Five Lightroom Time-Saving Tips to Revolutionize Your Photo Editing Workflow

We always want more time, but where do we find it? Many of us could start by analyzing and adjusting our editing workflows. By doing so, we will see the time we are looking for. Here are five tips I’ve used to gain more time and allow me to shoot more.

Utilize Keyboard Shortcuts

It seems straightforward. Many photographers do not utilize keyboard shortcuts in their workflow. I know a few who use them so much that it seems that is the only way they edit! Utilizing the keyboard shortcuts are going to save a lot of time. You don’t have to find what you need in a menu; it is all in the press of a few keyboard keys. You can toggle through different modules, open preferences, and use them to flag photos for editing. There is an extensive list of available shortcuts, and you can find them here on Adobe’s website.      

Create and Use Presets

Presets are often looked down upon but can save you time! I am not talking about giving some random stranger $100 to download presets to use on your photos and call it a day. You more than likely are applying the same adjustments in Lightroom to your photos day in and day out when you make basic photo adjustments, add a +7 Contrast, -5 Highlights, +10 saturation. It takes time to add those individually. Create a preset in Lightroom, and these adjustments are made simultaneously versus individually with a click of the mouse. To save time, you can apply this preset while importing your files! You can even create a preset for your specific style. If you are one that still applies watermarks to your images, you can create a preset that applies the watermark on export to your images, saving you time and not having to add it manually! I helped a client set up several of these, as she used varying logo colors depending on the image.

Batch Editing

The first thing I thought of when I found this ages ago was, "Where have you been?" I use batch editing regularly, especially images from a commercial shoot for food and even landscape photos. I may add a bunch of adjustments to a photo, but I have several in the sequence, and I want to see these adjustments on the following fifteen images. I will not use all these photos, but I want to see the adjustments added to them, as it helps me narrow them down. Lightroom allows a batch edit; I can sync these settings across multiple images. I am saving time because I am not applying five adjustments fifteen times.

Customizing the Workspace

Did you know you can customize Lightroom’s develop panel? You sure can! On the right side of Lightroom are the histogram, basic, tone curve, color mixer, detail, and more panels. You may not be using them all in your workflow process. I do not use color grading or color mixing panels. Scrolling past these can be a real pain when I never use them. Why have them if you never use them? You can select and customize the develop panel by right-clicking on any panel. A window will appear with all the panels, each with a checkmark next to it. Uncheck the panels you don’t want, and presto! Those panels have now been removed from the development panel. Another great customization is that you can follow those same steps and rearrange your panels into the order of your workflow!

Use Lightroom’s AI-Powered Tools

Love it or hate it, AI is here to stay. We could learn to embrace it! AI is best kept in the editing workflow! Lightroom has released several features using AI: masking, people and object detection, and noise reduction, to name just a few! These do a fantastic job and speed up the workflow.

Masking: I love the masking feature as it saves significant time, so I am not manually masking areas with a brush (occasionally, it still needs to be done). It can automatically identify and select your photo's main subject, sky, or background.

People and Object Detection: If you're into shooting portraits, this will help in extraordinary ways! Lightroom can select parts of a person, such as eyes, lips, hair, and skin. This allows you to adjust those specific areas without having to mask these areas manually.

Noise Reduction: I am still a fan of Topaz Denoise AI, but Lightroom does a fantastic job, so you don't need to purchase another piece of software. I use Topaz Denoise AI as a plugin in Lightroom. AI was recently introduced to remove noise from images while retaining fine detail. It will also be helpful in low-light and high-noise images. On a few occasions, it does make the image look funky, so be aware and look over your images after applying the Denoise!

Content-Aware (Advanced Spot Removal): Adobe has made leaps and bounds in this area for Lightroom users. I once had to remove blemishes, distractions, or unwanted items in Photoshop. Going between two software programs is a pain and wastes a lot of time. Now, you can do all this in Lightroom, and it's successful roughly 90% of the time. There are still things that Photoshop does better, and Lightroom will likely never do.

There are many more tips we can explore to speed up your Lightroom workflow, and these are a few to get you started. If you're looking for more time to go out and shoot while sitting less frequently in front of another screen, take a look at your workflow as you edit and see if there are things you can make more efficient. That could be removing unused panels in the develop module so you are scrolling less, or you could even rearrange those panels for better access by adding them to the top. Find adjustments you regularly apply to your images and create presets that could be used. Make export presets to apply your watermarks on your images, reducing another manual process. All these and more can save you time, so take a look at analyzing every step in your process and find if there are ways to make these steps more automated and save you time!