Lightroom is very hard to comprehend!

[zoran]

Believe it or not, one application that is giving me a very hard time to understand, how one can work with, is LightRoom! Very hard menu to understand and its not only that but the interface has nothing to do with Adobe's other products.
Im trying to find a good tutorial so i can have a look at and comprehend this very hard application.
If only there was such a tutorial of explaining things about LightRoom and also showing how one works with it efficiently.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Ok not trying to hijack but I have what I think is a Lightroom question.

My wife has recently started a photography business. After she has a session she imports the photos to her windows 10 comp just using the auto import feature. Then she looks at all the images to pick the ones she wants to edit and makes a handwritten list of the file names before editing. I have absolutely no photography skills but isn’t there an easier way? I thought Lightroom did this organization stuff.

X for rejects. P for picks. Or 1-5 for a star rating. Then filter to show just picks or 5 stars or whatever. No need to write file names.

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

This guy from PiXImperfect on YouTube is amazing with his knowledge as well as how simply and thoroughly he explains things.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Believe it or not, one application that is giving me a very hard time to understand, how one can work with, is LightRoom! Very hard menu to understand and its not only that but the interface has nothing to do with Adobe's other products.
Im trying to find a good tutorial so i can have a look at and comprehend this very hard application.
If only there was such a tutorial of explaining things about LightRoom and also showing how one works with it efficiently.

Tbh I learnt myself through trial and error.
Saw this yesterday that might be useful.

http://froknowsphoto.com/how-i-learned-lightroom/
But Scott Kelby is probably the one I hear most recommend.

 

[Cheese&Apple]

This guy from PiXImperfect on YouTube is amazing with his knowledge as well as how simply and thoroughly he explains things.

Thanks for this link Alex. I watched a couple videos this morning and learned a few things to make processing easier and faster. Amazing thing about Lr is that just when you think you've got it all figured-out, someone comes along and points-out things like some keyboard shortcuts that you didn't know existed.

~ Peter

 

[bunnspecial]

I just have to drop in and say that Lightroom has been my primary image handling program for two years now. Yes, it took me a while, but admittedly I'd been using Photoshop for long enough that it was most of the adjustments were the same-just in different places.

I will say that I'm STILL learning new shortcuts and capabilities all the time, but it's such a powerful software package that it's worth it. When people ask me what LR is, I sum it up with "It's Photoshop for photographers, basically an image browser that makes sorting, flagging and rating easy and with all the stuff you use in PS right in front of you, and the stuff you never use either not there or buried in menus." I always use the example of setting curves in PS requiring you to go Image->Adjustment->Curves while in Lightroom levels and curves are just in the right hand tool bar.

 

[kenoh]

The develop module menu bar: Develop>Clear History. This will clear the entire editing history of the image but will not reset or change the edited image. I don't know of a way to clear only a portion of the edits.

I'm not sure why you would want to do this as the edit information takes-up very little storage space compared to the image itself. If it's simply to remove visual clutter, I leave the entire left side panel hidden in Develop (I rarely use it) to free-up more image space. Same with the grid view - I leave the right side panel hidden.

~ Peter

You can go into the History list, and at key points, select a step and then right click add snapshot. Call it something useful... This effectively bundles everything up before it into a point in time state that you can go back to.

Then when you clear the history it removes everything except the snapshots.

Then, you can go back to the snapshots and copy them to other images if you want them as a stage along the way.

 

[dwig]

Hello Cheese&Apple,

I am newbie in photography field, ... but i am still looking for very basic photography, Photoshop & Adobe lightroom tutorials ...

Basic photography tutorials are one thing. Any and all Ps and Lr tutorials, regardless of how basic they are, assume you know basic photography to some extent. You won't learn basic photography if you concentrate only on application specific tutorials.

IMO, the best basic Lr tutorials are those by Julieanne Kost at Adobe. Consider viewing the tutorials for the older versions of Lr as well. Most of the very basic beginners info applies to all versions, even v01. Check out her site: http://www.jkost.com/lightroom.html

I also suggest that you stay away from the "tips & tricks" orientated tutorials until you get the basics down. Most of these will just add to the confusion/haze if you don't know the basics.

 

[TheDrift-]

Its a steep learning curve but great when you 'get it' I used scott kelby's book it really helped me

 

[TheDrift-]

X for rejects. P for picks. Or 1-5 for a star rating. Then filter to show just picks or 5 stars or whatever. No need to write file names.

This

 

[zoran]

This guy from PiXImperfect on YouTube is amazing with his knowledge as well as how simply and thoroughly he explains things.

Awesome!!!!!

 

[tw1ll]

Look up Terry Whote and Julianne Kost on Youtube. They both have a good mix of beginners and improvers tutorials. Well worth sticking at it and won’t take long to start being productive and get some good results.

 

[alphaod]

Took a while to get used to it. Now I can't use anything else.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Took a while to get used to it. Now I can't use anything else.

Agree on not wanting to use anything else. I have a few other solutions but LR is the most all round package I've used.

 

[mofunk]

You can search around youtube for videos. I recently looked at the Book module in LR. It was frustrating because it wasn't doing what I want it to do. But eventually I found a video which helped.

Someone posted Jared Polin's videos. He has a series of editing photos that he has shot. You can download the RAW files and try to edit them too. If you are starting in LR, one of Jared's buddies, Adam Lerner, has a youtube channel with a series of LR tutorials to help you get started. Go to link below and find the LR playlist.

https://www.youtube.com/user/AdamLernerPhoto/playlists


Also Terry White (which someone also posted).

 

[robgendreau]

Guys, here is something i dont get. Ive begun to edit a pic using LR and as expected the history tab is filling up.
I close LR and open it back a different day, i continue to make edits to the pic, the history tab continues to populate even more. Suppose i want to delete a few of those edits and leave the pic with only the latest 5 edits in history because they are the ones that look ok to me. What do i do? How do i keep only the changes i want to and not the whole bunch that i have done?

The history is linear, so one builds on top of the other, so to speak. Sort of like a list of un-dos. And it records each change, so that if you changed exposure five times, each is recorded. So it's rather hard just to go back to say +.33, since that might be number 3. Better to just look at the steps and go, "oh, .33 was best" and do that as a new step. Not only that, but the order you make adjustments can affect the ultimate image. For example, you might have denoised, but then you decide to bring up shadows, and oops, now more denoising is needed. The order can affect performance too.

Going forward, better with a long session of edits to do them in some order that makes sense to you, and use either snapshots you can go back to, or forking. The latter is done by say making a virtual copy at some point. Like say after lighting adjustments, then make a VC to use for BW, while using the original for color. Each then has a separate history going forward. In your case, another thing to do might be to make a VC and reset it. Then go to say your last adjustment, and use copy to copy just that last adjustment, or maybe the last five. It's bit more general, but might work depending on the adjustments.

 

[Cheese&Apple]

Is there a way to delete some of my History steps so that he History Tab is not so populated with steps etc.?

The develop module menu bar: Develop>Clear History. This will clear the entire editing history of the image but will not reset or change the edited image. I don't know of a way to clear only a portion of the edits.

I'm not sure why you would want to do this as the edit information takes-up very little storage space compared to the image itself. If it's simply to remove visual clutter, I leave the entire left side panel hidden in Develop (I rarely use it) to free-up more image space. Same with the grid view - I leave the right side panel hidden.

~ Peter

 

[zoran]

I dont want to clear specific History states for reducing file size or any other similar reason. I just want things to be neat and tidy. If i have 40 steps of editing, but the 12th is the one that i decided that my jpg exported file should be at, then whats the use of having the rest steps from 13-40? They are of no use, therefore, they could be deleted... what do you think?

 

[kenoh]

Yeah ok i read your post but still een by creating "snapshots" the History tab is still clogged up with steps, even when selecting the snapshots, this is a step for the History tab... so irritating!

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/how-to/lightroom-snapshots-history.html

This video is what I thought was the answer to your question. If not I am missing something sorry.

In your example, go to history, select step 12 that you applied, the image reverts to how it was at that point. Right click create snapshot call it "step 12" then click to clear history. All the clutter is gone yet you still have a version that you can export that was at the state it was in at step 12, or you can carry on doing more edits but still have that snapshot to go back to that you made at step 12? Am I being daft and not understanding the exam question? - wouldnt be the first time...

 

[zoran]

I really appreciate the help kenoh, id say things are pretty clear for me now! Many thanks

 

[kenoh]

Hello Cheese&Apple,

I am newbie in photography field, also have been try to learning skills for 3 months and whenever i go on google and try to search Adobe lightroom tutorials, always found photography life above the searches but i am still looking for very basic photography, Photoshop & Adobe lightroom tutorials but couldnt found, can you please any other good resource where i can from very basics. Thanks

Best bet is to go to youtube and search for these people to start with:

Lucy Martin
Serge Ramelli
PiXimperfect
Thomas Heaton

They do some great videos on doing something specific to your images.

Maarten Schrader is great for "edit like xyz photographer" type tutorials.

The trick is to search for what you want to achieve like "dark moody landscape" or "fine art black and white post processing" rather than "lightroom tutorial"

Hope this helps.

 

[Cheese&Apple]

Don't give up on Lightroom. As TheDrift mentioned, it's great when you get it. There is tons of free information around the net with some great tutorials on YouTube. Try Photography Life. They have a long list of great reference articles for beginners to advanced users.

 

[zoran]

Thanks guys, im mainly looking for video tutorials though!

 

[nrvna76]

Ok not trying to hijack but I have what I think is a Lightroom question.

My wife has recently started a photography business. After she has a session she imports the photos to her windows 10 comp just using the auto import feature. Then she looks at all the images to pick the ones she wants to edit and makes a handwritten list of the file names before editing. I have absolutely no photography skills but isn’t there an easier way? I thought Lightroom did this organization stuff.

 

[kenoh]

X for rejects. P for picks. Or 1-5 for a star rating. Then filter to show just picks or 5 stars or whatever. No need to write file names.

+1 for this
[doublepost=1508101697][/doublepost]

Believe it or not, one application that is giving me a very hard time to understand, how one can work with, is LightRoom! Very hard menu to understand and its not only that but the interface has nothing to do with Adobe's other products.
Im trying to find a good tutorial so i can have a look at and comprehend this very hard application.
If only there was such a tutorial of explaining things about LightRoom and also showing how one works with it efficiently.

I have learned by watching youtube videos and 100s of hours of reading books and practice.

Try you tube searching for things like "workflow lightroom" "dramatic landscape lightroom" there are usually loads of videos there for whatvyou are rrying to achieve.