The Ultimate Guide To Lightroom

Unlock the full potential of your raw images with the help of our Lightroom Classic CC crash course

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When you’ve taken an image that you’re really happy with it can be tempting to upload it to the internet straight away, or print it out, and consider that job done. But pressing the shutter button and taking the photo is only half the story. An image hasn’t been taken that couldn’t benefit from a little enhancement, whether that’s a crop to improve the framing, a subtle boost to the colours, or a black and white treatment, and you’ll often find that when you start working on images in editing software you’ll see potential in them that you hadn’t noticed before – especially if you shoot raw files.

Raw files are images that contain significantly more brightness and colour information than JPEGs, which are compressed in-camera. JPEGs are also processed in-camera, with the camera deciding how vibrant the colours are, and how much sharpening or noise reduction is applied. This ‘one size fits all ’ processing means it’s much harder to get JPEG images looking exactly how you want them.

If you’re not shooting in your camera’s raw format already then it’s certainly worth giving it a try, as you’ll have much more latitude for tweaking exposure, colours, white balance and sharpness post-capture.

To edit raw files you’ll need software such as Adobe Lightroom Classic CC, and in this crash course we’ll cover all you need to know about the software, from how to import your photos, and how to apply basic and more advanced edits, to discussing when it’s time to take your photos from Lightroom into Photoshop. We’ll be covering Lightroom Classic CC, which shares many features with Adobe Camera Raw, rather than Lightroom, which is geared more towards use on a phone or tablet.