Lightroom Development Workflow

Starting Moves

  •  Does the image need Denoise?

  • Does the image need to be upsized?

 

- Assign a RAW Profile

  • You get to choose which of Adobe’s built-in RAW (or custom) profiles you should use to give your image an advantage over the original unprocessed image and how it looks before you even begin to adjust any sliders.

- Getting the Color Right

·       setting the correct white balance

    • Using eye dropper and choosing a neutral area in the image

    • OR Choosing WB Preset

    • AND/OR Adjusting Temp and Tint sliders

- Expand the images tonal range

  • push the brightest parts of a photo as far as we can without actually “clipping” our highlights (letting parts of our image get so bright that the pixels in our highlight areas are destroyed), and then we expand the darkest parts of our image as far as we can.

    • Hold SHIFT + double click on WHITES

    • Hold SHIFT + double click on BLACKS

- Develop

    • Adjusting Exposure

    • Adjusting Highlights and Shadows

    • Tone Curve Panel

      • Manually adjust Tone Curve or Choose Preset i.e. Medium Contrast

    • Adding Contrast

    • Adding Texture

    • Adding Clarity (Midtone Contrast)

- Painting and Retouching

  • dodging and burning,” which is simply making certain areas of your image lighter or darker, but what we can do now in Lightroom goes way beyond that.

  • applying light right where you want it, but in a much better way than simply dodging and burning.

    • Spot-removal/healing (done first before masking)

    • Using Masking to select areas and selectively adjust Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Texture, Clarity, Vibrance

- Fixing Lens Issues

  • in most cases, literally just the act of turning this feature on, and maybe moving a slider or two.

    • Cropping & Straightening

    • Lens Correction

    • Transform Panel - Upright feature

      • The Upright feature can usually work better if you apply lens profile fix first

- Finishing Moves

  • Finishing tasks like sharpening and reviewing the image to make sure we like what the previous steps have done. In addition to adding final effects, like a Vignette.

    • HSL/Color - Luminance - adjust color sliders if needed

    • Adding Post crop Vignette

    • Add Sharpening

    • Make sure once completed to step back and evaluate overall color.  Reducing Vibrance or Contrast might be necessary

 

*Sometimes the order of the steps varies to fix glaring/distracting issues with the photo first before continuing with the next step

Additional Learning

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