Lightroom Workflow

With Apple’s recent announcement that they’re letting Aperture die, without really replacing it, photographers of all kinds are looking toward Lightroom as their photographic management and processing tool.

I, personally, have used Lightroom for years.  I can do most of the editing I would ever want to do faster and easier in Lightroom than I would in Photoshop.  Of course, I’m strictly an amateur and don’t do any other fancy art stuff with my photography.  And, I try to follow Syl Arena’s dictum to simply take better photos “in the camera”, because I’m a photographer not a Photoshop artist.  (Just to head off anyone’s hurt feelings, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing all kinds of post-work in Photoshop, but I prefer to be away from a computer more and just work with my camera.  It’s how I roll.)
All that aside, I know I could do better with Lightroom.  I could get more out of it with less effort if I took more time to learn the program.  So, with that in mind, I offer two links to tutorials for Lightroom.  (If you don’t use Lightroom, yet, hang in there.  Next week, I’ll share some pretty straight-up photography tutorial links for y’all.)

First, there’s a tutorial at PetaPixel titled The Ultimate Guide for Creating an Efficient and Effective Lightroom Workflow.  At less that 20 minutes, this video takes you through one way to set up a good digital photography workflow using Lightroom.  It’s a pretty simple and basic look at the software, but it will get you started down a good path that you can modify as you find tricks and short-cuts of your own.  It’s only a start and just scratches the surface of this amazing software, but it’s a good start!
Second, if you want to get more in depth with Lightroom, DIY Photography has a much longer tutorial titled Lightroom’s Develop Module Creative Workflow.  It’s an hour and fifteen minutes long, so a LOT longer than the first tutorial, but this one really goes into depth with the meat of this software.  What’s a little different about this tutorial is that it goes into more detail on the “why” question regarding the settings, not just the “how” of using the program.  So, in other words, it may be something you want to come look at again after working with Lightroom for a little bit.

So, there you are, two tutorials of varying length and experience level to help you get used to Lightroom!
Now, get out there this weekend and get some raw material to use in these with your camera!