Advanced Editing & Processing
Transforming RAW Files into Polished Images
Course Overview
Session Overview
Student Review: Metering Portfolio
Reviewing exposure control from last week's assignment
Non-Destructive Editing Workflow
Building a professional editing foundation
Advanced RAW Processing
Maximizing image quality from RAW files
Selective Adjustments & Masking
Precision edits with layer masking techniques
Retouching & Healing Tools
Professional cleanup and enhancement
Practical Task & Homework
Advanced processing challenge
Student Review
Analyzing the Week 7 Metering Portfolio. We will focus on the 'Three-Tone Test' and how you managed extreme exposures.
Exposure Accuracy
Did the camera successfully reach 18% gray for each tone? How did you compensate to maintain the original color?
Spot Metering Precision
Was the spot meter placed accurately on the target tone? Look for consistency across the three images.
Histogram Analysis
Examine the distribution of tones. Are the highlights clipped or the shadows crushed unnecessarily?
Focal Length & Distortion
The 85mm Standard
85mm gives a natural facial perspective; avoid very wide angles for close portraits.
Wide-Angle View
Wide lenses capture more scene but may introduce edge distortion—compose carefully.
Telephoto Reach
Use 200mm+ to keep distance; longer glass helps isolate subjects without distortion.
Standard Categories
Key Effects
APS-C vs.
Full Frame
Most cameras feature either an APS-C or Full Frame sensor. Focal lengths on your lens relate to a Full Frame equivalent, creating a "Crop Factor" on smaller sensors.
The Math of
Perspective
Focal Length Effect: APS-C vs. Full Frame
Narrower Field of View
On an APS-C sensor, a 50mm lens behaves like a 75mm lens on Full Frame. The crop factor magnifies the subject, so the lens captures only the area within the equivalent crop box.
Full Field of View
On a Full Frame sensor, a 50mm lens captures the true 50mm perspective. This is the baseline for all focal length equivalents.
Sensor Size Comparison for 24mm
Focal Length Practical Guide
Expansive landscapes, environmental portraits, dramatic perspectives.
General landscapes, street photography, architectural work.
Portraits, everyday photography, natural perspective.
Compressed backgrounds, portrait isolation, sports.
Wildlife, distant subjects, extreme compression.
Introduction to Lightroom Classic
2.5–3 hours (with a 10-minute break mid-session)
Adobe Lightroom Classic
Laptop with Lightroom Classic installed, memory card or folder of RAW files (min. 20 images)
What Lightroom Classic Is (and Isn't)
They are different products. Classic is the desktop, catalogue-based professional tool.
This is not where your photos live. The catalogue is a database that records where your photos are on your hard drive and every edit you've ever made. If you move files in Windows Explorer or Mac Finder, Lightroom loses them. Always move files inside Lightroom.
Lightroom never touches your original RAW file. Every edit is a set of instructions stored in the catalogue. You can always undo everything, forever.
Library, Develop, Map, Book, Slideshow, Print, Web. Tonight we'll use Library and Develop.
Lightroom is a filing cabinet and editing instruction set. Your photos stay where they are on disk. The catalogue is the brain.
Downloading and Organising Images
Always the starting point. Never drag photos in from Finder/Explorer.
Copy moves files to a new location (for cards). Add tells Lightroom where existing files already are.
Rename on import using a date + descriptive template, e.g. 2026-07-04-Workshop-001.
Build a logical folder structure: Year → Month → Shoot Name.
Add copyright metadata and a keyword set on the way in.
Folders reflect disk location. Collections are virtual groupings — a photo can be in many Collections but only one Folder.
Import the memory card or provided image folder. Set a file naming template, choose a folder destination, and add your name as copyright. Create a Collection called Tonight's Edit and add your best ten images to it.
Metadata, Ratings and Filter Options
What the camera recorded: shutter speed, aperture, ISO, lens, date/time. Find it in the Metadata panel.
Keyboard shortcuts 1 through 5. Use ratings as a culling system, not just decoration.
Pick (P), Reject (X), Unflagged. The fastest culling workflow: flag Picks and Rejects, then filter to show only Picks.
Useful for workflow status — red = needs work, green = done, yellow = client review.
Filter by flag, rating, colour, metadata, or text. Find every image shot at ISO 3200, or every image with a specific keyword.
Automatically populated based on rules you set — e.g. all five-star images, all images not yet exported.
Go through the imported set. Flag Picks and Rejects using keyboard shortcuts. Add star ratings to your top five. Filter to show only Picks. Create a Smart Collection showing all images rated 3 stars or above.
Backing Up Images in Lightroom
Backs up the database of your edits only — not the photos. Set in Edit → Catalogue Settings → Backup. Set to Every time Lightroom exits.
Your actual RAW files. Lightroom does not do this automatically. Use an external drive, Time Machine, or cloud storage.
Three copies, on two different media, one stored offsite or in the cloud. The card in your camera is not a backup.
The catalogue backup should not live on the same drive as the catalogue itself.
How to reconnect lost files, why it happens, and how folder discipline prevents it.
If your hard drive dies tonight, you lose everything Lightroom isn't backing up. Set both backups before you leave.
Basic Edits: Exposure and Colour
Temp and Tint sliders; eyedropper on a neutral grey.
Overall brightness.
Recover blown highlights, lift blocked shadows.
Set true tonal endpoints. Hold Alt/Option while dragging to see clipping.
Mid-contrast and local detail controls.
Vibrance protects skin tones; Saturation affects everything equally.
Press J to toggle clipping warnings — red = blown highlights, blue = blocked shadows.
Brief introduction: point curve vs parametric, the S-curve.
Every adjustment is recorded as a step. Click any step to return to that exact state.
Press the backslash key \ to toggle. Use it constantly to check whether you're improving or just changing things.
Edit one image, select multiple in the Filmstrip, hit Sync. Choose which settings to copy across the batch.
Edit three images. For each: correct white balance, set exposure, recover highlights or lift shadows, adjust Vibrance. Use Before/After to assess. Once satisfied with one, Sync settings to the other two and adjust individually.
Cropping and Straightening
R key shortcut.
Original ratio, standard print ratios (4×5, 4×6, 5×7, 16×9), or freeform.
Draw a line along the horizon. Lightroom rotates automatically. Use the Angle slider for fine-tuning.
Cycle through Rule of Thirds, Golden Ratio, Diagonal etc. while in crop view.
The original image is always recoverable — drag handles back out or click Reset.
Crop and straighten two images. Apply a 4×5 aspect ratio to one for a portrait print format. Use the Straighten tool to correct a wonky horizon on the other.
Spot Removal and Healing
Q key shortcut.
Heal blends with surrounding texture — use this for almost everything. Clone copies exactly.
Lightroom finds the best source patch automatically.
An overlay that reveals dust spots on plain backgrounds such as sky and walls.
All removals are recorded in the History panel and can be deleted individually.
Find a landscape or portrait. Remove at least two distractions — a dust spot, a background element, or a blemish. On a sky image, use Visualise Spots mode to find and remove sensor dust.
Masking
AI detects the main subject instantly.
AI detects the sky, even through complex treelines.
Everything that is not the subject.
Manual painting for areas the AI does not handle.
Shift+W or the toolbar icon. Press O to see the mask overlay.
Combine AI selections with manual brush to refine edges.
Restrict a mask to where two selections overlap — e.g. bright areas within the subject only.
Select shadows, midtones or highlights within another mask.
Linear gradient for skies; oval shape for spotlight effects and off-centre subjects.
On a landscape: use Sky mask to pull back highlights and boost blues. Use Subject to lift exposure on the foreground. Refine one mask edge with the Brush. On a portrait: use Subject to add clarity to the face, then a Radial filter to darken the edges around the subject.
Exporting Images
JPEG for web/client delivery (quality 80–90). TIFF for print and Photoshop work.
2000px on the long edge for web; full size at 300ppi for print.
Screen for web, Print or Matte for paper — let Lightroom handle this.
Strip location data for web use; include copyright.
Add a text or graphic watermark; control size and position.
Save settings as a one-click preset — e.g. Web JPEG 2000px and Full TIFF for Print.
Create two Export Presets: Web JPEG (2000px long edge, quality 80, strip location data) and Full TIFF for Print (full size, 300ppi, all metadata). Export your three edited images using both presets.
Going Further: What's Next
Right-click any image → Create Virtual Copy. Edit it differently without affecting the original — one image, multiple creative interpretations.
Browse the Presets panel in Develop. Hover to preview on your image. Build your own over time from edits you've made.
HSL Colour panel, Colour Grading for cinematic looks, Point Curve, the Calibration panel.
- —Import an entire shoot of at least 50 images.
- —Cull to your best ten using flags and star ratings.
- —Edit all ten images in Develop.
- —Export a web-ready JPEG set using your preset.
- —Submit the exported folder plus a screenshot of your History panel on one edit — showing the non-destructive workflow in action.