Select NEF or JPEG To Edit

I've provided a tutorial on the Adobe Help website with step-by-step instructions on using the LR Basic panel controls. This should help you ramp up quickly on editing your raw files.

Tone Control Adjustment Procedure

More tutorials here:

Lightroom tutorials | Learn how to use Adobe Lightroom

There is no big mystery about editing raw images. Just start doing it! It's the same process, you just have a few extra options and a lot more flexibility. There is nothing to be afraid of, in my opinion.

STLnikon  wrote I shot a group of photos. Some I did RAW+JPEG, the others were JPEG. I imported them into Lightroom. I do get NEF+JPEG for the photo "pairs" and only JPG for the single shots n the Grid view. All well and good. But if I select a photo to edit (Lightroom or Photoshop) it defaults to the NEF file. Is there a way to change the default to JPG? My main import objective is the NEF and JPEG file pairs to have the same name. I primarily work with JPEG but plan to ease into NEF file edition. Thanks

Not really in LR. If you open PS and then navigate to the folder where you imported the RAW + JPG files you will see the corresponding JPGs and you can open them in PS.

LR actually imports the JPG files and records them in the LR database file (The Catalog File) then hides it from the users view.

There is no way to Reimport them as separate files unless you first remove the RAW files from the LR catalog and set the option as noted below and then reimport both RAW & JPG.

To stop that you need to set the option to Treat JPG files next to RAW files as separate files. Then when importing images that were taken as RAW + JPG on your camera the JPG will show as a separate image in LR.

BUT why would you want to edit the JPG when you have the same shot as a RAW file?

The fact that you are capturing the NEF raw file tells me that you already understand the benefit of raw captures, and thus I suggest taking the extra time now to build a raw file workflow. In the end, you'll have a higher quality product.

Please post any questions as there are many knowledgable people here that can offer support.

best!

The absolute one and only reason for the existence of a NEF file is that it is an ideal platform for editing. In fact, without editing it is worthless. The primary reason for the existence of a jpg file is that its small size makes for economical storage and fast and convenient transferal to another location. The reduced size is obtained by the discarding, during the in-camera editing, of most of the data captured by the camera and compression of what is left. For this reason it is a poor platform for further editing. Don't delay learning how to edit Raw (NEF).

Only way to edit the jpeg is to initially import them separately. This is done by a preference in the preferences pane to "treat JPEG files next to raw as separate". If you import them as raw+jpeg, the jpeg is just used as a sidecar file and the jpeg image is not used anywhere in Lightroom Classic. It is possible to separate them after the fact but it is not trivial.