Introduction to Adobe Lightroom

Welcome (7:11)
Welcome to Introduction to Adobe Lightroom with photographer, Chris Knight. In this series, receive an in depth look at Adobe's digital version of a real world darkroom - Adobe Lightroom. Listen as Chris discusses the history of Adobe Photoshop, its evolution and the inception of Lightroom. Work through an intuitive workspace, best practices for image processing, and non-destructive workflow. Learn a procedural method from importing, to cataloging, to how to organize your file structure in general. Dive into the develop module, learning to create a multitude of expressions from a singular file. Maximize impact in your image processing and learn a few different options for publishing and organizing your images outside of Lightroom.

The Catalog (37:08)
Begin the series by understanding the foundation of Lightroom - the catalog. Examine hard drive solutions, their cost and the importance for production storage solutions, backup, and archival of your most important asset - your image content. Open Lightroom and learn the basics of creating a catalog, where to source it, and how to import images into your catalog system. Learn about supported formats, organizational structure. Leverage the flexibility and extensibility of the camera raw format, DNG. Learn photographer, Chris Knight's best practices for file naming and numbering images.

The Library (34:30)
With a firm base understanding of Lightroom's catalog system, move forward into the library module. Walk through each panel of the library interface, examining application features like the navigator, grid view, loop view, compare and survey. Learn to use the application interface to examine your images and the subsequent metadata. Create folders, rename files, and learn to locate and relink offline media. Compare the organizational features of smart collections vs. collections. Understand the library structure and non-destructive file management. Leverage the power of metadata to organize your images intelligently and quickly.

Develop Module Essentials (1:23:45)
Transition from the focus of library organization into the essentials of Lightroom's develop module. Learn a rock solid foundation in developing camera RAW image data for post-production. Learn to extract and prepare the most information possible from your RAW image data to preserve quality throughout your retouching workflow. Define and understand how to read a histogram. Examine photographer, Christ Knight's approach in developing an image with Adobe Lightroom. Effectively evaluate luminance, shadows, mid-tones, highlights, clarity, vibrance, and saturation for premium print and web distribution.

Advanced Develop Mode Applications (1:01:07)
Continue into a more advanced look at the develop module tool set within Lightroom. Learn about, healing, clone stamp, brushes, gradients and cropping tools. Evaluate when these tools are best used within Lightroom versus Photoshop. Practice skin retouching on portraits and dust removal on landscape imagery, along with a variety of other cleanup tools.

Exporting (41:32)
Examine the best practices for exporting your images out of Lightroom versus into Photoshop. Learn about post processing file formats, optimum color spaces, comparing 8 bit to 16 bit imagery, and ideal resolutions settings. Export multiple exposures and processes of the same image into Photoshop. Practice setting locations outside of Lightroom, selecting formats, and creating sensible file naming schemes for a more productive workflow.

Workflow (50:22)
Having examined file location, media asset management, image processing and development, and best practices for exporting your images, put all of the pieces together for expediting your workflow in Lightroom. Using 3 image examples, practice image processing from start to finish.

Wrap Up (5:26)
Congratulations! You've completed the Introduction to Adobe Lightroom with photographer, Chris Knight. We encourage you to take the techniques you've learned in this series and repeat them across your workflow. And please reach out to our community with any questions, comments, and support that you may need. We would love to see your work!