Simple Lightroom Tweaks for AMAZING Photo Edits!

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Easy Lightroom Tips to Make Your Photos Stand Out

Learn these Easy Lightroom Editing Hacks

Lightroom is an amazing resource for photographers. If you didn’t know there are some easy Lightroom tips to make your photos even more amazing!

Whether it’s making a photo pop with that extra little something, or recapturing the magic of the moment seen with the naked eye but missed by the camera.

There is a lot to it though, and sometimes it can be a little overwhelming knowing what adjustments to make to enhance a photo without overdoing it.

In this helpful video tutorial, Teppo Haapoja walks through three of the most helpful Lightroom tips for simple but stand out photos.

https://youtu.be/KXX_gAi9VXA

Easy Lightroom Tips to Edit Stand Out Photos

Here are a few tips on how to use some of Lightroom’s tools to help you level up your photo’s by drawing attention to your subject.

Easy Lightroom Tips #1: Spot Removal Tool

You want the subject of your photo to stand out, especially for portrait or advertisement shots. The ability to prune unwanted detail can really come in handy.

That is where the Spot Removal tool comes in handy! It is great for cleaning up and pulling out unneeded details that clutter up the photo and draw focus away from the subject.

When using the spot removal tool, there are 2 approaches you can use. Clone, and Heal. They both do a similar thing but approach it from a different angle.

Heal generally blends better so it’s a good one to start with, especially if you are removing detail or covering something up. Sometimes though the ability to copy-paste a detail is just what you need, and that’s where Clone is great.

Simply select an area you want to remove or cover up, and then select the area you want to cover it with and it then blends over the unwanted area for a smooth removal.

The general rule of thumb here is small details that stand out to your eye and pull your attention away from your subject, consider using the Spot Removal tool.

How

Easy Lightroom Tips #2: Radial Gradient Filter

The next tip is to use the Radial Gradient filter to highlight the subject by darkening the surrounding with a nice vignette.

A vignette is a darkened border around the outside edge of a photo that draws greater focus to a center point.

By positioning the radial over the subject and then selecting the Invert option you can create a highlighting effect over the subject by setting the area around it to a gradual shading towards the edges.

Make sure to set the Feathering slider somewhere in the middle to start with to make sure the gradient isn’t too extreme.

From there to add a more noticeable contrast you can try to slightly lower the exposure slider on the Gradient Filer overlay, and then slightly raise the exposure slider on the photo as a whole.

Easy Lightroom Tips #3: Masking Brush Tool

The last tip is to use the Brush tool!

The goal here is to treat the brush like an accent to apply to specific areas of the photo you want to pop and draw focus towards.

Apply a little bit of Clarity, Texture and Exposure to the brush by adjusting their sliders slightly to the right. 25 – 30 is a good starting place for Clarity and Texture and .30 a good starting place for Exposure.

From there simply adjust the size of the brush you need and then rub it over the spots you want to highlight. Again the goal here is to use this as an accent – less is more.

When editing photos it’s always a fine line between helping them pop, and making them lose authenticity and look artificial. Bringing clarity and focus to your subjects will help you have more compelling photographs.