Photography Explained Podcast Episode 86 - Do You Want To Know How I Edit My Travel Photos In Lightroom?
Do You Want To Know How I Edit My Travel Photos In Lightroom? Hi and welcome to Episode 86 of the Photography Explained podcast.
I’m your host Rick, and in each episode I will try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English in less than 10 minutes (ish) without the irrelevant details. What I tell you is based on my lifetime of photographic experience. And not Google.
Before I go on if you have a question you would like me to answer just go to photographyexplainedpodcast.com/start
Here is the answery bit
There are two stages of editing photos. The first stage is to choose the photos to edit. I choose the best of the best only. And then I process them in Lightroom with the freedom to create stand out, bright, vibrant, and different travel photos that I hope make the viewer want to be there. Travel photography is all about making the photos of interest to someone who has not been there, and to make them curious about a location.
OK – this episode was meant to be “Help! How Do I Choose Which Travel Photos To Edit?” but when I came to write it I realised that the title was rubbish, so I will cover this very quickly here and get on to the main subject.
I feel better now, especially as I am writing this on the day of publishing so have to get this written, recorded and out there!!
So, how do I choose which travel photos to edit?
Here are some thoughts.
You need to decide what you are going to do with the photos. Are they to share with fellow holidaymakers, or with friends and family?
- Are they simply to share on social media?
- Or do you have a specific plan for them?
- And how much time are you prepared to invest in editing?
These considerations will help you but take these three thoughts with you.
- Do not process every image – spend time on the best of the best only
- Choose photos that are interesting
- Choose photos that make someone want to be there.
And this is how I actually do this.
I go through the photos one by one in Lightroom. If I like the look of a photo I hit the letter P for Pick). I literally quickly pick anything that has potential.
I add the photos to a collection, which I sync with Lightroom Mobile.
And then I go through the photos at my leisure, lying on the sofa with a beer, glass of wine, whatever, and take my time.
I go through the photos over and over until I get down to a small number of images that I want to edit. This is rarely more than 20 images. I filter by picks, and every time I remove a pick flag the photo disappears from view.
And I have a number of different uses.
On my Photos of Santorini website I wrote 30 blog posts about how I created the images, which is a great place to go after listening to this – photosofsantorini.com. I spent a good amount of time editing these photos.
But for my Paxos Travel Guide website I am after more informal photos showing a place as a visitor would. I have ended up using lots of unedited photos and videos taken with my iPhone, with a single page of photos taken with a camera and processed in Lightroom. The address of this excellent website by the way is paxostravelguide.com.
And on my main website there are a few travel photos but not that many – that is my Rick McEvoy Photography website. There are a few blog posts about travel on there, along with my travel photography portfolio, but it is mainly about photographing buildings. Sorry, this is rickmcevoyphotography.com.
This was not meant to be an ad but is relevant to what I am talking about.
That’s choosing the images done - now how I process my photos in Lightroom.
And this is how I do it. I am not saying that this is right or wrong, but this works for me. This is what I do.
Import presets
I have already done some processing which I described in the last episode. So that gives me a great start.
My first job is to crop the first image, and also make sure it is level and vertical, using the transform panel. I flick flack between these until I have the basis of an image that I am happy to work with.
I do this first so I am working on the composition I like – I see no point in doing this at the end.
Next – The Basic panel.
I love the Basic panel. And it is far from basic.
I work through all the sliders, going from top to bottom, just sliding away to my heart’s content. This is play time to me, and I love doing this with travel photos.
But try the Auto button which is surprisingly good.
I go back and forth between the sliders tweaking away until I have something that I like.
Most of the work I do is in the basic panel in Lightroom.
Non-destructive editing
Anything that you do in Lightroom can be reversed. Even after you have exported photos out of Lightroom you still have the file sat there.
So slide away and enjoy yourself.
I do not use the saturation slider at all though, as it is far too clunky for my liking.
Tone Curve panel
I sometimes use this – it is fine tuning the highlights, lights, darks, and shadows. But most of the time I don’t bother to be honest.
HSL panel
I love this panel, which I use to enhance individual colours and tones in colours.
These are all global adjustments applied to the whole of image.
And now for a couple of selective edits.
Radial filter
I love the radial filter, which I use to highlight part of an image.
Dodge and burn
Terms from back in the darkroom days. Dodge lightens, burn darkens. These are applied using the brush tool at the top of the basic panel (top right – the long line with the circle on the left hand end) – I know it does not look like a brush.
What about Photoshop?
I use Photoshop to remove stuff if I need to. If I do not need to use Photoshop then I am happy, as it is too complicated for my liking.
If you are struggling to get your head around Photoshop like I did you might just want to give up and stick in Lightroom with me.
I use the spot removal tool and the clone stamp tool to get rid of stuff.
What about layers?
What about layers? I do not get them, and I do not use them. Yes really.
And that is it
Yes – this is all I do, which is not much is it?
I do not spend a long time processing my photos. Well for a start I have been using Lightroom since version 1 was released in 2007, so you would hope that I was quick at this.
And I have refined my workflow to get images edited and out as quickly as possible.
But to be honest there are things that I want to do rather than faff around editing photos.
The what do I do section?
I have already told you that.
The talky bit
I just want to say this – I probably spend more time choosing the photos to edit than I do editing the photos.
It is the content that is important and not the processing.
I do the minimum work I can in Lightroom to enhance what I have captured – this is how I approach my image editing.
And I only use Photoshop to remove bad stuff.
One line summary
Carefully choose the photos you want to edit, and then edit them. Don’t spend forever editing your photos, get to the end point and move on.
What’s next?
Photography Explained Podcast Episode 87 – Travel Photography - All Done - And Now For Something Completely Different!
This is a sort of transitional episode where I tell you what is coming up, and tell you of other news that I have.
How exciting!
Shout out
This episode shout out is to Mark from somewhere near Cambridge who is sunning himself in Paxos. Well jealous Mark….
I’m done
Thanks for listening to my small but perfectly formed podcast. To find out more about my podcast and do stuff to help me check out Photographyexplainedpodcast.com/start.
Brought to you by
This episode was brought to by water as I get back into a healthier lifestyle…. That will last yeah right!
I’ve been Rick McEvoy, thanks again very much for listening to me and for giving me 13 ¾ (ish) minutes of your valuable time, and I will see you on the next episode.
Cheers from me Rick