Are you interested in editing your images faster without sacrificing the quality of your results? Most photographers would answer in the affirmative, and today’s tutorial demonstrates a pro’s top six tips for streamlining your everyday Lightroom workflow.

Johny J. Spencer is an accomplished nature and wildlife photographer who has been shooting for Australia’s National Park Service for the past 20 years. He’s equally adept behind the computer, and by following his advice  you’ll be able to quickly edit your images and get back out in the field with a camera doing what you love most.

Spencer’s first workflow hack begins in Lightroom’s Import tab where he explains the benefits of “building previews in Standard.” Doing this creates a small Jpeg version of the original image that doesn’t take up much space on your drive. Then each time you click through your photos Lightroom doesn’t have to load a higher resolution preview, because the small thumbnail was already created on import.

Moving on to the Develop module, Spencer demonstrates a trick “I use for 99% of my photos.” You’ll see why he also enables a few key settings, one of which is Lens Correction to quickly remove chromatic aberration. He also turns on Profile Corrections for reasons he explains. The only exception is when he’s shooting with an ultra-wide lens and wants to retain the inherent distortion.

The next hack is to create a preset for whatever adjustments you made to a photo and Spencer demonstrates how to do this and select Add Preset on Import. This way you don’t have to start from scratch every time this effect is what you want to accomplish. As he says, “this really speeds things up when you have numerous similar photos that you want to process fast.”

Turning on Auto Advance and using Flags properly is also something that Spencer strongly recommends for culling a bunch of photos and determining which ones you want to keep. Just keep fingers on the “X” and “P” keys and the task is accomplished in a hurry. You can confirm the choices you made with a quick glance at the film strip on the bottom of the screen.

At this point you’re halfway through the video and there are three more hacks to go, so be sure to watch until the end. Then you’ll want to update your Lightroom workflow so that it includes everything you just learned. Bottom line: You’ll work faster and smarter from now on.

Spencer’s instructional YouTube channel includes many more helpful post-processing videos that are just as simple and helpful as this one.

On a related note, don’t miss the tutorial we featured last week with another image-editing expert who demonstrates what he says is the best way to import photographs into Lightroom so you stay organized and don’t waste a lot of time.

Just about all Lightroom users know that the software includes a variety of timesaving presets for creating numerous effects and quickly dupicating specific edits you made in the past. In addition to the built-in presets there are others you can download at nominal cost, and even create some of your own.

What you may not understand is the power of Lightroom’s Adaptive Presets and how to put them to work. This quick tutorial explaining the concept comes from Amateur Photographer TV, the YouTube channel of the world’s longest running photo magazine—published weekly in the UK since 1884.

According to instructor Rod Lawton, “most presets are a one-size-fit-all solution.” In other words, you choose one of these tools and Lightroom applies a bunch of settings that are the same every time for every image. Sometimes these presets do a good job but other times they fail depending upon the specific photo at hand and the look you’re trying to achieve.

Adaptive Presets are a totally different breed because they use Lightroom’s AI-powered masking tools to “automatically select areas, objects, and subjects regardless of the image you load so you don’t get the same result every time.” Lawton demonstrates how this works in barely six minutes.

Lawton says the key to these intelligent Adaptive Presets is that they automatically adjust to a photograph’s unique lighting and color attributes. In his words,  “this makes them a perfect tool for enhancing portraits, landscape photos, and more.” Best yet, they work their magic with just one click.

Lawton’s first example is a nice street scene that suffers from a bland sky. He opens the Adaptive Presets panel where there are options for Sunrise, Sunset, Neon Tropics, Storm Clouds, and others. For this particular task, the Blue Drama preset is the one that Lawton selects.. The instant transformation is very impressive, and if you look at the Mask panel you’ll notice the Sky Mask that was applied

You’ll see how Lightroom’s other Adaptive Presets are just as effective for different types of images. Lawton says these AI-based tools are “a gamechanger for photographers who want quick, professional-grade edits with minimal effort.”

Be sure to visit the Amateur Photographer TV YouTube channel where there are many more shooting and photo-editing tips to be found.

We also recommend watching the tutorial we featured recently with another post-processing expert who demonstrates how to modify and refine the colors in your photographs using Lightroom’s powerful Selective Coloring tools.

We are excited to announce the winners of GuruShots‘ “Night Illuminations” photo challenge! Their talent and creativity truley showcases the masterful use of light and shadow, creating a sense of mystery and intrigue.

Don’t miss the full slideshow gallery at the end of this article, featuring more exceptional entries. Also, check out GuruShots’ newest app AI Art Master. 

Without further ado, here are the winners:

Winning Images

Runners Up

Full Gallery

We’re always looking for unique post-processing techniques that transform mediocre images into money shots with an eye-catching and totally unexpected effect. This Photoshop tutorial begins with a concise question that gives the technique away: “Do you want to transform a bright, sunny day into a dramatic night scene?”

The lesson comes to us from the Photoshop PixelFie YouTube channel, a popular resource for learning the concepts behind powerful-image-editing methods “so you can visually translate your imagination.” If you’re familiar with Francoise Truffaut’s iconic film Day for Night you likely have a good idea of what to expect.

In barely two minutes today’s unnamed instructor demonstrates how to master this stunning effect in just a few steps, and he walks you through the straightforward procedure.  Be sure to download the sample image with a link beneath the video, so you can follow along and make the changes yourself as they’re explained.

This approach is valuable for all sorts of subjects, from landscapes and wildlife photos to street scenes and even environmental portraits. You’ll begin by clicking on the Adjustment Layer icon and selecting Hue/Saturation. Then drag the Saturation slider to the left, setting the value at -65 to tone down the colors.

Next head back to the Adjustment Layer icon where you began and choose Color Lookup. Now open the 3D Lut option from the dropdown in the Properties panel and choose NightFromDay.cube. At this point you can make the image even more moody if need be.

Return to the Adjustment Layer icon again and this time select Levels—dragging the slider to a value of about 115 to further darken the highlights. Then adjust the top slider to  0.85 to soften brightness a bit more.

Now for the magic part: Click on the Background Layer, grab the Quick Selection tool, carefully select the sky, and click on the Layer Mask icon. By doing so the nighttime sky appears over your photo. Just like that, the transformation is complete.

There’s much more of interest on the Photoshop PixelFie YouTube channel, so be sure to take a look when you have time to explore.

We also suggest watching the tutorial we featured with another post-processing expert who demonstrates how to use Photoshop’s Color Balance adjustments to refine colors in photographs to create spectacular landscape images with a realistic look.