The Lightroom interface in brief

Saturday 21 July 2018, 11:22 by Michelle Peeters | 7,425 views | 0 comments

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

If you have never worked with Lightroom before, the interface can look rather busy and confusing. Once you learn to understand it, a world opens up to one of the better photo-editing packages.

Catalogues

Lightroom works with a Catalogue into which you import your photos. In fact, you are telling Lightroom where your photos are stored. The advantage is that Lightroom works very quickly. You do this via File, New Catalogue.

If you want to create some order, you can create collections to group photos together. However, try not to move or rename files outside Lightroom. Otherwise, the link in the catalogue to your files will no longer work.

Importing photos

RAW offers the most possibilities, but Lightroom can handle almost all types of photo files. If you want to add photos to your catalogue, choose File, Import Photos and Videos. You can then specify your source in the left-hand column, such as a folder on your computer or a memory card.

By default, all files in a folder are selected. You can deselect them or choose 'deselect all', and then select the files you do want to use.

Once you have selected your photos, choose at the top how you want to add them to the catalogue. Copy, Move or Add.

Choose Add if you have already copied the files manually from your memory card to your hard disk. Choose Copy if the photos also need to be copied from the memory card while being imported into the catalogue

Depending on what you choose, you will see various settings in the right-hand column relating to the file name and destination.

In the Apply During Import box, you can optionally add Keywords to your photos straight away. Continue with Import to actually add the images to your catalogue.

Navigator, Thumbnails, Histogram, Library

The Lightroom interface consists of four sections. On the left, you have the Navigator (1) for quickly zooming in or out. Below that is an overview of the Catalogue, Folders, Collections and Publish Services.

At the very bottom is an overview with thumbnails of imported photos (2). On the right, you will find, among other things, a Histogram and Quick Develop (3). In the centre, in the Library (4) module, there is a larger view of the selected thumbnail.

Develop

To switch to the non-destructive Develop section in Lightroom, click Develop in the top right. The left and right columns will now change.

On the left, you will see some Presets, and on the right, various options for editing your photos. Your edits are non-destructive, your RAW file remains untouched and you can always go back using the Previous button.

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