1. The Lightroom Sessions A Quick Start Review – Pittwater Camera Club

2. Why do you want to use Lightroom?
Be better organised
Do most processing and organisation in one application
Could do what LR does using , file finder(Explorer), Bridge and Photoshop
LR won’t replace photoshop
LR is a the best starting point for processing your images if you new to digital photography
Lightroom is easier to learn than Photoshop
Lightroom already contains a big number of post-processing tools - good for 90%+ of editing tasks
Lightroom will help you in establishing a solid photography workflow process
Lightroom makes you more efficient, because you can go through and process many photos quickly, without having to deal with opening and closing files
Lightroom will keep you organized by cataloging all of your images in one place, making it easy to find and work with images
As a file and media management tool, Lightroom allows creating folders and sub-folders in your hard drive and can mass-rename files using templates.
Editing images in Lightroom is non-destructive, which means that the original file never gets permanently changed, whereas Photoshop is a mix of destructive and non-destructive editing
Unless separate layers are kept for every change, Photoshop does not keep historical changes. With Lightroom, you can go back and restore earlier settings after making changes
Lightroom can display image metadata as an overlay as you edit photos. Photoshop cannot do that once an image is opened
Lightroom is more than twice cheaper than Photoshop
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3. The Lightroom Sessions
A guide through a simple lightroom workflow
Won’t cover every module, tool, button, slider or check box or all the variations that could be in a workflow.
Follows Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC – Quick Start by Victoria Brampton available at the link below for free.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC – The Missing FAQ is perfect if you wish to know everything about Lightroom – it’s about 500+ pages and US$27.95/ £ ~A$38
Available from the as an e-book (pdf etc.) or paperback
These presentations will be at look under the “Program and Resources” menu
Proposed dates for sessions: 9 July, 6 August, 20 August, 3 September, 15 October
Hand out The Lightroom Sessions Overview document
Bring along questions and issues to sessions as you work with Lightroom
If we don’t cover all we want too we can roll into more sessions
If something was intended to be more advanced I’ll note it. We can cover it if the group wants too
Demonstration –
Click on the links to illustrate
Have copies on PWCC website
The lightroom Sessions
Adobe Lightroom Classic CC - Quick Start
The presentations
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4. Pittwater Camera Club - The Lightroom Sessions (1)
Aims of Session 1
There are two Lightroom (LR) versions, which one are we using here?
Installing LR
Some terminology
Some things to consider before starting with LR
Basic LR workflow
Some important things to remember
Overview of LR’s menu, panels and modules and a walk through of the main elements of the program
What to do and bring along for Session 2
This first session is a ‘show and tell’ only a small amount of demonstrating LR
You don’t need to remember everything BUT do note the 3 important things to remember in that section
We’ll go at your pace so if too fast just say so
Ask lots of questions
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5. Documents and resources list
These are on the USB and the PWCC website
More might added (or updated) and will be uploaded to the PWCC website
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6. There are two Lightroom Versions
Lightroom Classic CC (7.x)– lets just call it ‘Lightroom’ or ‘LR’
It is folder based (i.e. on your computer) – you edit on your computer.
Lightroom Classic CC (7.x) is the one we are going to use
Lightroom CC
It is cloud based – i.e. in the ‘cloud’ (on Adobe’s servers) – your photos are on Adobe’s computers and you can access and edit them from any device via the internet. It does not have the full feature set of LR Classic (yet)
Something that’s caused confusion throughout the internet world…Adobe decided to have 2 versions of lightroom and the names are a bit the same
With CC If you run out of storage, your new photos will be saved only on the devices they came from. They’ll no longer be backed up to the cloud or synced across your devices and they won’t be automatically tagged for easy keyword search within Lightroom. The photos you have already backed up to the cloud will still be accessible on all your devices.
Storage of 2oGB is included but more starts at about US$14 pm. 
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7. Pittwater Camera Club - The Lightroom Sessions (1)
Installing Lightroom
If you own the photographer’s creative cloud subscription Lightroom Classic and CC and Photoshop (and Bridge) are available to install - make sure it’s LR classic you install as it’s the one we’ll be using.
A trial can be downloaded at
CC photographer’s package comes with access to LR (both versions), photoshop and Bridge
In the “all Apps” tab of the CC panel it will either say Install or launch if you have access to it or try if you don’t
Demonstration -
Show the CC app’s panel
Point out the two versions of LR
Show the tutorials option from the CC panel
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8. Pittwater Camera Club - The Lightroom Sessions (1)
Some terminology
Workflow – a series of steps undertaken in the same order each time – from taking a photo to the final result.
Catalogue – the database lightroom uses – a file named as ‘[name].lrcat’
Preview – a view of your image
Keywords – words used to describe your image – the who, what, where
Collection – a group of images for a specific purpose, like an album
Metadata (of an image) – ‘stuff’ that describes your image – exposure info, location, copyright data, includes the keywords
Import – transferring images from your card to the computer (the process also records information about them in lightroom’s catalogue file)
Export – creating a new image file from your original file, Printing e.g. a jpg for PWCC’s comps
Destination – the location that you import your images to
Virtual copy – Not a copy of your image but a render of your image at a point in your editing workflow. (it will become clearer later!)
Stack (of photos) – a group of photos e.g. for stitching into a pano, or HDR etc.
Pre-set – a group of edits that can be applied to a photo in one click. There are other types of pre-sets too.
This is just to familiarise you with them.
Don’t worry about remembering these now
Step through each one
By the time we’ve been through all the sessions you will know them
Note: no “save” or “save as” that’s Export
No “Open” or “Open in” that’s import
Use the Library catalogue system as an example – Dewey system
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9. Before starting with Lightroom
Where will you store the catalogue?
1 or many? 1 recommended
The catalogue is not large, even with 100,000+ images, but the previews lightroom creates need some space
It needs to be backed up so note where it is and update your backup processes
Where are your photos (or where do you want them) stored?
How will you organise your photos into folders
No need to re-arrange if you have a method now – any way you want is fine, LR does not care
How will you name your photos
Avoid duplicated file names which will happen (one day) if you just use the camera’s names. Also for example ‘_DSC1234.NEF’ is not very informative.
Recommend that the LR catalogue created during these session might not be the final one or master that end up using.
Two options
Jump into LR and worry about being organised later or
Re-organise things if needed now
If you already have a collection of photos do 1
I think these things are important – some don’t!
Re-naming images helps with identification while working with them in lightroom but isn’t mandatory
Hand out pdfs for organising and renaming photos
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10. Lightroom – how does it work – the basics
LR’s catalogue
Stores all the information about your photos and changes you’ve made to them.
[name].lrcat
Records your edits, enables searching
LR reads your image files - it does not change them unless you tell it to
Updates previews
LR’s Previews folder/file. Created by LR as you work.
Don’t worry if this is too complicated
The important thing is to know that LR is a non-destructive editor – i.e. it won’t change your original file – unless you very specifically tell it too e.g. renameing
Unlike photoshop which does both destructive (or pixel changing) non reversable changes as well as non destructive changes but it still does not over wright RAW files – that is proprietary RAW like NEF CRE RAF etc.
So you can experiment and play with images without fear
Outputs jpg, print, slideshow, book etc.
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11. Basic Lightroom Workflow
Capture
Import
View and organise
Edit & Retouch
Output
RAW vs JPEG
And all the normal things like exposure, composition etc
Import the photos into LR. Adhere to your folder and re-naming conventions. There are more options here too to automate processes.
Backup!
Select best photos, add keywords, manage files (re-name, move in folders), add to collection(s)
Basic edits: WB, Crop, B&W, sharp, noise, lens corrections. Selective edits: spot, red eye, graduated, radial & brush filters
External edit: PS, Nik etc.
Photo merge, export, , slideshows, print, publish services, books
Think about these things
Designing your workflow
Series of steps undertaken in the same order each time
Aim is consistency
Reduces mistakes and omissions e.g. renaming files, adding keywords, putting photos into collections, attaching copyright
No one perfect workflow for everyone
Even though you settle on one workflow for now it will change over time as you learn new things
Excluding capture there are 4 basic steps to the LR workflow
Note that not all the options are covered in the text just subsets and examples
The workflow is a broad approach
The last three steps are often repeated for the same image(s) and virtual copies or versions created
Lightroom’s interface also has an organised approach – start top left of screen work down, then across and then down the right side
Just remember…
left to right is right
Top to Bottom is best
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12. Remember these things…
Only rename photos in LR
Only move photos between folders in LR
If you need to delete a photo then do it in LR so the catalogue is up to date.
Back up your catalogue and other important LR files regularly (of course your doing regular backups?)
See chapter 5 of the Lightroom Classic Quick Start Guide for a list files that ought to be backed up and where they are on your computer.
The first three are important
The default file locations may not be in your back up set.
Even if you set your backup to be ‘All files’ the LR catalogue might be treated as a system file and not backed up, don’t assume it will be backed up, check. It does depend on your back up program though and where the LR catalogue is installed. If it’s in a pictures folder (the default location) it is probably OK
Easiest way to check would be to go through the recovery process after a back up cycle once the catalogue file has been created and recover the [name].lrcat file and see what happens.
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13. Pittwater Camera Club - The Lightroom Sessions (1)
Menu bar
Filter bar and options
Module picker
Identity plate & Activity centre
The main sections of the LR workspace
Only cover a general overview
Demonstrate using master catalogue.
Do some quick edits,
Masking in Lightroom
Export for PWCC
Film Strip
Breadcrumb bar
Tool Bar
Image Preview Area
Panels
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14. Pittwater Camera Club - The Lightroom Sessions (1)
Over the next 2 weeks…
If not already Install LR – launch it and follow the prompts to create a catalogue file – it will be empty for the time being. We’ll add to it in session 2
Consider your current folder setup and what you need to do to be organised…maybe you don’t need to do anything, and you can always reorganise things once you are using lightroom!
If you like to have a ‘text book’ download the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC – Quick Start by Victoria Brampton available at make sure you pick the Lightroom Classic CC on my desktop checkbox
At the next session bring along your laptop (with LR installed) and either a camera card, Camera or a USB stick with a few images on it – say 10.
Bring some images next session to import into LR…
On a Card, or
On a card in a Camera if you prefer to attached your camera to your computer
And/or
Have some image son your computer that are not in LR
We’ll work through importing photos to LR
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15. Pittwater Camera Club - The Lightroom Sessions (1)
Session 2 Topics
Q & A from session 1 and homework
Quick refresh of the LR Basic workflow from session 1
Getting photos into LR
From a memory card
From your computer (or a drive attached to your computer or network)
The features of the Import module
Some of the Lightroom preferences
Start using the Lightroom workspace – The Library Module
Viewing your photos and folders
Selecting the best ones, rating, colour coding, stacking
Creating collections and working with them
Metadata and adding keywords
A look at a large catalogue (about 80,000 images) and how it’s organised.
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16. Pittwater Camera Club - The Lightroom Sessions (1)
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