Avoid these common mistakes in Lightroom to edit better!

Tips to not make These Beginner Lightroom mistakes!

In this Lightroom tutorial, Anthony Morganti shares the three biggest mistakes beginner Lightroom editing users make, and how to avoid them!

Lightroom is a great editing platform for photography, but it can be easy to make these beginner mistakes!

Lightroom is an amazing program that is specifically designed for the organisation and processing of photographs.

It’s easier to use and operates with non-destructive editing (that’s making changes to a photo without permanently altering the original file)

It’s a perfect tool for photographers! 

However, there are a few mistakes many new users make with their initial set up and while they begin to use it that can create challenges later.

Definitely something to watch out for!

Here are the 3 main mistakes to know how to avoid when you start using this program. 

Beginner Lightroom editing Mistake #1: Moving and Deleting

Lightroom gets confused with the file location if you move where the file is stored on your computer outside of Lightroom.

If you have uploaded a file into Lightroom, then you move it from the folder on your hardrive to your desktop for example, Lightroom will no longer be able to locate that file. That means you wont be able to open it in Lightroom after it’s been moved.

Similarly, if you delete a file or folder outside of lightroom, the file or folder will remain in Lightroom. But it will just linger as an unlocatable file or folder that is empty.

In order to solve this problem if you have already done this, is to click on your library and select the file or folder that is greyed out because Lightroom can’t find it anymore.

Then right click on it and either remove it from light room if you have deleted it, or click find missing folder and locate it on your system within the lightroom program. Easy done! 

To prevent this from happening in the future, try to avoid moving files around on your system you have in Lightroom. 

Beginner Lightroom editing Mistake #2: Multiple Catalogues 

It is best practice to use one catalogue with multiple folders.

Temptation will be to have one cataloque for each style or genre of your photography, but this will just make it more difficult for you to manage your photos later!

By having one cataloque with multiple folders, you can organise your different shoots or styles in an easy to view drop down list.

If you use different catalogues, you wont be able to view all of your work at once, and will need to switch between cataloques and that gets tedious. 

Also when you back up your work, if you have everything in cataloque but multiple folders, you only need to back up the one catalogue.

Otherwise you need to remember to backup multiple catalogues and that can just get messy.

If you have already set things up in multiple catalogues, you can simply merge them together to make one.

Then add folders by selecting the file tab and then import from another catalogue

Beginner Lightroom editing Mistake #3: Backing up mistakes 

Mistake 3a. Not Backing Up

If you never back up, or fully save your catalogue (group of photos you’ve uploaded to Lightroom) somewhere, you might lose all of your hard work on these photos.

Files can get corrupted, hard-drives die; it happens!

Please back up your light room catalogues frequently so you don’t lose your hard work. 

Mistake 3b. Back up to the Wrong Location

One downside to light room is that by default it will put the catalogue back up in the same folder on your computer as the original catalogue.

If you are only backing up lightroom to your computer hardrive, this could leave you in trouble.

If something goes wrong with your computer there is no other location for these files and you could lose everything!

It’s best to back up to any cloud service, but also good to back up to an external hard drive.

When backing up in Lightroom you can choose the location to back up to. Choose a cloud drive or an external hard drive for the safest backup. 

Now you can edit in Lightroom without making these rookie mistakes!

Want more Lightroom tutorials? Check these out:

• The Ultimate Lightroom Tutorial For Beginners
• Portraits In Lightroom; Edit Along w/ Free Raw Files!
• Revealing Secret Lightroom Tricks PROs Use to FOOL You!

Which of these Lightroom editing tips will you use to avoid these mistakes?

Comment below!