Abi Coop
Melissa Richard
Kristen Ryan
I have used Lightroom for over a decade now and while doing research to write a comprehensive workshop on it, I discovered some new things that I didn’t know existed! Some people are die-hard Photoshop users and others are in the Lightroom camp. I tend to use both. 90% of my work is done in Lightroom (usually 100% of my work if it’s for clients), and then on personal, or special photos, I take it over to Photoshop for that last 10% of magic. If I could only use one program for the rest of my life, though, it would be Lightroom hands down, even though I think Photoshop is the more powerful software overall. The organizational tools within Lightroom keep me sane, and their masking tools are getting more and more powerful with each iteration. Let me share 3 Lightroom features you didn’t know existed. They are also some of my favorites!
Left: SOOC, Right Lightroom Edit
The clone tool in Lightroom has never stood up to Photoshop, and to be honest it still doesn’t, BUT… with the latest versions of Lightroom Classic they have added a third option under that category – Content Aware Remove. This is a huge upgrade from the previous options, and it allows you to hit “refresh” over and over while it tries different source materials to blend from. You can also use Command and drag to tell it where to sample from. If I’m doing a quick job, I no longer pull my images over to Photoshop as this upgrade is more than sufficient for easier object removal (or spot removal from my continuously dirty sensor!).
Left: SOOC, Right: Lightroom Edit
Organizing photos from years prior has to be the bane of any photographer’s existence. Did you know that you can move files from WITHIN Lightroom from one hard drive to another? And if you do that, Lightroom will keep the edits connected to those files and track with you? If you just move images to another external drive outside of Lightroom and then go to re-edit or re-export any of those, you will need to go through the tedious process of re-mapping to the files so Lightroom can find them and match them up with your edits.
Left: SOOC, Right: Lightroom Edit
I live and die by these. If you are not using them already, you should!! Think of Lightroom as a filing cabinet. Every shoot you have ever edited is listed under the Library Module by date. What if you want to go find a certain photo from years prior but you don’t remember the date you took it on? That’s a lot of browsing through the files to find it. Collections are your salvation! You can create LR Collections for groups of photos. I have a collection for the delivered photos of each shoot I do, and even a collection for the photos I still want to edit or personal photos for my family albums. These collections do NOT make another copy of your file. They simply link to the original files as an easy way to organize and find things.
Left: SOOC, Right Lightroom Edit
These features are just the tip of the iceberg of what Lightroom is capable of. I wanted to create a COMPREHENSIVE course that obviously teaches all things editing related, but ALSO teaches you the full potential of the program! This course will be available 2x per year if you want to learn more!