Lightroom basics here we go! If you are looking to level up just a little in your phone photography skills, then learning how to edit photos using Lightroom is the next skill to tackle. The Lightroom app is free to download and knowing how to edit photos using Lightroom will take your photos to the next level. I’m going to walk you through the steps and show you the important things to notice like contrast, exposure, and more.

First things first, before you continue reading, this will be a lot easier to understand if you have the app opened next to you. So head over to the app store and download Lightroom, then upload one photo that you would like to edit and use while you continue reading this post. Alright, here we go!

How to Edit Photos Using Lightroom

Once I have my photo uploaded, I always adjust the exposure first. This contributes to the brightness of your photo, making your photo either darker or brighter depending on the way you pull the slider. Next, I adjust the white balance. Some colors change under different lighting and white balance helps correct that. Exposure and white balance are two basics that will have the biggest overall impact on your image, mainly how warm/cool the colors are and the brightness. The rest is going to be specific to how you like your images to look.

I like images to be bright, but true to life. So these are my normal steps from here:

-pull up contrast

-pull down highlights to keep details

-pull up shadows to brighten the image

-pull up whites to brighten

-pull up blacks to brighten

-pull up dehaze to create a little more pop if needed

The biggest tip I can give you for how to edit photos using Lightroom is to play around with the sliders to see what you like. It really comes down to what you find visually aesthetic. My second biggest tip is if you really want to take your photography to the next level invest in presets. Good presets, not cheap $10 ones from Etsy. If you invest in your presets, you can make minor adjustments from there, but it will help your images feel more cohesive and professional.

If you’re a visual learner check out this video! I walk you through the steps that I just talked about and you can watch while I do it. It’s only 3 minutes and can definitely help cement the ideas written above.

So, what questions do you have about how to edit photos using Lightroom? Comment below and I promise to help a friend out! Or if you have other questions, check out my blog for other resources.