I’ve been using Adobe Lightroom as my RAW converter and photo editor of choice since version 1 launched a few years ago. Until last year I still relied on Photoshop to complete the bulk of my editing work. Why? Because I was stubborn – an old curmudgeon who didn’t want to change. Looking back, I wish I’d taken the advice of my friend and Lightroom guru Nat Coalson, who for years has been extolling the virtues of completing as much work as possible within Lightroom.

Finally I got smart and listened to Nat’s advice. I now do about 90% of my processing within Lightroom, only using Photoshop to blend multiple exposures or for complicated cloning – both of which just can’t be done in Lightroom’s current version. Even then, I import the finished product back into Lightroom so my entire image collection is in one place and easily searchable.

Lately I’ve noticed that many of my photo workshop clients are just now diving into Lightroom. Many of them are doing so with trepidation. Some of them are taking the plunge because I’ve badgered them into it. Regardless, if you’re new to Lightroom I’ve got a few tips to share that are guaranteed to save you time and effort down the road. These tips come from my own hard won experience. I hope they help you find Lightroom bliss.

You can find links to Robert's site at the end of this article.

Make sure and read this post all the way through, as Robert's explanation of his Lightroom processing is very informative.

We look forward to more of Robert's posts!

Cold Sunrise - Lake Placid, Adirondacks

This was a very cold, early morning hike to a great sunrise location in the Adirondacks, and I really wanted to convey this feeling in the image “Cold Sunrise”. There are many cues that you can use to express how you feel when you’re at a particular location, and these involve all of our senses including sound, touch, smell, etc. Here I’ve tried to convey touch and feel by leading the eye onto the texture of frozen snow on these rocks in the foreground.

In addition, I think that the low fog in the valley conveys that stillness and silence that we often associate with these types of atmospheric events. When we can’t see very clearly, our other senses become more acute, and even though this is a photo, it triggers that sense in our minds to imagine what it would sound like to be there. Notice also the strong diagonals which guide the eye as mentioned before – cool to warm, texture to smooth, dark to bright, all contrasting elements.

Anyone looking at this photo will immediately understand what it must have felt like to stand on this frozen rocky ledge – at least that is my hope, and why it is important to continually practice the language of photography.

• Lightroom Workflow

As a bonus, I’ve included my Lightroom workflow so that you can get a better sense of how I processed this image with these ideas in mind in order to create the best interpretation of the RAW file.

Now, I have obviously taken some serious creative liberties with this image.  For starters, my camera doesn’t make square photos.  I used a fairly heavy digital grad filter to darken the sky with a heavy dose of clarity to give more separation in the clouds, added some global negative vibrance to mute the colors, made a curves adjustment to increase contrast, dodged the bison to make them stand out a bit more from the meadow, added a vignette and some “grain” – all in Lightroom 3.  I exported the image to Photoshop CS4 and experimented with different blurs using the gradient tool to keep the bison sharp-ish while blurring out the background.  I didn’t like the results of any of those efforts.  What to do?  Hmmm…

"Flower Man" Savannah, GA

There are many ways to find your photos inside Lightroom. The Library Filter bar contains several tools that make finding specific images easier. You can apply these filters one at a time or in different combinations to see only the images you’re looking for. To apply multiple filters, command(cntrl) click on the filter names in the filter bar. This is a great way to find and organize your photos for creating collections, as filters can be applied to individual folders or your entire catalog.

Jekyll Island, GA. 3-shot HDR processed in Photomatix Pro, Color effects Pro and Silver Effects Pro.

Using Stacks in Lightroom is a convenient way to group similar photos together in grid view and the filmstrip. This is especially helpful if you regularly end up with multiple images of the same subject. You may have multiple shots of the same pose from a portrait session, a string of images from shooting wildlife, or you can even group your bracketed shots together for your HDR work. Stacks are also a good way to manage virtual copies, or different treatments of the same image.

The spot removal tool looks like a big O with an arrow pointing to the right. It can be found in the Develop panel, in between the crop tool and the red eye tool. When clicked, you will see an option to Clone or Heal the spot. You can also adjust the size of the area and the opacity you want to use for the removal. Typically I use "Heal" and adjust the other sliders to match the spot. The really nice part of this tool is that Lightroom will try to fix the spot on its own by finding a matching area! However, if the fix is bad you can just drag and drop the matching area to find one that works. Simple, right? It really is!