Getting started with Lightroom - your first edit

An introduction to the Develop module 

This is a quick introduction to the Develop module or section of Adobe Lightroom. This follows on from my post on getting started and importing your photos:

Getting started with Lightroom on an iMac

I will introduce the different parts of the Develop screen and take you through a simple edit on a photo.

Note: I use Lightroom 6 so the screens might look different to yours if you are using a later release. The basic workflow is the same or very similar.

Step 1 - Select a photo to edit

Open Lightroom and find the images you want to edit from the Library section. If they are the ones you last imported they will already be shown in the centre of the screen.

If the photos you want to edit are not displayed then you will need to search for them from your Catalog, Folders or Collections in the Left side panel. If you click on Catalog one of the listed items is Previous Import, this is where you will find the last photos you imported.

Once you locate the images you want to work in click on one image to edit that one and then click on the Develop tab at the top of the screen.

The selected image will now fill the centre panel.

The triangles in the middle of the left and right edges will show or hide that panel.

If you want to use a preset on this image click on the triangle next to Presets (in the Left side panel) to see a list of presets you have available.

The Right side panel is where the editing controls are located, each section can be expanded or hidden using the triangles above / to the side of that section name. On my screen above I have the Basic section expanded. You can open everything, or just open the section you are currently working in for a cleaner workspace.

Step 2 - Basic adjustments

It is probably a good idea to start to learn Lightroom editing by working from top to bottom in these adjustment sections, but you can change the order if you want to later.

Below I have made some basic edits by moving the sliders.

You can safely make these edits without damaging the original photo so feel free to have a play with the sliders and see what happens.

The top two sliders are to do with the white balance used in your photo. This can be changed so that if, for example, you took a photo indoors in artificial light but had left your camera set to sunshine (outdoors) the colours would look wrong, by simply changing the WB from As Shot to Tungsten or Fluorescent the colour will be improved.

The next section is the Tone of the photo. Exposure is how bright or dark the mid tones are. Contrast sets the best mid tone contrast between white and black.

If your highlighted areas look too bright you might be able to recover some of the detail by moving the Highlights slider to the left (a minus number).  If some of the shadows look a bit too dark move the Shadows slider to the right (a plus number).

Whites affects the whites of the image, move to the right to increase white, to the left to decrease white. If you hold the Alt key as you move the slider to the right the image will start off looking black, keep moving until areas of colour show. You have reached the maximum whiteness of the image without losing details.

Blacks affects the blacks in the image, move to the left to increase black, to the right to decrease black. Again if you hold the Alt key as you move the slider you can take it back to the left until the white image starts to show areas of colour, here is the maximum blackness without losing details.

These are know as the white and black clipping points.

Here is the photo where I have used too much exposure. I have lost detail in the white areas.

The next set of sliders are to do with Presence and how clear the image looks. These settings can enhance the image.

Clarity fine tunes the mid tones, making them clearer if you move the slider to the right, or softer if you move it to the left.  Use small adjustments here for a natural look.

Vibrance increases (move to right) or decreases (move to left) the strength of the mid tone colours.

Saturation increases (move to right) or decreases (move to left) the strength of the all the colours in the image.

There is a subtle difference between vibrance and saturation. Get a feel for this by trying the effects by moving the sliders.

If you want to reset all slider to 0 (the middle setting) double click on the Tone label at the top of this section.  If you just want to reset one of the sliders double click on the slider triangle.

Step 3 - save your changes

The good news is that Lightroom will remember your changes. You don't need to save anything before you exit Lightroom. Also remember that the original image is not altered.

However if you have finished editing your photo and want to save the edited image as a jpeg file to be emailed or used by another program then you will need to Export it. The Export function is found in the dropdown menu when you click on File at the top of the Lightroom window.

I will cover exporting files in my next bite sized Getting Started with Lightroom post which you can find here:

Getting started with Lightroom - exporting your photos