You’re sitting behind your computer wondering, “How can I make photo editing easier?”. You love taking photos, but you don’t really enjoy editing your photos. In the beginning you were building your photography business and loved learning all the tips and tricks of Lightroom to make your images stand out.
Now, all your hard work has paid off and you’re busier than ever! With more and more session to edit, the job of finalizing your photos becomes less enjoyable and more of a pain.
There are a few solutions to this problem.
- Outsource your editing! Give it to someone who enjoys editing. If you’re ready to stop reading right and are saying, “Sign me up!”, just click here and I can help you out.
- You can learn some tricks to become faster and more efficient. Below are some tips to help you with your editing.
Make Your Editing Easier: Tip 1
Create Smart Previews
If you haven’t been using Smart Previews, this is a game changer!
When Smart Previews are created, Lightroom generates a small version of your photo. Lightroom then stores these images next to the active catalog inside the folder. Instead of editing the original images, Lightroom edits the Smart Previews. When you reconnect your external hard drive, the program syncs the changes you made with all your original RAW files.
This means you can take your editing anywhere with you (or easily send your photos for outsourcing!) without needing to have your hard drive connected.
Make Your Editing Easier: Tip 2
Apply Settings on Import
Eventually, you’re going to get into a groove with your editing. You’re going to start realizing there are some edits you are consistently making to every image you import. Rather than making similar adjustments to things like Highlights, Shadows, and Clarity for every image, you can simply apply these upon importing into Lightroom. To do this, use the “Apply During Import” pane in the Import dialogue, and select any of Lightroom’s existing presets or a custom one.
Make Your Editing Easier: Tip 3
Using Presets
Speaking of presets, using these for your images in Lightroom will save you time. This will also help keep all your images on brand for you.
Once you have saved or downloaded a preset into your library, just click to apply. Because everything is pre-defined, with just one click you’ll be able to instantly get your photos edited, with some minor tweaks. Rather than edit every photo individually from scratch, you can spend your time fine-tuning each edit.
Using presets is also a great way to create consistency with your images. When editing an entire photo session, applying the same presets across the whole photo shoot will give your images a cohesive look, as opposed to editing each photo individually, which can lead to inconsistent edits.
Make Your Editing Easier: Tip 4
Batch Editing
Batch editing in Lightroom is the way to go! It’s a simple way to sync the same settings from one photo across all the images from a session that are taken in the same location with similar lighting. Once you batch edit, you can still go into each image and make any final adjustments.
Batch editing means less time behind the computer editing, and more time behind the camera shooting.
Ready to hire me as your private photo editor? Email me at hello@openbookdesignco.com or visit my website at openbookdesignco.com to reserve a spot in my editing calendar for 2020! Although I live in Hamilton, ON I offer my service to clients all over Canada and the world!
You may also like:
