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Adobe Lightroom
Tutorial: Get Started
with Lightroom

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By Phil Ebiner for Udemy

Interested in more than just a beginner’s guide?
Check out Phil’s full Lightroom course.
TABLE OF CONTENTS: CLICK TO JUMP TO A
SPECIFIC SECTION
Gettings Started
What is Lightroom?

Program Layout

Importing Photos

Rating Photos

Filtering Photos

Reading the Histogram

Basic Photo Editing Tools
Editing White Balance

Adjusting Exposure

Adjusting Contrast

Editing Highlights, Shadows, Whites, and Blacks

The Clarity Tool

The Vibrance Tool

The Saturation Tool

Previewing Before-and-After Photos

Intermediate Editing Tools
Cropping a Photo

Using the Tone Curve

HSL

Color

B&W

How to Sharpen an Image

How to Remove Noise from an Image

Lens Corrections

Adding a Vignette

Adding grain to a photo

Advanced Photo Editing Techniques
Clean up Blemishes with the Spot Removal
Filter

Red Eye Removal

Radial & Graduated Filter

Adjustment Brush

Copying Settings from One Photo to Another

Using Lightroom Presets
What is a Preset?

How to Use a Preset

How to Find and Install New Presets

Exporting Photographs
How to Export Photos from Lightroom

Adding a Watermark to Your Photos

Conclusion

Gettings Started
Welcome to the Adobe Lightroom tutorial.
Throughout this Lightroom guide, you’ll learn all
of the basics to get started with editing photos in
Adobe Lightroom. You’ll even learn some
intermediate and advanced techniques to make
your photos look amazing.

What is Lightroom?
Lightroom is a photo management and editing
application designed for photographers. You’ll be
able to organize, edit, export, and share your
digital photos with this tool. While there are many
other photo editing applications out there,
Lightroom does a superior job of allowing
photographers to e"ciently and powerfully edit
their photos.

Program Layout
To understand any computer program, the #rst
thing you should be comfortable doing is
navigating. Let’s go over the layout of Lightroom.
At the very top left is your #le menu. While most
of the options in the #le menu are able to be
chosen through the application windows and
buttons, you may #nd it easier to just #nd what
you’re looking for in the #le menus. For example,
to export photos, which we will discuss in depth
later, go to File – Export.

Near the top right are module tabs, including

Library, Develop, Map, Book, Slideshow, Print,
and Web. We’ll be covering the Library and
Develop modules in this tutorial. Click on the
module button to open that editing module.

On the left are organizational panels, including

your Navigator, Catalog, and Folders panels.
Basically, this is where you will import and
organize your photos for editing.

In the center is your preview window. This is

where you will see the work you are doing while
editing and preview photos.

On the right are panels that change depending

on what module you are in. If you are in the
Library module, the right panels include more
information and metadata about your photos. In
the Develop module, the right panels include all
of the photo editing tools.

At the bottom is the #lmstrip of photos that

shows the set of photos you are working on. In
the Develop module, select the photo to edit via
the #lmstrip. At the top of the #lmstrip are
viewing options and #ltering options, which we’ll
cover below.

Importing Photos
The #rst thing to do when using Lightroom is
import photos. A key di$erence between
Photoshop and Lightroom (for those of you who
have used Photoshop) is that when you import
photos into Lightroom, you are only opening the
photo #le and not creating a duplicate of it. Any
edits you make in Lightroom will be attributed to
the original photo #le itself. There is an option
while importing photos for Lightroom to copy the
photos to a new location so that you don’t edit
the originals.

To import your photos:

Click the import button at the bottom left of

the Library module.
Find the folder that contains your photos
using the Source panel on the left.
In the middle preview panel, select all or
some of your photos to import by checking
the box next to each photo that you would
like to import. You can also press the Check
All or Uncheck All button to quickly select
or deselect your photos.
In the right File Handling panel, check the
Add to Collection box.

Create a new collection by clicking the +

button next to the Add to Collection text.
Creating a new collection for your photos is
important for organizational purposes. A
window will pop up where you can name the
collection.
Click the Import button on the bottom right.

The Library module opens up with all of the

photos that you have imported. On the left, you
can see that you are viewing photos from
Previous Import. Click the Collections drop-down
menu to see the collection that you just created,
which includes the same photos as the Previous
Import catalog. Now that you’ve created a
collection of photos, you can also #nd them in the
Collections panel.

Rating Photos
After you’ve imported photos, the next step is to
rate the photos so that you know which photos
you’ll want to edit later on. To go through your
photos one at a time, press the Loupe View
button at the bottom of the preview window. It is
second from the right, next to the Grid View
button.

Now you can scroll through your photos either by

clicking them in the #lmstrip below, or by using
the right and left keys on your keyboard.

Lightroom has a #ve-star rating scale. How you

rate your photos is up to you. Typically a photo
rated at #ve stars is better than a one-star photo.
For simplicity, use the following rating scale:

5 stars: An amazing photo that you love

4 stars: A great photo that you like
3 stars: A decent photo that you still want to
edit
2 stars: A bad photo that might be a
duplicate, slightly out of focus, and doesn’t
make the cut
1 star: A terrible photo that you should
probably just delete

To assign a rating to your photos, click the star

rating button at the bottom of the preview panel.
Note that you must have only one photo selected
in the #lmstrip. You can also easily add ratings to
your photos by pressing the corresponding
number on your keyboard (1-5). This keyboard
shortcut will apply the star rating to that
photograph.

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Go through all of your photographs and give them

a rating.

Filtering Photos
After you’ve rated all of your photographs, you’ll
be able to #lter your Collection according to your
rating. This will help you easily #nd only the best
photos that you’d like to edit.

To #lter using the star ratings, click the Filters

menu at the top right of the #lmstrip. There are a
variety of ways that you can #lter your photos. To
#lter according to your ratings, click the Rated
option.

A #ve-star rating scale appears, and you can

select the number of stars you want to #lter out.
For example, you can click the third star and #lter
out any photograph with a rating of two stars or
lower.

You can even change how you #lter the ratings by

clicking the greater than or equal to button on
the left side of the star scale. You can change
how it #lters to Rating is less than or equal to or
Rating is equal to.

Reading the Histogram

Before diving into actually editing photos, it is
important to know how to read the photo’s
Histogram, which appears in the top right of the
Library and Develop modules.

What is a histogram?

A histogram is basically a graph that visually

represents the exposure of each pixel in your
image. On the left side of the graph, the blacks
and shadows are represented. On the right side,
the highlights and brighter areas are represented.
The middle section includes mid-tones. The
higher the peak in each section means the more
pixels at that exposure.

The graph goes from 0-255 (0 being black and

255 being white). Each tone is one pixel wide on
the graph. In Lightroom, you can see in the
histogram how individual colors are exposed. In
the histogram above, notice that there is a big
spike on the right side. This shows that a portion
of the image is overexposed.

How can we use the histogram?

First, we can tell if the image is well exposed. If

the graph has pixels going from 0 to 255 (from
black to white) without any crazy spikes, then you
have a well-exposed image. While editing a
photograph, pay attention to how the histogram
changes. If you are editing an image too dark, the
histogram will show a spike on the left end of the
graph. If it is too bright, there is a spike on the
right end. If a photo already has a histogram with
spikes on either side of the graph, this is not
good because the data in these spikes can’t be
recovered.

Remember when you can ignore the rules.

As always, remember when you should ignore

these rules. Some pictures that you want to take
will have completely underexposed parts of the
frame that will result in a spike. For example,
night photography – pictures of the sky will often
have pure blacks. Sunsets will sometimes have
pure whites (coming from where the sun is). Just
because you know what the histogram is telling
you to do, doesn’t mean you should follow it.

The histogram is yet another tool. You’re the

artist.

Basic Photo Editing Tools

You’ve arrived at the section we’ve all been
waiting for: editing. In this section, you’ll learn
about all of the basic editing tools that Lightroom
o$ers. First, click on the Develop module to open
up the editing panels. On the right side are all of
the panels with di$erent editing tools. The #rst
panel is the Basic panel. For all of these tools,
there is a slider that you can move from left to
right to make adjustments. You can also click the
number to the right of the slider and type in a
precise number of your liking. To reset an
individual slider, just double-click the name of the
slider on the left (for example, if you’ve moved the
exposure slider to the left and want to bring it
back to zero, just double-click the “exposure”
text).

Editing White Balance

The #rst two sliders in the Basic panel have to do

with white balance: temperature and tint. Move
the temperature slider to the left to add more
blue (cooling down your photo). Move it to the
right to add more yellow (adding warmth to your
photo). Compensate with the tint slider to add
more green or pink.

Another way to quickly get the correct white

balance is by using the white balance selector
(the eyedropper tool). Click the tool and then
hover over your photo in the preview panel. Click
on something in your photo that is supposed to
be white (for example, a cloud or a white T-shirt).
Your photo will automatically adjust. Then use the
sliders to #ne-tune it.

Adjusting Exposure

The exposure slider changes the overall

brightness of your photos. Slide it to the right to
increase brightness. Slide it to the left to make
your photo darker. Notice what happens to the
histogram while you adjust the exposure.
Remember that a well-exposed photo doesn’t
have any large peaks on the right or left sides of
the histogram (and at the very least, the main
subject of the photo isn’t too dark or too bright).

Adjusting Contrast
The contrast slider makes your photo more or
less contrasted. What does that mean? Contrast
has to do with how bright the highlights are, and
how darks the darks are. Increasing contrast will
make the darks darker and the highlights
brighter. Decreasing the contrast will make your
image appear %atter. Typically it is good to have
some contrast. It makes your image pop.
However, some people like having a %at-looking
image. It has become a popular style.

Also know that when you add contrast to your

image, it also increases the saturation.

Editing Highlights, Shadows, Whites,

and Blacks

This next set of sliders is what makes Lightroom

so powerful. Especially if you shoot your photos in
RAW format, using the highlights, shadows,
whites, and blacks sliders allows you to really get
in there and #ne-tune di$erent parts of your
image.

All of these sliders work the same. Moving to the

left will make the corresponding parts of your
image darker, and moving to the right will make
them brighter. If you have an overexposed image,
which means it is too bright, decreasing the
highlights slider will add more detail to the
highlights. If your shadows are too dark, move
that slider to the right.

The Clarity Tool

The clarity slider quickly sharpens and adds

contrast to your image. Use this tool sparingly
with photos of people, as it intensi#es people’s
blemishes and wrinkles. A good time to add
clarity is with photos of landscapes and nature. If
you’re looking to do a quick HDR e$ect in
Lightroom, slide the clarity slider all the way to
the right.

The Vibrance Tool

The vibrance and saturation tools do a similar

thing to your photos: they add more color.
However, they work very di$erently. The vibrance
slider is a smart tool that adds saturation to
desaturated colors, while leaving the colors that
are already saturated unchanged. The vibrance
slider doesn’t increase saturation in skin tones,
which is great because adding a lot of saturation
to normal skin tones will make them look
unnatural.

The Saturation Tool

With the saturation tool, you are adding or
decreasing the saturation of all colors in your
photo. Adding a little bit of saturation can make
your photos come alive. However, be careful not
to add too much saturation.

To quickly create a black-and-white photo in

Lightroom, drag the saturation slider all the way
to the left to -100.

Previewing Before-and-After Photos

After you’ve edited your photo, it might be helpful

to see a side-by-side comparison of before and
after. To do this, click the side-by-side button at
the bottom of the preview window. Click the
button again to cycle through di$erent before-
and-after views.

Intermediate Editing Tools

This next set of tools gives you more editing
control to make your photos look even better.
Most of these tools are in the panels below the
Basic panel. The crop tool is an exception and
can be found by clicking the crop button right
above the Basic panel.

Cropping a Photo
Taking photos that are perfectly composed is
di"cult. That is why we crop photos after the
fact. To crop a photo in Lightroom, click the crop
button, which is between the histogram and