Lightroom - Beginners Editing Guide
One of the biggest 'light bulb' moments I had with my photography was when I edited my first image in Adobe Lightroom. It literally changed my life. It was so easy to use and within minutes I'd turned a frankly awful image into something that resembled a half decent one. Admittedly I probably went a bit editing crazy and pushed the images way further than I really should have, but thats all part of learning and I'd say most if not all photographers have done this. Lightroom is a really powerful and intuitive piece of software and can take your images to the next level if used correctly. As always I will insert the caviat that you still need to get the best quality images in camera as a solid base before you edit. Editing shouldn't be used to hide a technically poor image but to support and build upon a solid foundation. Editing, for me, is an extension of the creative process and really forms part of who we are as photographers. So to stop you making the same mistakes as me, I decided to run through the editing of one of my images to get you started. I will be performing a quick edit and will omit some of the more powerful tools as to start off I don't really think you need them for basic editing.
The straight out of camera RAW file before we have edited - Under Exposed and very flat looking.
Preparing the file for editing:
So let's start from the top...literally. Lightroom is to be edited from the top down (well nearly). Firstly I will move down to the Lens correction section and select Remove Chromatic Aberration and Enable Profile Correction. These tools help to correct these two types of distortion which are often present. Chromatic aberration is unwanted colour fringing around the edges of some objects. Profile correction will correct the distortion on the lens you are using. This will now give us a distortion free image to start working with. Before I start the edit I will select the two triangles on the top of the Histogram. This helps to show if there is any clipping of shadows and highlights. The highlights are shown in red and the shadows are blue and it illustrates when there is loss of detail in those areas when pushed to the extremes of the tonal range. I've mocked up an extreme example below to illustrate what this might look like if you have blown out highlights and shadows, where possible we need to avoid this. Last but not least, I make sure the image is free from dust spots. It's really easy to clone these out. Simply select the Eraser Icon, Heal and at the bottom of the page Visualise Spots. This will create a black and white overlay which will highlight any spots. Then just select the dust spot and magically it will clone it out....simple. Now we are ready to edit.
Using the histogram while editing can help to get a well exposed image while editing and avoid blown out highlights and shadows.
Removing those pesky dust spots.
Basic Editing Tab - A little goes a long way:
Now we have a blank canvas to work with we can start the edit. We will start on the Basic tab and make Global adjustments, by this we mean adjustments to the whole image and not individual areas, we call those local adjustments. First make sure you have the Histogram open, as we will want to use this throughout the edit as a guide so we can make sure the adjustments we making are creating a well exposed image. As you can see from the original image it's a little on the darker side with a lot of the tones bunched over towards the shadows on the left hand side of the histogram. So the first job is to make adjustments to the overall Exposure. I've lifted this quite a lot to +1.75. This does a great job of lightening the overall image, but as a result the sky is now looking blown out. So we need to counter this by dropping the Highlights to -79, this brings back the detail in the sky. I will also lift the shadows as these are still a little dark +75 works a treat and we have no clipping and the distribution of tones in the histogram is more evenly spread out. Then I increase the whites in the image, I want to do this as it brightens the image. I also want to subtly give the the shafts of light washing across the fells a bit of punch, I've upped this by +30. I've not increased the Blacks, as I feel there is enough shadows in the image already looking at the Histogram. I already added a touch of Contrast to the image +10. Contrast helps to make the image less flat and have more depth. We don't want to over do contrast, as it can affect the details in your image and over saturate it......unless this is the look you are after, for this image, however we are not. Finally on the basic tab I've increased the Vibrance. This is a great tool for increasing the intensity of the muted colours in the image, without affecting saturation. I find it a little more natural than saturation, so much so that I usually drop the overall image saturation. Ok so the basic edit is now done and the image looks more like it did to the eye. Amazing how just a few minor changes can really transform the image.
The Basic Edit - A more well balanced scene than the original RAW file.
Local Adjustments - Hue, Saturation and Luminance:
We have now carried out the majority of the 'Global Adjustments' to the image in the Basic edit tab. We now move down and can start to make more 'Local Adjustments' to the image. I will skirt past the 'Tone Curve' for this blog, as while its a very powerful tool for tweaking brightness, contrasts and colours in the image, I think this needs to be covered in a more advance blog and I believe beginners don't have to delve to deep into it at this stage. So we will move straight to the HSL panel. This tool controls the Hue, Saturation and Luminance of the colours. It also gives the opportunity to adjust the individual colours, so we don't have to adjust the colours in the whole image if we don't want too. The saturation is the strength of the colour, the hue is the actual colour and luminance is the brightness of the colour. In this image I've just increased the saturation of the yellows +16 and also increased the luminance of the yellows +44. I haven't used the hue as I don't feel the need to change a specific colour of the image. The main aim with this edit was to emphasise the yellow tones of the golden light hitting the trees. The Saturation just boosts the intensity yellows in the scene and the luminance really gives the gorgeous spring birches a pop. There was no need to alter anything else, just bring out what was already there.
The image after the saturation and luminance adjustments in the HSL panel.
Local Adjustments - Graduated and Radial Filters:
We will miss out on the Colour Grading for this quick edit and move onto a couple of really useful tools and ones which I use a lot when editing - Linear Gradients and Radial Gradients. These are brilliant tools and help to make the finer adjustments to your images. The Linear Gradient is to be used like a digital graduated filter essentially and it is to be used to either darken or lighten specific areas in your image. I will be using it to bring back a little more detail in the sky, which has been lost through lightening the overall image. Simply select the Masking tool and this will brink up a separate tab, select the +, this will bring up a list of tools, select Linear Gradients. In the image you can click on the area you want the filter and drag it up or down. You can adjust the level of transition from the dark to light by either shortening or widening the distance between the centre point. In my image it's only a small area of sky so its quite a narrow fade. We can now make the necessary adjustments with the filter applied -33 on the highlights and -24 on the blacks. You will probably notice a sky tool on the panel, however I don't tend to use it as I think it looks a bit unnatural and would opt for linear or radial to sort the sky. I sometimes use a gradient on the foreground is I want to adjust the exposure on lighten the area. A very useful tool.
Selecting and using the Gradient filter.
Local Adjustments - Radial filters:
The Radial filter is similar to the gradient filter as it allows you to edit specific areas of your image but it is an ellipse opposed to a gradient. With the radial you apply the ellipse and you can either edit every thing within that ellipse or outside of it, if you invert it. I wanted to lighten the set of birch trees, as I felt they seemed to stand out more and caught the light when I was taking the shot. So I used the radial to increase the whites by +67 within the ellipse to boost the appearance of the trees and the light on them. I use radial filters a lot, especially for dodging and burning. Like the gradient filters, these are extremely useful tools and can really help making those finer adjustments.
Radial Filter - The red highlighted area shows where the changed will be made.
Sharpening and Effects:
Finally we will apply a little bit of sharpening and a vignette in the Detail and Effects tabs. We have to be really careful with sharpening as it can cause a few issues, like unnatural and over sharpened images and the introduction of more noise (grainy looking). There are 4 separate sliders for Sharpening - Amount, Radius, Detail and Masking. Amount is as it suggest the amount of sharpening applied, adding more sharpening adds more noise, so I usually set it at around 50. Radius is the size of the sharpening around the edges, the higher the value the thicker the edges. I avoid this slider and keep it as default. Detail is sharpens the details, so a lesser value will see the sharpening around the larger edges and if we increase the value it sharpens the smaller edges as well. I usually set this around 35. Finally we have the Masking slider, I do like this tool as it masks out the areas that don't need to be sharpened, for example the sky. I usually set it around the 50 mark as a starter. The higher up you move the slider the less areas are sharpened, so if you have quite a minimal scene and only one part sharpening then this tool is perfect. You also have noise reduction tools, but for this image they weren't required at its a clean image and I've not over edited. The final step in my quick edit is the Vignette. A vignette is when the periphery of the image is darkened or lighted to form a border. I use them to draw the viewer of the image into the centre. I've set this at -13. Its easy to overdo a vignette so use it sparingly. Thats it, your quick edit is compete.
The Image after Sharpening and a Vignette applied.
Conclusion:
So there you have it. Like I said I've deliberately left out some of the more powerful tools as I don't really think you need them when starting out. Keeping it simple to begin with is my mantra, this edit probably took me around 5 minutes to complete and I've not made any whole sale changes, just bringing out what the RAW data has captured. Once you know your way around you can then start to widen your knowledge and start to use the more sophisticated tools if they are required. I think the best advise is a little goes a long way when editing. I often find if you spend hours trying to edit an image then there is something not quite right with the image and your trying to get something out of it which isn't there. By all means, experiment, play with the sliders, push them harder to see the effect it has to the images as this is a great way to learn. So have lots of fun and enjoy because editing really is an enjoyable experience, there is nothing better than bringing your images to life on the big screen and putting your personal stamp on your work.
The Final Image.
Tim