UPDATE: Our Lightroom Presets are now available for YOU! CLICK HERE
“How do you guys edit your photos?” is probably the question we get asked the most lately. So instead of answering all your question, we thought we make a tutorial about it!
First things first: we always use Lightroom in our editing process. While apps like VSCO and Snapseed are a good way for quick edits and putting a filter over your photo, when you really want to get into more professional editing, you’ll definitely need Lightroom.
But how do you use Lightroom? How do you get that real Instagram look? You have made some amazing photos during your travels, but you don’t know where to begin with editing them? Or do you just simply want to up your editing game? Or you like our style so much, that you want to learn from us? You’ve come to the right place!
In this blog, we’ll tell you all about how we edit in Lightroom and how you can do it too!
You can find the Lightroom tutorial at the end of this blog, which we’ll think is extremely useful!
Why Lightroom?
As you might have noticed already, all the pros use Lightroom. It’s by far one of the most powerful tools to edit your photos. A few years ago I always edited my photos in Photoshop, thinking that Lightroom was way too complicated for me. But when I started trying out Lightroom 2 years ago I actually noticed that it was much easier to use than Photoshop! It is an all-in-one software in which you can not only edit your photos but also organize them. You also have the ability to custom create presets to create the intended effects you want. And the best part is that this all is easy to learn! So as you can imagine, I quickly began falling in love with Lightroom! Editing photos has become one of my favorite things to do nowadays. Using Lightroom has been life-changing for me and I can recommend it to everyone!
Buying Lightroom
You can buy Lightroom on the Adobe Lightroom website, and I recommend buying the Photography Plan which we are currently on as well. With this plan you get both Lightroom, Photoshop, and 20GB of cloud photo storage for only $9.99 a month.
Camera & Shooting Mode
Firstly, let’s look at our camera gear. A lot of people think you need an expensive, fancy camera to edit photos in Lightroom but that is absolutely not true! You can also edit from your smartphone or simple point-and-shoot camera. We personally use our Nikon D5200, which is actually already an older DSLR camera, but it still works really well. We mostly use this camera with our 18-105mm f3.5-f5.6 lens and also often with our 50mm f1.8 lens.
For shooting, I recommend to always shoot in RAW and not in JPG, because with RAW you’ll have much more option for editing. RAW files are bigger and hold more data, whereas with JPG the image is already compressed and therefore you have lost a lot of information.
Editing Style
Everyone sees things differently and shoots photos in a different way. This also means that everyone has a different editing style. So please keep in mind that while you will learn a lot from this tutorial as I walk you through the editing process step by step, you will have to play around with Lightroom yourself and find YOUR own editing style. I personally like to edit my photos this way, but that doesn’t mean you have to do the same things! Go and find your own unique style! Watch lots and lots of Youtube tutorials, keep trying in Lightroom and make many mistakes, because that’s where you learn the most from. That what I did as well and to be honest, I’m still learning every day! But I really love to share my current techniques with you all guys 🙂
This is the before and after look of the photo in this Lightroom Tutorial:
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We hope you really liked this tutorial and learned a lot about it. Go follow us on Instagram because that is where we post all of our photos and let us know in the comments what you think of the tutorial and if you would like us to start selling our own Lightroom presets!
Check out all our other Travel Photography tips here
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6 comments
I can’t seem to view this tutorial properly. It’s asking me to add extensions and taking me to some shady looking sites. Would love a little help! Thank you!
Hi Heather,
That is strange, maybe you don’t have the right software to watch the video? We have not heard this problem before! Normally you should be able to enter the password in the video so you can watch it. Let us know if this solved your problem?
I received the password for the training but don’t see where I can input it to receive the additional training. It just gives me the option to resign up for it.
Hi Kirsten,
You can fill in the password if you click on the video.
Let us know if you’re still having troubles!
Hi,
I haven’t received any email from you guys.. don’t know what could have possibly gone wrong ?
Thanks for your answer!
Martina
Hi Martina,
Have you checked your spam folder? Sometimes the email is treated as spam, unfortunately.
If you can’t find it, please let us know!