How to Retouch & Improve Photos in Lightroom

Making local adjustments in Lightroom can help rescue details and remove distractions. From skin retouching to adjusting exposure, we’ll cover all the bases and show you how to do so while only affecting a specific part of your image. Follow along with the included RAW Photos.

Local vs. Global Editing
Global edits are adjustments that will affect an image as a whole. Local editing involves making isolated adjustments to any portion of an image. Sometimes you’ll just want to make changes to your subject, or just to the background, or just to a portion of either. Understanding the importance of both local and global editing will give you the ability to have complete control over your final picture, pixel-to-pixel.

Quickly Solve Problems
Photo editing is problem solving. What do you do if your background is properly exposed but your subject’s face is a little too dark? Or there are some small distractions threatening to draw the viewer’s attention? We’ll show you some quick and effective methods for solving these problems and more using the local editing tools in Lightroom.

Make Improvements, Instantly
Since everything is built into Lightroom, the editing process fits seamlessly into our workflow. Edits can be done quickly and with a professional finish.

Edit Nondestructively
Dial in the look you want without ever having to worry about losing your original image. Lightroom allows you to reset any setting at any time or you can start from scratch if you decide to go in a different direction.

Easy Spot Removal
Quickly and easily help people and environments look their best using the built-in Spot Removal tool in Lightroom. Remove blemishes and distractions in an instant with clean, professional-looking results.

Adjustment Brush
When the Graduated and Radial Filters can’t get the job done, the Adjustment Brush is to the rescue. Using this tool, you can paint over any areas of an image that you wan’t to be affected by your edits.

Graduated & Radial Filters
The Graduated and Radial Filter tools in Lightroom allow you to make highly-customizable, powerful masks to a select portion of an image. These can tackle a surprising number of editing challenges, from faces to landscapes.

The Perfect Composition
From the Rule of Thirds to the Golden Ratio, Lightroom has the tools that allow you to find the perfect composition for your image.