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Adobe Lightroom Basics: A Beginner's Editing Workflow

Lightroom can feel overwhelming at first, but most edits follow the same simple workflow β€” here's the order that works for almost any photo.

  1. Import your photos

    Use the Import button to bring photos in from a folder, your camera, or cloud storage. At import, you can also set where copies are saved and how files get renamed.

  2. Open the Basic panel

    Switch to the Develop module and open the Basic panel on the right side. This is where the most commonly used sliders live β€” exposure, contrast, color temperature, and more.

  3. Adjust exposure and contrast

    Use the Exposure slider to set overall brightness and the Contrast slider to control the difference between the photo's brightest and darkest areas. The Highlights and Shadows sliders let you fine-tune specific tonal ranges.

  4. Fix white balance with color temperature

    The Temp slider shifts the photo's color warmer or cooler, and the Tint slider balances green and magenta, together producing more natural-looking color.

  5. Try a preset

    Clicking a preset in the panel on the left applies a whole set of adjustments at once in a particular style. You can still fine-tune individual sliders afterward to make it your own.

  6. Compare before and after

    Press the backslash (\) key, or use the Before/After view button, to see the original and edited version side by side or toggled back and forth.

  7. Export the finished photo

    In the Export menu, choose your file format, size, and save location, then export to create a new file, like a JPEG, with your edits applied.

Why Lightroom instead of Photoshop for everyday edits

Lightroom is built around non-destructive, batch-friendly editing of large numbers of photos β€” ideal for the kind of global adjustments (exposure, color, cropping) most photos need. Photoshop is built for detailed, pixel-level editing of one image at a time. Many photographers use Lightroom for the bulk of their editing and switch to Photoshop only for detailed retouching.

Build your own workflow order

While the order above works for most photos, feel free to adjust to what makes sense for your eye β€” some photographers set white balance before exposure, for instance. What matters more than a strict order is developing a repeatable routine so editing gets faster with practice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do my edits change the original photo file?

No. Lightroom's edits are non-destructive β€” they're stored as instructions layered on top of the original file, which stays untouched, and are only 'baked in' when you export a new file.

What's the difference between a preset and a filter on a phone app?

A preset is essentially a saved combination of the same adjustable sliders you'd set manually, so you can always open it up afterward and tweak individual settings β€” unlike many one-tap phone filters, which apply a fixed effect you generally can't take apart and adjust.