As much as I love photography and Lightroom, I don’t want to spend endless hours editing there. I am a busy mom and my time is valuable. Today I want to share with you 4 secrets I have discovered for speeding up my photo editing workflow in Lightroom.
1. Pick your Favorites First!
The VERY FIRST thing I do after I shoot a session is come home and pick my favorites. For a typical family portrait or engagement session, I am looking for 25-40 favorite images (depending on the session) that I will show to my client. When I find a favorite I use a star rating or a flag to let Lightroom know it is a favorite! I spend about 15 minutes picking my favorites from a session.
2. Use Collections!
3. Use Pretty Presets and Brushes!
Pretty Presets Collections, Brushes, and Filters save me SO MUCH time in Lightroom. I have been a heavy Lightroom user since Lightoom 2 and I could probably go through all the panels and create a look similar to many of the presets in my presets panel. But WHY would I want to do that instead of a single click to activate a preset or to choose a brush from the brushes panel? I don’t. I use presets and brushes everyday and they save me lots of time editing!
4. Sync Edits As Much As Possible!
Because of lighting changes and situations I can’t just edit one photo, sync all the other photos to that one, and be done with an entire session. But typically I can edit one photo and sync 3-5 other similar photos to it. And that is 3-5 photos that I don’t have to spend the time editing. Sometimes I have to make small tweaks to the edits like moving a radial or graduated filter slightly. If I can do that several times while editing a session that is a huge time savings! (To Sync: Select multiple photos in the Develop Module. The one that is “most” selected (whitest) should be the edited photo. Click the “Sync” button at the bottom of the right-side panels.)
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