Hi, everybody, a very warm welcome to Episode 47 of the Photography Explained Podcast. In this episode, my step-by-step guide to how I edit my photos in Lightroom.

I’m your host, Rick, and each week I will try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English in less than 10 minutes without the irrelevant details. My aim is to explain things in just enough detail to help us with our photography and no more.

Now I actually said that with my eyes closed, it didn’t sound any better really did it, the mere reading out so um, maybe we (I) should stop worrying about that.

You can listen to the episode here

Or keep on reading. Or do both. Entirely up to you!

Who am I?

I’m a professionally qualified photographer based in England with a lifetime of photographic experience, which I share with you on my podcast.

Okay, one bit of background.

I’ve been using Lightroom since Lightroom 1.0. Back in the day, you used to buy it online. Yes, we had the internet then. And you got a CD sent through the post. And I found Lightroom, 1, 2, 3 and 4 in boxes the other day in my garage, which was a reminder of the past. Obviously, these days it’s all cloud-based and subscriptions and everything.

A bit of background there.

See, I’ve been using Lightroom since the very, very beginning. And I’m a paid subscriber to the Creative Cloud. I’m not being paid to say anything about Lightroom. It’s just what I use, and what I pay to use, and I’m happy to pay to use.

Right then – enough waffle.

My step-by-step guide to how I did edit my photos in Lightroom. (First failure less than two minutes in).

Here’s the answery bit.

I edit my photos in Lightroom using my well-refined workflow. I import the photos into Lightroom, and apply my own import presets, which are things I do to every image, which Lightroom does for me. I start with the basic panel in the Develop module and work through the panels in a logical way. I edit my photos to enhance the photos that I have taken to present the images the best I can.

Okay, in the last episode, I spoke about how I get the photos off my camera. I should have talked about filing my photos in Lightroom because that is actually very important. If you can’t find your images, you have got a bit of an issue.

So I think I’m going to do that in the next episode. Between us, I didn’t want to do it (this episode) because it’s a bit boring. But I’ll do that, and I’ll talk a bit more about backups and all that boring but important stuff.

So having missed out on the filing stage, we start from the point that the photos are in a folder.

1 Select the photos

I select the photos I want to edit.

Yes, I said photos. Now for my architectural work, I bracket the photos – I take three photos, and then I merge them together.

So the first thing is to select the three images.

2 HDR Merge

Then I use the HDR merge tool to merge the three images. This creates a new RAW file, which is what I’m going to work on. I’ll come on to why I do this in another episode because it’s a subject all on its own.

3 Stack the images

Step three is this – I put the four images in a stack with the new image at the top, I’m not interested in the three original images, I need to see the new HDR merged image only.

Quick tip – Getting to the Develop Module

A develop module quick tip – in Lightroom, press the key D and it will send you straight to the Develop Module.

4 So I’ve got my merged photo – I start with the basic panel.

Another quick tip – Solo Mode

If you right-click in Lightroom anywhere on one of the panels (on the right-hand side) when it’s closed you see something called solo mode – now if you select solo mode only one of the panels is open (the one that you are using).

So if you select the tone curve, it shuts the basic panel – this has saved me so much time and scrolling and scrolling effort we my finger – it’s been a lifesaver. Well, it’s not a lifesaver, is it? But it has saved me time for sure!

I work through the basic panel

• Exposure
• Contrast
• Highlights
• Shadows
• Whites
• Blacks
• Clarity
• Vibrance.

I need to go through this in much more – (you probably want the numbers). Yes, I will do this in another episode – here I will just talk through the Lightroom settings I use.

I go through the basic panel, this is global adjustments to the general image. I work through the sliders in the basic panel, and it’s a visual thing, so if you’ve got an extra big monitor that will make life easier.

5 Tone Curve

The tone curve I don’t always use this – it’s a refinement of the more well, broader adjustments, this is fine-tuning. I don’t use it much, to be honest with you.

6 HSL/ Colour

The next panel is the HSL/ Colour panel, which is a panel that I absolutely love.

You have got hue, saturation, and luminance.

And the beauty of this is if you pick say luminance, where the word luminance there is a small circle – click on that. Then you can adjust the luminance by putting the mouse pointer on something – you can select a colour – I selected a green chair. I can adjust the luminance (of the colour) of just that green chair. It’s absolutely amazing.

Saturation I tend not to do that much with – I might reduce a bit of saturation if things are looking a bit garish.

Luminance is a brilliant tool.

7 Detail Panel

The next panel down is the detail panel. I (generally) apply sharpening to my photos (Amount 80 and Radius 1.2), but I check to see if it looks okay. Normally is and that’s done on import.

8 Lens Corrections

Next one’s lens corrections. The lenses that I use are in Lightroom, so that’s all done automatically (as well). It’s just another thing I apply on import.

9 Transform

The next panel is the transform panel – this is where you get verticals vertical, and the horizontals horizontal. And if there’s any distortion, you can correct that here.

Transform is very important for my architectural photography work, if I haven’t got everything right in camera, this is where I can come back and correct or tweak things.

10 Effects panel

Now effects panel. I don’t use this panel apart from this – now don’t tell anybody this. On every photo, I apply a minus 10 vignette on import to every photo – it just darkens the edges a little bit, and you can’t really see it. But there’s a reason for that I’ll come on to (another time).

11 – You can play around as much as you want

The beauty of Lightroom is that you can play around with all these sliders to your heart’s content. If you don’t like what you’ve done, reset it.

This is called non-destructive editing, it’s brilliant. You can create virtual copies, you can compare different versions – Lightroom is just amazing.

12 Calibration panel

And then there’s the calibration panel, which I just checked is on Version 5 – the current one. I don’t touch that one, really.

13 What’s next?

So once I’ve done all that, you’ll notice I haven’t talked about white balance or anything. I’ll come back to that. But I use auto-white balance just so you know.

Just above the basic panel, there are some tools called

• Crop overlay
• Spot Removal
• Red Eye correction
• Graduated filter
• Radial filter (love this)
• Adjustment brush.

There are bits I can do with each of these tools, which I’ll talk about in another episode. But the point I wanted to get over here is it’s the logical sequence I work through the panels one to the next – I start with the basic panel which is global adjustments.

And after that is tweaking and refining and subtle edits. And that’s it. I don’t spend much time in Lightroom

14 A lifetime of learning

I spent since 2007 working in Lightroom and the more I learn about it, the less time I spend using it which has got to be a good thing because photography for me, and I’ll say for me, not for everybody. Photography for me isn’t sitting staring at my computer and spending hours editing.

No, it’s about taking photos. Okay, so the big takeaway, I have used that phrase finally!

You do global adjustments first, and then you do local adjustments. Okay, that’s all I can cram into a 10-minute episode.

Oh, sorry, one last point. What about Photoshop?

Now, I’m not a fan of Photoshop because I don’t understand it. I use Photoshop to remove things. It’s too complicated for me, it’s not intuitive to me, and I struggle with it. So I use the wonderfully powerful tools to remove things I don’t want in a photo and that’s it.

Okay, my one-line summary

I edit my photos and a logical simple way to enhance the images that I have taken.

What do I want you to do now?

1 Let me know your thoughts

On Twitter, @rickphoto is where you can get in touch with me

2 Subscribe to my podcast

If you enjoyed this episode. This helps me.

3 Rate and review my podcast

Wherever you get your podcasts – again if you enjoyed this episode, this helps me too.

4 Tell someone you know about my podcast

Someone who you think obviously would like my podcast and what I’m talking about. Because this helps me as well – growth is a good thing.

Next episode

Boing episode alert. Having spoken about getting the photos off the camera and how I edit them I’m gonna go back to this – the step by step guide to how I organise my photos in Lightroom. I quite like this step-by-step guide thing, it gives me a bit of discipline (not too much obviously).

Thank you

Okay, thank you for listening to my small perfectly formed podcast (it says here). Please check out my website Rick McEvoy Photography where you can find out all about me and my architectural and construction photography work as well as my photography blog where you can learn lots more about photography and me if you want.

Photography Explained Podcast Website

Please check out my Photography Explained Podcast website where you can find out how to ask me a question, find a list of episodes and also things I’m going to explain in future episodes. I should also say the transcripts are on there of each episode which I have converted from audio to some form of English.

This episode was brought to you very much by the power of I need a coffee.

I’ve been Rick McEvoy. Thanks again very much for listening to me and for giving me 12 and three-quarter minutes of your time – seems to be a recurring time doesn’t it – 12 and three-quarter minutes!

Anyway, enough from me. I’ll see you in the next episode.

Cheers from me, Rick.

OK – that was the podcast episode.

Want to know more?

Head over to the Start page on the Photography Explained Podcast website to find out more.

And here is the list of episodes published to date – you can listen to any episode straight from this page which is nice.

Let me know if there is a photography thing that you want me to explain and I will add it to my list. Just head over to the This is my list of things to explain page of this website to see what is on there already.

Let me send you stuff

I send out a weekly email to my subscribers. It is my take on one photography thing, plus what I have been writing and talking about. Just fill in the box and you can get my weekly photographic musings straight to your inbox. Which is nice.

And finally a little bit about me

Finally, yes this paragraph is all about me – check out my Rick McEvoy Photography website to find out more about me and my architectural, construction, real estate and travel photography work. I also write about general photography stuff, all in plain English without the irrelevant detail.

Thank you

Thanks for listening to my podcast (if you did) and reading this blog post (which I assume you have done as you are reading this).

Cheers from me Rick