According to McIntyre, your first consideration should be to decide what look you’re after, or as he puts it, “You have to get from the image exactly what you want to get.” As with all things photographic, there’s no one method that works best for all situations, whether you’re working in color or b&w.Īpart from using a different approach, depending upon the specific image at hand, there’s an important decision that is often overlooked. In the tutorial below from Scottish photo instructor Gary McIntyre, you’ll learn a variety of ways to edit monochrome photos.
Lightroom photo editing techniques software#
You're a graduate! You look amazing! You edit your own photos! What can’t you do?ĭiscover more editing tutorials and software through the Adobe Creative Cloud.Īre you a current student? See how you can save up to 60%.Most of you know that processing b&w images requires a much different approach than dealing with color, and in both cases there are a number of ways to achieve optimum results. Bask in your own beauty and accomplishments.Hopefully this feature will allow you to batch edit more efficiently. Remember, there is no one-size-fits-all in photo editing, so you still may have to make some adjustments. You can also copy some of the edit settings, while leaving others behind.
Or simply use the keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste. Click the three dots on the right side of the screen and copy the edit settings of your photo, then paste them on any photo you think has similar editing needs. Finally, you’ve done everything you can possibly do for your photo, and now you get to use one of my favorite Adobe Lightroom functions. Pretty much any adjustment you want to make can be found in either Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop. For example, maybe the background becomes overexposed when your face exposure is just right you can use a brush to target exposure to specific regions of the photo. Spend some playing around with new functions.īrushes will help you retouch specific parts of your photo. Adobe Lightroom has many different techniques to make your graduation photos exactly what you want them to be. If you go overboard with the warmth or with highly stylized colors you may lose some of the timeless appeal of a graduation photo. The best practice here is to make the color look as close to the actual light in which it was taken as possible. Finally you should take a second to make sure the white balance, the color of the photo, is just the way you like it. But if you get to the point where you are having to crank the dial past eleven, you might want to fix some of the details on Photoshop. A few notches on texture or a little dehaze can add a lot to your grad photos. When it comes to Adobe Lightroom effects, less is more. This is where things tend to get a bit crazy. After you’ve reached a satisfying equilibrium with your exposure, scroll down to effects. When you adjust the exposure, you are adjusting for the distortions that the camera may have added. Remember, the goal is to make your photo as life-like as possible. If you want a slightly more advanced, but more holistic approach to the adjustments open up the tonal curve settings.
Next move into light and exposure edits, chances are something here will need to be changed.Ĭlick on the adjustments icon and work your way down from top to bottom.
Ask yourself- what sort of dimensions are you looking for in your photo? Does the background add or detract? Does the top of your head have room to breathe? Play around a little with straightening and cropping until you figure out what works best. Photoshop will give you a lot more control, but if you're trying to save time, or if a few of your photos need the same kind of edits, Lightroom is the best place to start.Įditing software can be overwhelming, but following these simple steps will help you improve the quality of your photos. Adobe Lightroom will allow you to mass edit photos efficiently and effectively.