Have you heard about Lightroom and it’s editing possibilities at some point but you are not sure in which way it can help you with your editing? I had exactly the same situation some month ago.
As I started some years ago with photography I directly headed towards photoshop. Photoshop is an amazing tool for editing, but it’s time consuming. So I decided to go with Adobe Bridge and it’s included RAW converter. The workflow was pretty smooth that time as I pre-edited the images with the RAW converter and then took them into photoshop.
Some weeks ago I decided to give Lightroom a try as I got the 982365234th recommendation to start using Lightroom 😅 So far I’m totally in love with the program, it helps me a lot to fasten the editing workflow but it also improved the editing style immensely!
Here are my Top 10 Experiences with Lightroom that I would love to share with you:
1. Nondestructive Editing
One of the main keys why I will stay with Lightroom. Unlike most of the other photo editing software out there Adobe Lightroom does not edit original images. Each editing is done in a copy of the original file, so whatever you’re doing you will still have the raw original file.
2. Easy Watermarking
Adding a watermark with photoshop requires some knowledge about the actions within photoshop.Adding watermarks in Lightroom is extremely easy, especially when you are adding watermarks to a whole folder of images: you can create a (text) watermark in the exporting section or you can add your own image/watermark and save it as predefined watermark.
3. Less Disk Space
The number one problem I’m currently focusing on – my internal drive is always full. Saving storage got really important. Lightroom takes about 100 MB of disk space which is basically nothing compared to other programs.
4. Unlimited Undos
Thanks Lightroom for that feature! With photoshop you can undo max. 20 actions, with Lightroom you can undo every single step as it will keep the full history even if you are closing the program.
5. Easier to Use
Photoshop is build for editing professionals and graphic designers, Lightroom is build for beginner, advanced and professional photographers. It is well structured and logically build, so perfect no matter how experienced you are with digital editing. The workflow goes pretty smooth compared with photoshop, especially with the synchronise feature. With that feature you can edit one photo and the settings will be synchronised to any other selected photo in your folder.
6. Different Exporting Options
Once you’re done with editing you can easily export them – into a bunch of options. One can set the file format and especially the size but there are also options like burn to CD/DVD output and more. This feature did speed up my workflow immensely. Now once I’m done with editing and the shots are already perfect (without photoshop, yeah that’s possible with Lightroom) I just let Lightroom export them in the background and that’s it.
7. Before and After View
Probably one of the most awesome features of Lightroom is the “Before and After” feature. There is nothing more to say, it’s awesome to follow up the own process of editing.
8. Multitude of Presets
Those of you who are into photoshop might already be familiar with the actions. In Lightroom they are called presets. Imagine your style is based on highlights down and shadows up as well as sharpening. In Lightroom you can set these settings as a preset which fastens up your workflow immensely. As a great thing these presets can be shared with anyone – the internet is full with free and premium presets from other photographers. I’m using presets really often, they made a huge change in my editing workflow.
9. Slider-Based Controls
Another easy to handle feature in Lightroom. Any setting is based on sliders. There is nothing more to add, they are making things pretty easy.
10. Synchronise changes across multiple images
This feature changed my workflow totally. With the copy and paste feature I’m editing one image (with the sliders and presets) and then I just copy and paste all changes to another image. Imagine having a wedding with a bunch of photos from the ceremony (so basically the same light all the time) and you just can edit all photos by one click? Pretty awesome! 🙂
Final words
There are tons of Lightroom presets out there in the world that will improve your editing to a whole new level. As a bonus Lightroom is making the workflow really easy and fast. The pricing by Adobe is equitable, the newest version is 10$ (12€) per month for Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC. As CC subscriber you will get every new update by Adobe (and they are doing amazing updates at the moment).
I hope you guys enjoyed this article! Let me know your thoughts about Lightroom down in the comments! 🙂
Happy editing to everyone!
Rock on,
Ingmar
