lightroom classic tutorials for beginners

That's because without a catalog, Lightroom can't do very much at all!Īt this point, it will give you the option to choose where to store it.

When you first open Lightroom, it will ask you to create a catalog. Your actual image files will reside wherever you have asked Lightroom to save them to, and LIghtroom will simply keep track of that file - and everything associated with it - in the catalog. What is important to note here (and a common source of confusion for new Lightroom users) is that when you import images into Lightroom, you are not actually saving any files within Lightroom itself, but rather simply importing a 'reference' to the file into the catalog. This catalog contains all the information about your image files, including where they are stored, any tags or keywords, along with any editing steps you might take, such as changing white balance or applying color toning. Taking your images into the Develop ModuleĮxporting a high quality JPEG for printingĪs you can guess, it's not going to be a quick post, so you might want to wait until the kids are in bed before you read this one 😴.īecause Lightroom is a management system, it uses something called a catalog to keep track of everything you do to your images. Importing your first photos from your memory card What happens when you first open Lightroom To try to help out any new Lightroom users out there, what I want to do today is to give you a step by step guide on how to get started with Lightroom, right from the beginning. We'll cover: It has taken me quite a few years to figure out Lightroom, and right at the beginning I really wish I had someone leading me through the process step by step - it would have saved me so much time and allowed me to concentrate on getting good images, rather than having to spend hours and hours sorting out my mess! We all know that learning a new piece of software can be daunting - this is especially true when we're talking about Lightroom, which has so many modules, panels, buttons and options that you might not even know where to start!

Lightroom classic tutorials for beginners