Lightroom is a great tool for organizing, editing and developing your images. I’ve already covered the basics of an Import workflow a few weeks ago, and now its time to look at the next logical step: the photo editing process.

First off, it must be reinforced that photo editing is a learned skill that takes years to develop. Going thru your photo shoots and picking out the ones that work is something that must be focused on, worked on and developed just like any other part of the photographic process. Good photographers are good editors, and there is no way around that. You can shoot some great images, but if they end up in the dustbin ignored, they are worthless. And for the noobs, photo editing isn’t the process of screwing up your images in Photoshop. That comes later.

The following is my personal editing process using Lightroom that works well for me and the types of shoots I do. I suspect it will work great for you as well, and luckily Lightroom is more than adept at providing additional tools if you need them.

So, now that you’ve Imported your files properly (and by following Import my tutorial you are ahead a few steps in the game vs. the noobs) its time to go thru them and look for the selects.

For many photographers, looking at a grid of a few thousand images is daunting. But for experience photographers who have honed their editing skills, this process can move quickly with the salient stuff quickly rising to the top.

So, as you look at that grid, there are several keyboard shortcuts you should know:

• P - Pick
• X- Reject
• U - Remove Flag
• L - Lights out
• N- Survey Mode
• G - Grid Mode
• [ and ] - Decrease/Increase Rating

There are menu equivalents, but editing is about speed, so learn them.

1. First off, double click the first image to open it in Loupe view. You’ll need to see the big preview to accurately make a judgement on the photograph.

Tip: I generally press the L key twice to get into Lights Out mode. This will dim the entire Lightroom interface with the exception of the preview and I find that this helps you to accurately judge the tonality and color of the image and removes any competing UI.

Editing in Lights Out Mode is Less Distracting, More Filling

2. Look at the image and evaluate first for the desired sharpness and exposure. Normally I’ll trash anything that does not meet my desires for the intended photograph. Make sure the subject you are interested has the focus treatment you want (usually sharp, without blur, but not always). If its an obvious misfire, out of focus, or poorly exposed, then reject it by pressing the X key.

Note: Lightroom 2 dims any rejected photos in the grid/filmstrip for added visibility - this is a nice addition.

3. Next is the really subjective part: evaluate it for composition and subject. This is really up to your tastes, likes and desires. Ask yourself: Does it tell the story you want? Does it focus on the right things. Do things in the periphery compete? The list of what makes a good or bad photograph is long and not really the intent of this tutorial. You know what you like, so quickly respond to the photograph based on your feelings and interpretation of the scene and make a call - press the P key if it has potential and move on. You should learn to make this judgement quickly and don’t be afraid to Pick more than the final set will contain, as you’ll make more than one pass.

Tip: Press the Caps Lock key to automatically advance to the next image when editing images with the flag keys. This is a real time saver. You pick something, it moves to the next, etc. Don’t forget its on though (the danger of Caps Lock UI).

Tip: Make a mistake and flag something Rejected or Picked in error? Press the U key to clear all flags.

4. If you have several similar images from a scene, which is very common, you can use the Survey mode to evaluate them quickly side by side. Select the desired images and press the N key. This will bring up an N-up display of the selected images with previews maximized to fit the available screen real estate. You can then evaluate the three and make your picks - remove any image from consideration by clicking on the little close box (X) that shows when you hover the cursor over the image. This removes it from the selection and then you can flag it using your P,X and U workflow.

The Survey Mode in Action

Tip: Using a big monitor? If not, you’re really impacting your efficiency. A 30” monitor isn’t that expensive and will save you boat loads of time. Any professional trying to work on a dinky monitor deserves to be shamed. Unless you have a penchant for scrolling and wasting time, get something big. Think of it like a big lens that shows you what you shot.

5. Step thru the entire sequence of images once, quickly making a judgement and moving on. If it strikes me as a potential, I pick it by pressing the P key. If it sucks, I reject it. Learn this skill and you’ll be able to go thru thousands of images quite quickly and get the best images ready for processing.

6. Now that you are done going thru all the images, press Command-Delete (Control-Delete on a PC) and this will ask if you want to delete all the rejected pictures. The goal is to reject only the images that are grossly out of whack with what you want and have no value.

Deleting Rejected Photos

I caution you: be careful when rejecting images and you’ll save space and remove clutter from your workflow while at the same time preserving an important historical photo trail for future generations. Well, if you know how to migrate and backup that is. You never know when you’ll go back thru images later and find some gems you missed the first time thru. This happens to everyone and can actually be a very cool thing, so respect the X.

Note: Lightroom gives you the option to move them to the trash or just remove them from the catalog. The first moves them to the trash, the second leaves them in the folder, but removes the thumbnail and metadata - they are dead to Lightroom. I move them to the trash 99.99 percent of the time.

7. Now that you’ve gone thru the image set, and found the first set of candidates, filter the view to show only the picks. This is done by pressing the “Show Flagged” button above the filmstrip. If you are in Lights Out mode, press L to show the UI again. The Show Flag button is the first diagonal flag next to the Filter: label.

The Filter Bar

8. Now you are looking at only the Picks. Don’t be discouraged if your pick to hit ratio is pretty lopsided. That is the way of it. A few good images per roll was spectacular in the film days and it should be lower if you shoot a bit more digitally. Now go thru them again. This time add a star for each one you think is really good by pressing the ] key. This will add a star to each image that really stands out.

9. Break time. Editing should never be done in one sitting. Just like writing, you need some space between editing sessions to make sure you are evaluating fairly. Don’t be discouraged. Extreme examples are photographers who would put shot rolls of film in a drawer or big garbage bag and wait years to even develop them so that he was completely divorced from the emotion of taking it. I’m not asking you to do that, but do give yourself some time.

10. Put some time between sessions? Good, now go thru again and do step 8 again. You can filter by Rating if you like (i.e. show only those with one star) by pressing the appropriate star button above the filmstrip (just like you did for flag). This time, add another star to the really, really good ones. You should be winnowing ruthlessly now. Ask yourself: is this the best picture I’ve ever taken? If you have any doubts, move on. You can do this step 2 or 3 times and you’ll get there.

Tip: Often I’ll add the final selects to an appropriately named Collection for easy access. No need to wade *ahem* thru all the stuff to find the gems. Collections are a must-use feature that I’ll be covering in the next few weeks.

11. When you’re happy, you’ll have a great subset of images ready to move into the Develop module. This way, you spend the quality time with just those images that deserve it.

Look at you, the editing pro. Go get ‘em!

Tags:Tutorial, Lightroom