The first shot is straight out of the camera. It looks pretty good. How you use each slider will depend on the look you are going for.
First I reduced the exposure so you can see the difference. You would reduce exposure if the shot came out to bright or if you just wanted to focus in on a detail.
In this shot I increased the exposure. You would increase the exposure if your shot came out too dark.
In this shot I decreased the contrast. I sometimes decrease the contrast if I want a more abstract, dreamy quality to the image.
I increased the contrast here. Increasing the contrast will bring out the details in the image more.
In this shot the highlights are decreased. When you decrease the highlights you will see more details.
Here the highlights are increased. You can see when you increase the highlights the details are a little blown out.
Here I decreased the shadows. The details are clear when I’ve decreased the shadows in this image.
Next I increased the shadows. You can see the difference when you increase or decrease the shadows and neither are the correct way. It all depends on the look you are going for.
Decreased the whites sometimes will make details pop.
Increased the whites. Here the the details are blown out.
Decreased the black. Most of the time I decrease the black. To me it just makes the details pop more and the image looks sharper.
Increased the black. Again depending on the look you want will determine what you will do with this slider.
Decreased the clarity. I use this to create a moody effect.
Increased the clarity. If you want the image to be sharper you will increase the clarity.
I moved the sliders back to how they originally were straight out of the camera. Then if I went ahead and edited it as if I were going to post it to social media. I ended up warming up a little, increased the exposure, decrease the contrast, decreased the highlights, decreased the shadows, increased the white, decreased the black and slightly increased the clarity. It’s always going to depend on the lighting you are working with as to how much you will use the sliders. This shot was taken right in front of a big window so there was a lot of light coming in. By using my sliders in Adobe Lightroom I have just the right amount of editing to be able to post this shot.
By the way, Happy Mardi Gras from here in Franklin! Thought I’d use this image for the post in honor of today.
If you want great pictures of your products and your business you need to invest in a good photo editing software. If you can only do one, I would go with Lightroom.
Happy editing!
Tracey Bellion says
Love how you made it so simple and shared your every move! Great read!
Debbie says
Thank you Tracey! I appreciate you following along with me and your comment!
Heather says
Thank you for this detailed post, Debbie. I use PS CS4, but am going to experiment with working with RAW files in Bridge, which has many of the same capabilities. Thanks for the inspiration!
Debbie says
You’re welcome. Yes you will like it. Working in raw gives you more freedom when editing. Thanks for following my little cyber space.
Denise Bryant says
Thanks for this simple tutorial and tips. I’m always looking for photo editing ideas.
Debbie says
You’re welcome. I will do more on photo editing in the future. Thanks for reading 🙂
Lisa says
You really hit a home run with this post!
Debbie says
Thank you Lisa.
Debbie says
And thanks for following my blog. I appreciate it.