5 tips to work faster in Lightroom Classic

Monday 5 June 2023, 20:10 by Thijs Schouten | 5,885 views | 11 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Do you, like me, regularly edit your photos in Adobe Lightroom Classic? And do you sometimes wish you could work a little faster? Then this article is for you! Here are some useful tips to help you work faster in Lightroom Classic.

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A brief explanation of Adobe Lightroom

Adobe Lightroom is one of the most widely used photo programmes today. I have been using this programme for years. It is very easy to use, gives you good options for organising all your photos and makes editing your photos very straightforward.

Are you still looking for a good photo-editing programme? Then I can highly recommend this one. At the time of writing, the programme costs 12,09 per month and you can try it free for a month.

Tip 1: use the Auto Tone function

When you edit a photo in Lightroom, you can adjust a huge number of sliders to get your photo looking right. If you want to achieve a good result faster, you can also use the Auto Tone function.

This is an automatic setting that Lightroom uses to edit the photo as well as possible, based on the knowledge built into the programme. The software automatically adjusts the highlights, shadows and contrast, making the photo look much better straight away.

Of course, the question is whether you will be happy with the Auto Tone function alone, but it does at least give you a good base to continue working from. You will find the Auto Tone function on the right-hand side in the panel with the sliders, see the image below.

Tip 2: reset sliders

Do you work with the sliders in Lightroom a lot? And do you sometimes want to return a slider to its starting point?

Instead of fiddling with your mouse to get it back to 0, there is a simple trick for resetting the slider. Simply click the name of the slider, see the screenshot below, and your setting will jump back to 0. Super quick and easy!

Tip 3: use grids

As a photographer, you spend a lot of time thinking about composition. The golden ratio is a well-known compositional ratio, but there are several others too, such as the spiral.

Adobe Lightroom includes many of these grids, which can help you crop your photo. Fortunately, they are very quick and easy to use!

Simply go to the crop function, choose the function button on the right or press the letter R, and then press the letter O. You will now see the grid change.

There are several options, and you can switch between them by simply pressing the letter O each time. Would you like to mirror or rotate the grid? Press Shift + O and it will change. Below is an example of the Golden Ratio grid.

Tip 4: straighten your horizon quickly

There is nothing more annoying than a wonky horizon in your photo. Fortunately, you can easily correct this in Adobe Lightroom Classic. In fact, the software has an automatic function that straightens the horizon for you.

You will find this under the crop function, then click the auto button, see the image below. Lightroom will automatically straighten the horizon based on the knowledge it has.

I must admit that it does not always work. In that case, you can also use the straighten tool, the spirit level. Simply draw a line across the horizon and the software will straighten it. Quick and easy.

Below is an example photo that I straightened in this way.

Tip 5: use masks

In Lightroom Classic, you edit your photo by adjusting sliders to change things such as the contrast, shadows or exposure.

However, if you adjust a slider, it will affect the entire photo. And that is not always what you want! Sometimes you may only want to adjust the sky, for example, and not the rest.

Fortunately, there is a simple solution, namely masks! These are now very quick and easy to use. Simply click the mask button, mask in English, and you will then get several options, see the image below.



Option 1: Subject
The software will automatically select the subject in your photo, such as a person or animal. If you adjust the sliders after selecting the subject, only the subject will be edited.

Option 2: Sky
The software will select only the sky, allowing you to edit it.

Option 3: Background
The software will automatically select only the background, so you can easily edit it. For example, you can make the background darker, as I did with the dog photo below.

I easily made the background of this photo darker using the background mask.

Extra tip: are you still not quite getting the result you want with the masks above? You can also use a brush, linear or radial mask. You can easily select these in the mask menu, then indicate in your photo where you want to apply the edit.

Do you also have useful tips for working faster in Adobe Lightroom? I would love to hear about your experience! Leave a comment below!

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