I have a confession everyone: I once hated Lightroom.
Actually, “avoided” is probably a much more appropriate term. It was installed on my hard drive for probably a full year before I started using it. It was just too complicated. At the same time, it also didn’t allow me to make the really precise adjustments that Photoshop was providing for me.
I had to face the facts. I was going to have to learn Lightroom. I was a busy wedding photographer with thousands of images to manage every weekend during wedding season, plus doing the editing for plenty of other photogs. I was slowing down in delivering images and that was hurting my business. Adobe Lightroom was the solution to this. With it, I cut my editing times to a fraction of the time and got everything back on track.
I had to face the facts. I was going to have to learn Lightroom.
Managing thousands of photos required me to learn to love Lightroom.
I’ve known so many users who have taken one look at Lightroom and ran away. Sure, the program has a lot of different parts. It’s a lot to learn at first. The key to learning to love Lightroom is to resist being overwhelmed. Learn the parts that you need to learn.
A lot of users and Lightroom users that I coach are missing the forest for the trees. The purpose of Lightroom is to solve your digital workflow issues. You don’t have to use every part of the entire program in order to tame your photo library.
Photos disorganized and out of whack? Master the library module. Need the absolute best editing tools? Venture into the Develop module. Want to put together web galleries for clients? Visit the web module.
Don’t let the selection of modules overwhelm you. Learn and utilize one at a time.
Another reason that people will avoid Lightroom is that they don’t feel like it can replace Photoshop. As we’ve learned, the Develop module plus its Adjustment panel is plenty powerful for most users.
You have to jump in and commit to using Lightroom, to building and managing a catalog and learning the ins and outs. The learning curve might be a bit steep at first, but it flattens out to just using Lightroom logic in no time. I wouldn’t advocate using it so strongly if I hadn’t seen so many users have their workflow transformed.
Are you a longtime Lightroom user? Was it love at first sight or did it take time? Make sure and let me know what’s holding you back if you’re not jumping in.