Beginners Guide: Lightroom’s Basic Panel Made Easy (VIDEO)
Lightroom’s Basic panel is often the first stop when photographers process their images. The idea to make several global adjustments to prepare a photo for the more involved enhancements that follow. When done right you’re on the path to success, but an improper approach can compromise the effectiveness of your subsequent workflow.
Today’s primer from expert Neil Borg is designed to help inexperienced users unlock the magic of Lightroom’s Basic panel by breaking down every slider and important setting in very simple terms. By the time the seven-minute video concludes you’ll understand how to transform mediocre images into “captivating masterpieces.”
Borg is a self-taught travel and landscape photographer whose straightforward post-processing tutorials help amateur shooters bring photos to life, and what better place to start than Lightroom’s Basic panel? He says that before touching the keyboard it’s essential to evaluate the image at hand, determine where it needs work, and decide the specific mood or effect you intend to create.
Borg’s demonstration shot is a nicely composed seaside photo, but the sky is washed out, everything else is too dark, colors are muted, and there are other problems that can quickly be resolved with a few thoughtful adjustments. He walks you through a simple process that you can emulate whenever Lightroom’s powerful Basic panel appears on the right side of your screen.
It’s important to apply enhancements in a specific sequence, which is why Borg recommends beginning with Basic adjustments—rather than introducing them later in the process. Here Borg goes directly to the Lens Correction option and quickly removes distortion by straightening the crooked horizon in his scene.
The easy way out for other Basic adjustments is to use the Auto button within the panel and let Lightroom do all the heavy lifting for you. But Borg advises against this approach because “we would like to put our own effort into editing our images whether they’re in color or b&w.”
This is exactly what Borg demonstrates how to do in the last five minutes of the episode so that you don’t rely upon Lightroom to determine the optimum settings and how your photos should look. One you’re done watching head over to Borg’s popular YouTube channel where there are more instructional videos for improving your shooting and image-editing skills.
We also recommend watching a tutorial we featured recently with another post-processing expert who demonstrates how to rehabilitate underexposed outdoor photographs with Lightroom’s versatile Tone Curve tools when you didn’t get things right in the camera.
