3 Lightroom Hacks I Bet You Didn’t Know | by Laura Froese

Sep 19

I have been using Lightroom for well over a decade now, but I didn’t realize how many cool features it had hiding inside of it until I starting doing a deep dive to create a comprehensive workshop. While I do use Photoshop for some of the harder clone jobs as well as adding an extra sprinkle of magic - like an overlay occasionally - Lightroom has my heart. If I had to choose only one program for the rest of my life, it would be Lightroom without a doubt, despite acknowledging Photoshop as the more robust software overall. The organizational tools in Lightroom help me stay sane, and the masking tools are continually improving with each update. But enough of me singing its praises. Let me SHOW you some of the lesser known features that I adore! Here are 3 Lightroom hacks I bet you didn’t know!

Sharpening Mask

Did you know that you can get a sharp, but yet still creamy look, in Lightroom even if the tone curve intimidates the heck out of you? Obviously the tone curve is where the true magic happens, but I found a little “cheat” I used for years while the Curves Panel and I got used to each other. You can put on a healthy amount of sharpening (more than you might otherwise), and then hold down the Option key (on a Mac) or the Alt key (on a PC) while simultaneously pulling on the masking slider. Don’t let go of the key! Keep holding it down. You will see it apply the sharpening just to the very edges of your subjects making them pop while keeping the smooth look on the rest of the image.

You can watch me do this in a free tutorial video found in our shop: https://www.theframedfocus.com/shop/p/lightroomsharpeningtutorial

Guided Straightening

My deep, dark confession is that I am probably one of the most crooked shooters you’ve ever met - especially if I am shooting vertically. This problem is compounded by the fact that I’m often shooting on my 24mm which comes with its own unique distortion issues. To make matters even worse, I shoot indoors a lot. My straight-out-of-camera files are a bit of a hot mess sometimes. I use the crop tool to mostly straighten, and then often hit “Auto” down in the Transform panel of Lightroom, but sometimes it’s way more hopeless than that. This is where the “Guided” functionality in that same Transform Panel comes in. You can just draw lines on your photo and have Lightroom use those as guides to straighten out all your edges. You can draw up to four lines, and it’s been life changing! This is covered in my Unlocking Lightroom workshop, but here is a page from that course showing you what I mean:

Collections

Last, but definitely not least, my absolute favourite feature - Collections! If you're not already using them, you definitely should be! Picture Lightroom as a virtual filing system. Each session is organized in the Library Module by its date. But what if you need to locate a photo from years ago and can't recall the date it was taken? That would mean a lot of sifting through files. This is where Collections come to your rescue! You can create LR Collections to group photos together and give the folder any name you like. I personally have Collections for all the edited photos from each client shoot I do, as well as separate Collections for my personal photos each year. These Collections don't duplicate your images; they simply provide a link to the original files, making it easier to organize and locate them. This is probably something that is easier if I show you versus trying to explain it.

Check out the freebie “Lightroom Collections - Getting Organized” in our shop: https://www.theframedfocus.com/shop/p/lightroom-collections-tutorial

There are so many more features I could highlight, but these are some of my personal favourites. If you want to do a super deep dive into this program, including all of the latest and greatest updates with the more recent versions, the comprehensive workshop “Unlocking Lightroom” runs a couple of times each year and covers so many topics including, but not limited to: