Saturday I attended an all day class intended to up my skill level in the photo editing software Lightroom. The first half of the day was spent learning about cataloging your inventory of photos within Lightroom.
Mama! Don’t you see this stupid stick right next to me?
Much of that went right over my head. I have a system to keep track of my photos, and though it isn’t perfect and would probably make little sense to anyone but me, I am not sure I’m ready to change.
Well, if you don’t look too close, that’s a little better mama. And I like the light!
After all, change is hard.
Cheerful little guy.
The second half of the day was spent in the development module, and was the reason I was there. Though I tried very hard to focus and listen while at the same time playing along on my laptop, some of it still escaped me.
Sitting in a spot of make believe sunshine.
But I learned a lot of the basics, and as I practice I’m sure I’ll get better.
Sunset at the park.
The photos in this blog were taken in the past week with the new Nikon Z6 camera. I’m posting the original, out of the camera image and then the adjusted, messed around with image.
A bit over the top.
Sometimes the changes are subtle, sometimes I’ve over adjusted just to see how far I could take it.
This little guy wanted a treat.
I still have so much to learn…but at least I have hope that I can learn, little by little, photo by photo I’m going to figure it out.
Still hungry.
And maybe I’ll reorganize all those thousands of photos I already have in my catalog.
Just remember who’s most beautiful around here mama.
Change Is Hard 
January 13, 2019 at 6:39 pm
Last summer I attempted to re organize and delete, it did help when I am looking for something, but I still have a long way to go! I love the cropped Titmouse. Playing with colors can be fun, but also does enhance without overdoing sometimes.
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January 14, 2019 at 7:17 pm
I really need to delete, even if I don’t go whole hog into the Lightroom organization system. It’s so hard to delete though, all my photos are like my children. Especially of Katie. I don’t think I’m alone in that feeling, there were several in my class who seemed to have a hard time with deleting too.
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January 13, 2019 at 7:22 pm
Seeing the difference in your photos was interesting. I did not realize how much you could do with Lightroom. I don’t have it. I just have some program within the computer. I cannot erase things on my photo, so Katie would not be pleased that the stick in front of her would have to stay if I’d taken the picture…..sorry, Katie.
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January 14, 2019 at 7:18 pm
There’s a whole lot more than I can figure out, but I did learn the basics, and will get better at it as I practice, especially the erasing. I liked my erasing ability better in Photoshop.
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January 13, 2019 at 7:59 pm
You have made nice changes to your photos. I have lightroom also, and struggle with it …good thing I can always revert to original. I have major work to do with my photos…mostly deleting some of my external drive. I need more hours in the day! I keep one folder on my desktop for Lightroom edit and one for lightroom done…and those folders have folder in them…ususally by subject or date. I keep all of my photos in a My Photos program and make copies to plop into the lightroom edit folder…then when I am done fussing with them I export them to the lightroom done folder.
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January 14, 2019 at 7:19 pm
There are ways to revert to original for each step you do, so you don’t have to start totally over. For example, if you crop first and like that, and then you try to lighten a corner of the photo and mess that up you can just revert to the original lighting without having to recrop. You double click on the title of each section that you use. I haven’t used this yet, except in class so I don’t remember exactly, but there’s definitely a way to just undo the last step you did.
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January 13, 2019 at 8:39 pm
I love how you’re always pushing yourself to learn and do more. Carry on!!!
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January 14, 2019 at 7:20 pm
I think if you’re not learning something new you’re getting old. You, on the other hand, seem to know how to do all sorts of stuff that I’d never considered, like changing carburetors and scuba diving and and and.
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January 13, 2019 at 9:21 pm
I have my own filing system, too, but it’s not incompatible with Lightroom… it’s just that I prefer to work in Finder when sorting and labeling and rearranging and deleting photos, which screws up Lightroom completely. I’m trying to get better at this… all those things can be done fairly easily in lightroom… but, as you say, change is hard. The tool makes it so easy to do so much and, no matter how much time I spend in LR or PS, I still keep realizing that I know next to nothing about them because there are SO many options. And then, deciding which edits to try and when to stop are very challenging for me. So, you’re on a good trajectory. Knowledge is power.
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January 14, 2019 at 7:22 pm
I don’t have any finding software…so I have to rely on my memory to remember where stuff should be. That might get dicey as I get older. I have never put key words in anywhere, and still, now that you mention it, have no idea where you do that. But I have a book that will probably tell me. Can’t imagine going back into the thousands of photos I already have stored and adding key words…but maybe.
Yes there are WAY TOO MANY options in Lightroom! And my hardest thing, just like painting, is knowing when to stop.
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January 14, 2019 at 8:38 am
Such beautiful photography Dawn. Thank you for sharing it with us.
A filing system for photos…what a novel idea. 😬. Oh how I need to learn that!
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January 14, 2019 at 7:23 pm
Ha ha…I know, right? Even with my (many) folders it’s still hard to find a specific photo. Still, way better than no system. Would make a good winter project for me to go through and delete a few thousand. Or hundred. Or maybe ten. I have issues with letting go. Obviously.
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January 14, 2019 at 11:05 am
I’m impressed! I think it keeps us on our toes when we challenge ourselves to learn and do something different. And once we tuck a little knowledge under our hats, we find we can improve by leaps and bounds. It’s like that with music, too. Hang in there, Dawn. I predict you’ll be a whiz with that Nikon before you know it!
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January 14, 2019 at 7:24 pm
I’m figuring it out…the more I take it out the more I figure out. And Lightroom, the parts I do remember from class, is getting better too.
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January 14, 2019 at 11:54 am
My son used Lightroom all the time and loves it – I got it, tried it, was more comfortable with Photoshop Elements, but now find I use none of them. Of course, I’m also only taking photos with my phone camera because I dropped my regular camera and it went on strike. I have photos organized on my desktop Mac from years gone by – but my Elements has stopped cooperating (too old I think), and I really need to get all those folders of photos, organized by year and/or topic uploaded into the cloud. But my old internet took forever, and my new has limits on data.
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January 14, 2019 at 7:25 pm
I kind of like using photos that aren’t edited, however they come out of the camera. My husband’s phone camera is actually really good, and he gets better (sometimes) photos than I do using my phone or the bigger camera. It’s hard to face such a big project as organizing what we already have. But I guess it might be fun to go back through them…and that would be an excuse to do that.
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January 14, 2019 at 12:23 pm
I’m no photographer. It would be beyond me, I use my phone as my camera. I like the adjusted chickadee photo.
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January 14, 2019 at 7:26 pm
Last time I was in DC I only took my phone and it was liberating not to drag a big camera around. You can get good stuff with a phone camera!
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January 14, 2019 at 3:50 pm
The only editing I know how to do is basics like cropping, brightness, and contrast on a basic app on my tablet. I’d like to learn more but my laptop has a crummy screen that would be terrible for editing. My tablet has a fantastic screen, but trying to do anything fancy on a touch screen isn’t in my skillset.
I like that you posted before and after photos. The edited chickadee looks great! Are you processing RAW images or JPEGs?
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January 14, 2019 at 7:27 pm
I had figured out some of the basics too, but not all of them. Definitely need a decent screen to do this. I would like to take RAW, but I tested by taking a few and something in my laptop isn’t up to speed and it couldn’t support RAW. Have been thinking about that, it’s probably something that could be fixed with some sort of update. Maybe. So for now I’m still in JPEG.
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January 14, 2019 at 8:07 pm
Beautiful!
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January 15, 2019 at 9:42 am
Thank you very much!
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January 15, 2019 at 10:30 am
I could never get the hang of Lightroom. I think I’ve used the iphoto editors on macs so long that it was like diverting from a native tongue. These look great!
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January 18, 2019 at 6:56 am
Thank you. I resisted Lightroom for years, preferring Photoshop. Then my laptop died and I couldn’t get Photoshop restored so was forced to learn Lightroom. Thank goodness for a class! I’d never figure this out on my own.
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