As I mentioned earlier, the biggest mistake amateur photographers make when editing their photos is trying to make them look too professional. The truth is, the more you try to make your photos look like they were taken with a professional camera, the more they’ll look fake. Professional photos are not retouched or enhanced in any way. They simply capture whatever the camera sees in the moment. If it’s not the way you want your photos to look, then you have to learn how to take better photos.
Use the Library Preset Panel.
If you’ve only used the stock images that come with your camera, it’s a challenge to make your photos look great. Professional images are taken with a quality camera and edited in post production. There are a few ways to edit your photos in Lightroom, but the easiest way is to use the Library Preset Panel.
Add keywords.
The next thing you should do is add keywords to your photos. For example, if you snapped a photo of a business, add the name of the business to the keyword list. This will help you find that photo faster in the future when you need it. You can add keywords to the details of your photos as well. For example, if you snapped a photo of a person, add the person’s name to the keyword list. This will make it easier to find photos of the same person in the future.
Create collections.
The first thing you need to do is create a smart collection in your library. A smart collection automatically groups your photos together based on the photo metadata. You can add keywords, star photos, view and edit the collection, and share it with other users.
Use the Library Grid view.
You can make your photos look professional in Lightroom by using the Grid view. Grid view is a layout that shows all of your photos as thumbnails, making it easier to find photos you want to edit. You can also sort your photos on the Grid view by keyword, star rating, import date, and more. Plus, you can refine your view by setting collections to show only photos that match a certain keyword or star rating.
Use Collections for organization.
If you want to make your photos look professional, one of the best things you can do is to use the Collections feature in Lightroom. Collections are a way to organize your photos and highlight specific photos within them. You can create as many collections as you want and add photos to them. When you export your photos, you can choose which collections you want to include. You can even add keywords, captions, and ratings.
Hide or change the Library Preset Panel.
One of the best ways you can show off your images is by editing them in the Library Preset Panel. The Library Preset Panel includes a bunch of different settings to quickly change the appearance of your photos, from color balance to sharpening.
Use the Library Slideshow.
When you import images in Lightroom, by default, they are tagged with the date and time they were taken. You can change the date and time, but you can also change the date and time of the displayed date and time. To do this, go to the Develop module and click the Edit Metadata button. When the Metadata panel opens, you can change the date and time under General.
Conclusion
The next thing you’ll want to do is make sure that you’ve got your settings properly adjusted so that your photos will look good when they’re exported. The exposure, color, sharpness, and contrast are the most important settings to pay attention to. If you don’t have a neutral background, make sure you have your color settings adjusted so that your background isn’t showing up as white or black. You should also make sure that your contrast is set to a high enough value to bring out the best in your images.
