New to Light Room

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
September 12, 2017
2 replies
357 views

I have used Picasa for years and thought I'd try LR. I am looking for a similar product that will download photos off my SLR and then I can edit and save them. I need to be able to downsize the photo to load on web sites or Facebook. I have tried all day to understand how this program works but so far just frustrated. Have I got the wrong program. Can't see any place to crop or downsize.

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Abambo

Community Expert

Hi,

You've found good advice with the 2 prior posts. Let me just say, that Julianne's blog on Lightroom is what you need to look at.

It is very important to understand the concept of Lightroom, which consists of 2 parts:

your images, that will never be modified. (non-destructive editing)
the Lightroom database where all your edits are stored. Those edits will be applied to (burned in) new files during the export part.

The concept is the same you had formerly (before the digital area) with your negatives. You took your negatives to the lab and got prints back with your untouched negatives.

For social media (Facebook, Flickr, ...) you have plug-ins to Lightroom that allow you to export directly to the site. That works nicely and you control the amount of metadata that gets transferred.

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

JP Hess

Inspiring

You cannot change the size of your master images that you import into Lightroom. In fact, Lightroom doesn't really change anything on those master images. Changes, adjustments, and everything you did to your images is stored in the Lightroom catalog. The image itself remains completely unchanged, in its original state. In order to have an image that is smaller and one that includes all of the changes and adjustments, including cropped to a smaller size, you must export a copy. Since you are new to Lightroom it might be a good idea for you to take the time to watch some tutorials. Here is a link to some good ones. If you want more just say so.

Lightroom Training Videos « Julieanne Kost's Blog

Laura Shoe

Inspiring

I totally understand being overwhelmed with Lightroom! Once you get to know it, you'll find that it's a great program. I agree with Jim - definitely watch some training videos right now so that you get off on the right foot, particularly since Lightroom's use of a catalog really can be confusing at first, and not understanding it can lead to some painful mistakes.

To answer your specific questions, in the Develop module (shortcut D), you'll find the crop tool under the histogram (in the top right):

After you finish cropping, click back on the crop tool icon to put the tool away.

To share files with the outside world, you'll export JPEG copies. The Export button is in the bottom left in the Library module (shortcut "G" for Grid). In the location section specify where on your computer you'd like to store the copy, then in the file settings section specify file type JPEG, color space sRGB, and for the sake of avoiding a long explanation, Quality=80. Then check Resize to Fit, and specify the size you want in pixels.

Alternatively, Lightroom has a great feature in the Library module for uploading photos directly to Facebook called "Publish Services". Here's a video from Julieanne Post on this.

You'll find lots of Lightroom tutorials on my website - here is a page that has some posts specifically for beginners. I also offer comprehensive training on video.

Best wishes with Lightroom and your photography!

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