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Edit photos

Last updated on Oct 26, 2021 08:02:03 PM GMT

Learn how to edit photos using different controls and presets in Lightroom (desktop).

You can access the Edit controls in Detail view. In the Edit panel, the edit controls are organized under various panels that you can expand/collapse to access those controls─Profile, Light, Color, Effects, Detail, Optics, and Geometry. To help you visually understand the effect that each of these controls produces in your photo, this article provides accompanying animations and visuals to illustrate the concepts.

Note:

Working with Lightroom on your mobile devices? See Edit photos in Lightroom for mobile (iOS) and Edit photos in Lightroom for mobile (Android).

To begin editing a photo using any of the Edit controls, do the following:

Click () icon on the left to bring up My Photos panel.

In My Photos panel, choose the album that contains the photo that you want to edit.

If you're in Photo Grid () view or Square Grid () view, select the photo that you want to edit. Now, click () icon in the toolbar at the bottom to switch to Detail view.

If you're already in Detail () view, select the photo that you want to edit from the filmstrip appearing at the bottom of your current selection.

Note:

The Edit controls are only available in Detail view.

To bring up the Edit panel in Detail view, click () icon at the upper-right corner.

You can now expand/collapse the panels to access edit controls organized under─Profile, Light, Color, Effects, Detail, Optics, and Geometry. These edit controls are explained in detail below.

Shadow and Highlight clipping indicators

You can view Highlight and Shadow clipping indicators in the upper corners of the histogram to check areas in your photo that are either too light or dark, respectively, as you make edits.

To view highlight and shadow clipping in your photo, follow these steps:

In the Detail () view, select a photo that you want to edit. Click () icon at the upper-right corner to view the Edit panel.

In the Edit panel, click the three-dot menu icon and select Show Histogram.

In the Histogram:

Shadow Clipping Indicator — The shadow clipping indicator.

Highlight Clipping Indicator — The highlight clipping indicator.

If the upper-left clipping indicator is illuminated (the triangle in the clipping indicator is white), it implies that shadows are clipped in your photo. Click the illuminated indicator to view the shadows in your photo. The shadows are displayed as a blue overlay mask.
If the upper-right clipping indicator is illuminated (the triangle in the clipping indicator is white), it implies that highlights are clipped in your photo. Click the illuminated indicator to view the highlights in your photo. The highlights are displayed as a red overlay mask.

Shadow clipped areas in a photo — A blue overlay mask indicates areas in the photo where shadows are clipped.

Highlight clipped areas in a photo — A red overlay mask indicates areas in the photo where highlights are clipped.

Re-click the upper-left or upper-right illuminated clipping indicator to hide the respective clipping in the photo.

Note:

Alternatively, you can press the J key to show or hide the shadow and highlight clipping in the photo.
Right-click (Windows)/Cmd-click (macOS) the Histogram and deselect Show Clipping in Histogram to hide the Histogram clipping indicators.

Profile

Note:

Presets and Profiles (including third-party, custom user presets and profiles) sync automatically across Lightroom desktop and mobile. However, the custom user presets and profiles do not sync with Lightroom Classic desktop.

Profiles allow you to control how colors and tonality are rendered in your photos. The profiles provided in the Profile panel are intended to serve as a starting point or foundation for making image edits.

Applying a profile on your photo doesn't change or overwrite the value of other edit control sliders. Therefore, you can make edits to your photos as you like and then choose to apply a profile on top of your edited image.

Browse and apply profiles

To browse and apply profiles, do the following:

If you're in Photo Grid () view or Square Grid () view, select a photo that you want to edit. Now, click () icon in the toolbar at the bottom to switch to Detail view.

If you're already in Detail () view, select a photo that you want to edit from the filmstrip appearing at the bottom of your current selection.

Click () icon at the upper-right corner to bring up the Edit panel.

In the Profile panel at the top, use the Profile pop-up menu to quickly access Adobe Raw profiles. To view other available profiles, click Browse.

Browse profiles in the Profile panel.

Profile groups for a raw photo.

Note:

When you import photos, Adobe Color and Adobe Monochrome profiles are applied by default to color and black-and-white photos respectively.

Expand any of the profile groups (explained below) to view the profiles available in that group.

Note:

While browsing the profiles in the Profile panel, click the three-dot menu to access the viewing and filtering options. You can choose to view the profiles as a List, as Grid thumbnails, or Large thumbnails. You can also filter the profiles to be displayed by 'type' - Color or B&W.

Favorites:

Displays profiles that you've marked as favorite. See Add a profile to Favorites.

Creative profiles for raw and non-raw photos

Creative profiles work on any file type including raw photos, JPEGs, and TIFFs. These profiles are designed to create a certain style or effect in your photo.

Artistic: Use these profiles if you want the color rendering in your photo to be more edgy, with stronger color shifts.

B&W: Use these profiles to get optimal tone shifts required for black and white work.

Modern: Use these profiles to create unique effects that fit in with the modern photography styles.

Vintage: Use these profiles to replicate the effects of vintage photos.

Profiles for raw photos

The following profile groups appear when you are editing a raw photo.

Adobe Raw: Adobe Raw profiles significantly improve color rendering and provide a good starting point for editing your raw images. Adobe Color profile─which is designed to provide a good color/tone balance for any image─is applied by default to the raw photos that you import in Lightroom.

Camera Matching: Displays profiles based on the camera make/model of your raw photo. Use Camera Matching profiles if you prefer the color rendering in your raw files to match what you see on your camera’s display screen.

Legacy: Displays legacy profiles that were also provided in the earlier versions of the Lightroom app.

Note:

When you apply any of the Artistic, B&W, Modern, and Vintage profiles, Lightroom provides an additional Amount slider that allows to control profile intensity.

Move the pointer over any profile to preview its effect in your photo. Click the profile to apply it to your photo.

Add a profile to Favorites

To add a profile to the Favorites profile group:

When browsing the profiles in the Grid or Large view, hover on the profile thumbnail and click the star icon that appears at the upper-right corner of the thumbnail.
When browsing the profiles in the list view, hover on the profile and click the star icon that appears next to the profile's name.

Import profiles

You can import third-party camera profiles in XMP format. Do the following:

In the Profile panel, click Browse.

Click the three-dot icon at the upper-right corner of the Profile panel. Then, select Import Profiles option from the pop-up menu.

In the Import Profiles dialog that appears, browse to the required path and select one or more XMP profiles.

Click Import.

Manage profiles

Lightroom allows you to show or hide various profile groups that are displayed in the Profile browser - Adobe Raw, Camera Matching, Legacy, Artistic, B&W, Modern, Vintage, or any other profiles that you've imported.

To show/hide profile groups in Lightroom, follow the steps below:

Note:

Your settings to show/hide profile groups is specific to each computer or device. For example, you can hide some profile groups in Lightroom desktop but they will still be visible in Lightroom on your mobile device and vice versa.

Click () icon at the upper-right corner to bring up the Edit panel.

In the Profile panel at the top, click Browse.

Click the three-dot icon at the upper-right corner of the Profile panel. Then, select Manage Profiles option from the pop-up menu.

Under Manage, select the profile groups that you want to show in the Profile browser. Deselect the profile groups that you want to hide from the Profile browser.

Click Back to navigate back to the Profile browser.

Profile browser now displays only those profile groups which you've selected using the Manage Profiles option.

Light

Adjust the tonal range of your image.

Using the slider controls provided in the Light panel, you can adjust the overall tonal range of your image.

Exposure	Contrast	Highlights

Note:

In the Light panel, click the AUTO button to have Lightroom automatically apply the best edits for these slider controls in your photos: Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks, Saturation, and Vibrance.

Exposure:

Controls the brightness of your photo. Move the slider to the left to make the image darker; move it to the right to make the image brighter.

Contrast:

Determines the contrast between light and dark colors. Move the slider to the left to flatten the contrast; move it to the right to make the contrast more dramatic.

Highlights:

Controls the brightness of the lighter parts of your photo. Move the slider to the left to darken highlights to recover details; move it to the right to brighten them and reduce details.

Shadows	Whites	Blacks

Shadows:

Controls the brightness of the lighter parts of your photo. Move the slider to the left to deepen shadows; move it to the right to brighten them and recover details.

Whites:

Sets the white point of the image. Move the slider to the right to make more colors appear completely white.

Blacks:

Sets the black point of the image. Move the slider to the left to make more colors appear completely black.

Fine-tune the tonal scale using the Tone Curve

Note:

In Lightroom CC 1.4 (June 2018 release), the following changes have been introduced:

The Medium Contrast and Strong Contrast tone curve options have been removed.
The ability to save tone curves and apply saved curves within the Tone Curve panel has been removed.

Going forward, the tone curves should be saved as a preset so that they can sync across the Lightroom ecosystem of apps. See this TechNote for detailed information.

The Tone Curve in the Light panel gives you greater control over the tonal range and contrast in your photo.

The horizontal axis represents the original tonal values (input values), with black on the left and progressively lighter values toward the right. The vertical axis represents the changed tone values (output values), with black on the bottom and lighter values progressing to white at the top.

If a point on the curve moves up, it becomes a lighter tone; if it moves down, it becomes darker. A straight, 45-degree line indicates no changes to the tonal scale; the original input values exactly match the output values.

Tone Curve in the Edit panel — Editing the Parametric Curve

To make adjustments to the Tone Curve, click the curve and drag up or down. As you drag, the affected region and the new tonal value is displayed in the lower-right corner of the tone curve.

You can also choose to make adjustments to the Point Curve in the Red, Green, or Blue Channels individually or all three channels at once. Do the following to select a Channel and adjust its Point Curve:

Point Curve in the Edit panel — Representative Point Curve screenshot showing Control Points on the Red Channel.

Choose a Point Curve option provided above the curve: RGB Channels, Red Channel, Green Channel, or Blue Channel.
Click the curve to add a Control Point. To remove a Control Point on the curve, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) and choose Delete Control Point from the menu.
Drag a point to edit it.
(Optional) Choose an option from the Curve dropdown (at the lower-right corner): Linear, Medium Contrast, or Strong Contrast.
To return to a linear curve at any time, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (macOS) anywhere in the graph and choose Reset Channel.

Color

Fine-tune color in your image.

Using the slider controls in the Color panel, you can adjust colors in your image.

White Balance refers to the color created in your photo from the temperature of your light source. For example, a noon day sun will cast a very warm, yellow color whereas some light bulbs will cast a very cool, blue color in your photo. Set White Balance by choosing a preset option or specifying a neutral area in the photo with the White Balance selector.
Fine-tune the white balance using the Temp and Tint controls. Temp or Temperature sets how yellow/warm or blue/cool your photo looks. Tint, on the other hand sets how green or magenta your photo is.
Adjust the color saturation (vividness) using the Vibrance and Saturation controls. Vibrance increases the intensity of muted colors whereas Saturation increases the intensity of all colors in your photo.
Black and White photography is a favorite tool of photographers to help viewers drive into the details of a photo. Convert the photo to Black & White using the B&W option.
Fine-tune individual colors using the Hue, Saturation, and Luminance (HSL) sliders. Hue adjusts the tone of each individual color and Saturation adjusts the amount of gray in a color thus making it more muted or bright. Luminance helps adjust the amount of white in a color to make it brighter or darker.
Starting with Lightroom desktop version 4.0, you can adjust the colors of shadows, midtones, and highlights using the Color Grading sliders. There is also a Global slider with which you can adjust the overall colors in the photo without affecting the settings of shadows, midtones, and highlights. To know more, see Color Grading controls.

Temp	Tint	Vibrance

Saturation

Temp:

Determines how cool or warm the colors appear in your photo. Move the slider to the left if colors are too yellow; move it to the right if colors are too blue.

Tint:

Determines how green or purple the colors appear in your photo. Move the slider to the left if colors are too purple; move it to the right if colors are too green.

Vibrance:

Increases the saturation of lower-saturated colors more than higher-saturated colors, which can help prevent skin-tones from looking unnatural.

Saturation:

Boosts the saturation of all colors equally. Move the slider to the left to de-saturate colors, move it to the right to boost saturation.

Targeted Adjustment tool

The Targeted Adjustment tool allows you to adjust the Tone Curve (in the Light panel) or the Color Mixer (in the Color panel) controls by directly dragging in the Photo. For example, you can drag left on a blue sky to decrease its saturation or drag right on a red object to intensify its hue.

To use the Targeted Adjustment tool:

If you're in Photo Grid () view or Square Grid () view, select a photo that you want to edit. Now, click () icon in the toolbar at the bottom to switch to Detail view.

If you're already in Detail () view, select a photo that you want to edit from the filmstrip appearing at the bottom of your current selection.

Click () icon at the upper-right corner to bring up the Edit panel.

In the Edit panel, do one of the following:

To adjust the Tone Curve, expand the Light panel. Click the Tone Curve icon. In the Tone Curve area, click the Targeted Adjustment tool icon.
To adjust the Color Mixer, expand the Color panel. Click the Color Mixer icon. In the Color Mixer, click the Targeted Adjustment tool icon.

When the Targeted Adjustment tool is active, a floating toolbar appears at the bottom of your photo. In the toolbar, click the or icons to switch between Tone Curve controls or Color Mixer controls respectively.

Targeted Adjustment tool in Lightroom — Targeted Adjustment toolbar showing Tone Curve controls.

Adjust the Tone Curve using the Targeted Adjustment tool

The Targeted Adjustment tool allows you to make adjustments to the Parametric Curve and the Point Curve by dragging in the photo. You can also adjust the Point Curve for Red, Green, and Blue Channels individually.

For Parametric Curve, the Targeted Adjustment tool adjusts the Highlights, Lights, Darks, or Shadows regions based on where you drag the pointer in the photo.
For Point Curve and the individual Red, Green, and Blue Channels, the Targeted Adjustment tool adjusts the control points of the curve based on where you drag the pointer in the photo.

To adjust the tonal values using the Targeted Adjustment tool:

Click the icon in the floating toolbar to show the Tone Curve controls. Choose the curve you want to adjust: Parametric Curve, Point Curve, Red Channel, Green Channel, or Blue Channel.
Move the pointer over the area that you want to adjust in the photo.
Drag horizontally in the photo to adjust values for the selected curve.

Adjust the Color Mixer using the Targeted Adjustment tool

The Targeted Adjustment tool adjusts specific colors sampled from a desired area where you drag the pointer, enabling you to adjust the hue, saturation, or luminance for the colors directly under the pointer.

To adjust colors using the Targeted Adjustment tool:

Click the icon in the floating toolbar to show Color Mixer controls. Choose the setting you want to adjust: Hue, Saturation, or Luminance.
Move the pointer over a color that you want to adjust in the photo. Then, drag horizontally in the photo to increase or decrease the selected setting for that color. Dragging right increases values; dragging left decreases values.

To close or turn off the Targeted Adjustment tool, click the cross (X) icon in the toolbar.

Effects

Apply effects to your image - Texture, Clarity, Dehaze, and Vignette

Clarity	Dehaze	Vignette

Texture:

Smoothens or accentuates textured details in your photo. Move the slider to the left to smoothen details; move it to the right to accentuate details. When you adjust the Texture slider, the color or tonality does not change.

Clarity:

Changes the contrast around the edges of objects in your photo. Move the slider to the left to soften edges; move it to the right to increase edge contrast.

Dehaze:

Move the slider to the left to add simulated haze; move it to the right to remove haze.

Vignette:

Makes the outer edges of the photo lighter or darker. Adjust the Vignette sliders:

Feather: Lower values reduce softening between the vignette and the vignette’s surrounding pixels. Higher values increase the softening.
Midpoint: Lower values apply the Amount adjustment to a larger area away from the corners. Higher values restrict the adjustment to an area closer to the corners.
Roundness: Lower values make the vignette effect more oval. Higher values make the vignette effect more circular.
Highlights: Controls the degree of highlight contrast preserved when Amount is negative. Suitable for photos with small highlights, such as candles and lamps.

Detail

Sharpen, reduce image noise, and apply film grain effects

Using the slider controls provided under the Detail panel, you can sharpen your photo to enhance edge definition and bring out detail, as well as remove image noise that can degrade image quality. Image noise includes luminance (grayscale) noise, which makes an image look grainy, and chroma (color) noise, which is usually visible as colored artifacts in the image. Photos taken with high ISO speeds can have noticeable noise.

Sharpening	Noise Reduction	Color Noise Reduction

Grain

Sharpening:

Move the slider to the right to sharpen details.

Radius: Adjusts the size of the details that sharpening is applied to. Photos with fine details may need a lower radius setting. Photos with larger details may be able to use a larger radius. Using too large a radius generally results in unnatural-looking results.
Detail: Adjusts how much high-frequency information is sharpened in the image and how much the sharpening process emphasizes edges. Lower settings primarily sharpen edges to remove blurring. Higher values are useful for making the textures in the image more pronounced.
Masking: Controls an edge mask. With a setting of zero (0), everything in the image receives the same amount of sharpening. With a setting of 100, sharpening is mostly restricted to those areas near the strongest edges.

Noise Reduction:

Move the slider to the right to reduce luminance noise.

Detail: Controls the luminance noise threshold. Useful for noisy photos. Higher values preserve more detail but may produce noisier results. Lower values produce cleaner results but may also remove some detail.
Contrast: Controls luminance contrast. Useful for noisy photos. Higher values preserve contrast but may produce noisy blotches or mottling. Lower values produce smoother results but may also have less contrast.

Color Noise Reduction:

Move the slider to the right to reduce color noise.

Detail: Controls the color noise threshold. Higher values protect thin, detailed color edges but may result in color speckling. Lower values remove color speckles but may result in color bleeding.
Smoothness: Higher values apply a softened effect to the speckled color tones.

Grain:

Move the slider to the right to add film grain.

Size: Controls grain particle size. At sizes of 25 or greater, blue is added to make the effect look better with noise reduction.
Roughness: Controls the regularity of the grain. Move left to make the grain more uniform; move to the right to make the grain more uneven.

Optics

Correct common camera lens issues.

Camera lenses can exhibit different types of defects at certain focal lengths, f-stops, and focus distances. You can correct and minimize these issues using the options provided in the Optics panel.

Correct chromatic aberration

Chromatic aberration appears as a color fringe along the edges of objects. It is caused by the failure of the lens to focus different colors to the same spot, aberrations in sensor microlenses, and by flare.

Chromatic Aberration:

Select this option to automatically correct blue-yellow and red-green lateral fringes in your image.

Fixing chromatic aberration — (Left) Original photo, (upper-right) zoomed area of the photo with blue/yellow fringing, and (lower right) after fixing chromatic aberration.

Enable lens corrections

Lightroom includes numerous lens profiles, which can be used to correct common lens aberrations such as geometric distortion and vignetting. The profiles are based on metadata that identifies the camera and lens used to capture the photo, and then compensates accordingly.

In the Optics panel, select the Enable Lens Corrections check box.

Lightroom automatically selects a matching lens profile based on the camera model, focal length, f-stop and focus distance information in your photo's metadata.

Cameras with built-in lens profile support

Lens correction for all Micro 4/3 (MFT) lenses and cameras, including Panasonic, Olympus, and other cameras (Fuji X, Leica Q, plus many point-and-shoot models from Canon) happens automatically without your interaction.

If your lens is supported automatically, Lightroom displays the message 'Built-in Lens Profile Applied' in the Optics panel. Click the info icon to view Lens Profile information.

(Optional) If Lightroom is unable to find a matching lens profile automatically or if you want to change the automatic selection, do the following:

Click the current lens profile to change the automatic selection or click Manually Select a Profile if Lightroom couldn't find a lens profile automatically.
In the Select a Lens Profile dialog box, select a Make, Model, and Profile.

The lens profiles that are available depend on whether you’re adjusting a raw or a non-raw file. For a list of supported lenses, see Supported lenses.

Select a Lens Profile dialog

Manually select a profile

If desired, customize the correction applied by the profile by using the following sliders:

Distortion Correction:

The default value 100 applies 100% of the distortion correction in the profile. Values over 100 apply greater correction to the distortion; values under 100 apply less correction to the distortion.

Lens Vignetting:

The default value 100 applies 100% of the vignetting correction in the profile. Values over 100 apply greater correction to vignetting; values under 100 apply less correction to vignetting.

Defringe

The Defringe controls help identify and remove color fringing along high-contrast edges. You can remove color fringes caused by longitudinal chromatic aberrations and reduce some of the colorful artifacts that the Remove Chromatic Aberration tool cannot remove. To use this tool, follow these steps:

In the Optics panel, click the Defringe icon at the upper-right corner to view the Defringe controls.

Depending on which hue you want to remove, select the purple or green radio button and click the Fringe Selector.

Use the Defringe Selector tool to remove purple or green fringe colors. — Use the Defringe Selector tool to remove purple or green fringe hues.

Hover over the desired hue in the photo and click it to suppress or remove it.

Alternatively, use the Amount slider to specify how much of the hue you want to suppress or remove and the Hue slider to specify the range of the selected hue.

Geometry

Adjust geometric perspective in your photos

A close distance to the subject, as well as certain types of lenses, can distort perspective and make straight lines appear bowed, tilted or skewed in your photos. You can correct for these issues using the controls in the Geometry panel.

The Upright control provides four automatic perspective correction options - Auto, Level, Vertical, and Full, as well as a manual Guided option. After applying Upright, you can refine the adjustment using the Manual Transform sliders.

Choose an Upright mode to correct perspective

Choose a photo to correct.

(Recommended) In the Detail view, open the Edit control and navigate to the Optics panel. Select the Enable Lens Corrections check box.

Note:

Enabling lens corrections is highly recommended, before processing the photo with the Upright modes.

Navigate to the Geometry panel. From Upright menu, choose an option to apply the correction to the photo.

Guided:

Allows you to draw up to four guides on your photo to customize perspective correction.

Auto:

Corrects both vertical and horizontal perspective while balancing the overall image, preserving as much of the visible image area as possible.

Level:

Corrects horizontal perspective.

Vertical:

Corrects vertical perspective.

Full:

Combines all Upright correction types to automatically correct perspective.

Using Guided Upright Tool

If you chose the Upright mode as Guided, do the following:

1. Click the Guided Upright Tool icon and then draw the guides directly on your photo.

2. Once you have drawn at least two guides, the photo transforms interactively.

Three guides drawn over the photo using Guided Upright Tool.

Cycle through the Upright modes until you find the most preferable setting.

All the Upright modes correct and manage distortion and perspective errors. The best setting varies from one photo to another. Experiment with the modes before deciding on the best possible mode for your photo.

(Optional) When correcting the perspective of a photo, you may get white areas near the image boundaries. To prevent this, select the Constrain Crop option to automatically crop the photo according to the original dimension.

Use Manual Transforms to fine-tune the perspective corrections - Distortion, Vertical, Horizontal, Rotate, Aspect, Scale, X Offset, Y Offset.

Image with perspective correction. — Image with corrected perspective.

Copy and paste edits

Lightroom allows you to copy the edits that you've applied on a photo and paste it across multiple photos. You can also choose which edit settings you want to copy from a photo.

Select a photo.

If you're in Photo Grid () view or Square Grid () view, select a photo from which you want to copy the edit settings.

If you're in Detail () view, you can copy the edit settings from your current photo or choose the required photo from the filmstrip appearing at the bottom of your current selection.

Copy all the edit settings from the selected photo.

To copy the current photo’s edit settings, do one of the following:

From the menu bar, choose Photo > Copy Edit Settings.
Press Control + C (Win) or Command + C (Mac) keys.

Choose which edit settings to copy from the selected photo.

To choose edit settings to copy from the selected photo:

From the menu bar, choose Photo > Choose Edit Settings To Copy. Alternatively, press Control + Shift + C (Win) or Shift + Command + C (Mac) keys.
From the Copy Settings dialog that appears, click the Select pop-up menu at the top and choose any of the following:
1. All: Selects all the edit settings groups.
2. Modified: Selects only the edits settings that you've modified or applied on the selected photo.
3. Default: Selects the default set of edit settings. Tools and Geometry settings are excluded by default.
4. None: Deselects all the edit settings.
You can also manually select or deselect specific settings by expanding the edit setting groups.
After making the selection, choose Copy.

Select one or more photos to which you want to paste the copied edit settings.

If you're in Photo Grid () view or Square Grid () view, select one or more photos to which you want to paste the edit settings.

If you're in Detail () view, select one or more photos from the filmstrip.

Paste the copied settings.

To paste the copied edit settings to the selected photos, do one of the following:

From the menu bar, choose Photo > Paste Edit Settings.
Press Control + V (Win) or Command + V (Mac) keys.

Presets

Note:

Presets and Profiles (including third-party, custom user presets and profiles) sync automatically across Lightroom desktop and mobile. Custom user presets and profiles do not sync with Lightroom Classic.
Premium Presets are available starting from Lightroom version 4.3 (June 2021 release)
Recommended Presets are available starting from Lightroom version 5.0 (October 2021 release)

Preview and apply presets, including Recommended & Premium Presets

Open a photo in Detail view.

Click the Edit icon () in the right panel and then click Presets.

In the Presets panel, find Recommended, Premium, and Yours.

Recommended These presets are automatically provided to you based on your photo, with the help of Adobe Sensei. The results can change with time, even for the same photo. Use the given carousel options such as Subtle, Strong, B&W, and more to easily filter these presets.
Premium These presets are updated with every release and include categories like Portraits, Travel, Cinematic, subject-wise presets, and more.
Yours These are all the presets that you have created or saved, as well as all the default presets included with Lightroom.

Note:

Partially compatible presets are included in the panel.
In Recommended Presets, hover over the preset thumbnail and click More like this to view more similar presets. You can also click the three-dot icon in the thumbnail to view who the preset is from, follow the author, save the preset, or create an edit Version.

To preview the effect of a preset, hover over the thumbnail in the Presets panel. To apply a preset to the photo, simply click the preset.

Create a User Preset

You can create and save custom develop presets based on the current edit control settings (in the Edit panel) of the selected photo.

In Detail view, choose a photo based on which you want to create a preset.

Click the Edit icon () in the right panel and click Presets.

In the Presets panel, click the three-dots () icon and choose Create Preset from the pop-up menu.

In the New Preset dialog that appears, specify a name for your preset. Click Save.

The saved preset is added in the list of User Presets in the Presets panel.

Note:

If you're looking to migrate your Lightroom Classic develop presets into Lightroom, see Migrate Presets.

Update a User Preset

To update a saved user preset, do the following:

In Detail view, click the Edit icon () and then click Presets.

In the Presets panel, expand the User Presets group.

Select a user preset to apply it on the photo and then modify the edit settings (in the Edit panel) as required.

Now, right-click the user preset and select Update With Current Settings option in the pop-up menu.

Delete a User Preset

You cannot delete built-in Lightroom presets. You can only delete the User Presets.

In Detail view, click the Edit icon () and then click Presets.

In the Presets panel, right-click a user preset and choose Delete from the pop-up menu.

In the Delete Preset dialog, click Delete to confirm the action. Otherwise, click Cancel.

Manage presets

Lightroom allows you to show or hide various preset groups that are displayed in the Presets panel.

Note:

Your settings to show/hide preset groups is specific to each computer or device. For example, you can hide some preset groups in Lightroom desktop but they will still be visible in Lightroom on your mobile device and vice versa.

In Detail view, click the Edit icon () and then click Presets.

In the Presets panel, click the three-dots () icon and choose Manage Presets from the pop-up menu.

Under Manage, select the preset groups that you want to show in the Presets panel. Deselect the preset groups that you want to hide from the Presets panel.

Click Back to navigate back to the Presets panel.

Reset photo edits

Lightroom allows you to restore your edited photo to its original state (when you first imported it). You can also restore your photo edits to the state when last opened it Lightroom. To reset your photo edits, you must be in Detail view.

Open the photo in Detail view

If you're in Photo Grid () view or Square Grid () view, select an edited photo that you want to reset. Now, click () icon in the toolbar at the bottom to switch to Detail view.

If you're already in Detail () view, select the photo that you want to reset from the filmstrip appearing at the bottom of your current selection.

Restore the photo to its original state

Do one of the following:

From the menu bar, choose Photo > Reset To Original.
Press Shift + R keys.

Restore the photo to its last opened state

Do one of the following:

From the menu bar, choose Photo > Reset To Open.
Press Shift + Command + R keys.

Apply local adjustments

Starting from Lightroom 5.0 (October 2021 release), the following workflows no longer apply. To access the latest tools for local adjustments, see Masking in Lightroom.

Using the Brush, Linear Gradient, or Radial Gradient tools, you can make edits to specific areas in your photo. You can access these tools in the right panel in My Photos or Sharing view.

The Brush tool lets you selectively apply adjustments to photos by brushing onto the specific area of the photo.

The Linear and Radial Gradient tools let you apply adjustments across a region of a photo. You can make the region as wide or as narrow as you like.

From top to bottom - Brush, Linear Gradient, and Radial Gradient tools.

Click a local adjustment tool. You can view the respective panel.

For Brush, adjust the size of the brush using the Size slider and make a selection. Click Eraser to remove an area of the selection.
For Linear Gradient, click and drag the tool on the area you want to edit. You can view the selection made with parallel lines. Click the blue pin in the selection to move the selection in the photo. Use the Brush to gradually extend the selection to other parts of the photo.
For Radial Gradient, click and drag the tool on the area you want to make adjustments to. A radial selection is made. Click the blue pin in the selection to move the selection around. Use the Brush to gradually extend the selection to other parts of the photo. Use Feather to create a soft-edged transition between the brushed and the surrounding areas.

Make adjustments to the selected areas using these sliders in the panel:

Temp Adjusts the color temperature of an area of the image, making it warmer or cooler. A graduated filter temperature effect can improve images captured in mixed-lighting conditions.
Tint Compensates for a green or magenta color cast
Exposure Sets the overall image brightness. Applying an Exposure local correction can achieve results similar to traditional dodging and burning.
Contrast Adjusts image contrast, mainly affecting midtones
Highlights Recovers detail in overexposed highlight areas of an image
Shadows Recovers detail in underexposed shadow areas of an image
Whites Adjusts the white points in a photo
Blacks Adjusts the black points in a photo
Texture Smoothens or accentuates textured details in your photo. Move the slider to the left to smoothen details; move it to the right to accentuate details. When you adjust the Texture slider, the color or tonality does not change.
Clarity Adds depth to an image by increasing local contrast
Dehaze Reduces or increases existing haze in a photo
Hue Change colors in specific areas without affecting the rest of the selection. Keep Use fine adjustment selected if you're correcting minute color details such as skin tone.
Saturation Adjusts the vividness of the color
Sharpness Enhances edge definition to bring out details in the photo. A negative value blurs details.
Noise Reduces luminance noise, which can become apparent when shadow areas are opened.
Moiré Removes moiré artifacts or color aliasing
Defringe Removes fringe colors along edges
Colorize Applies a tint to the area affected by the local correction. Select the hue by clicking the color swatch. The color effect is preserved if you convert the photo to black and white. Use the toggle button to enable this slider.

Note:

The Hue slider is added starting from Lightroom 3.3 (June 2020 release). Hue allows you to easily recolor objects locally, as well as make more subtle adjustments such as fine-tuning skin tones, without impacting colors in the rest of your photo.

Move a slider to the left to decrease the value and to the right to increase the value.

Create and view Versions

Versions help you to quickly view and compare different edits made to the same photo. You can view automatically created Versions and also create Versions. Follow these steps to know how:

Open a photo in Detail view and apply the edits you like from the Edit panel.

Click Versions in the bottom of the Edit panel.

In the Versions panel, select the Named tab. This tab lets you save your own Versions. The Auto tab, on the other hand provides a list of Versions that have been automatically saved for you from each editing session.

Find Auto Versions in the Auto tab — The Auto tab in the Versions panel

To create a Version in the Named tab, click Create Version, enter the name, and then click Create. A Version of your latest edits is added to the Named tab of the Versions panel. You can continue to apply more edits to your photo and create several Versions this way.

Easily create a Version in Lightroom desktop

To view the edits in a Version, simply hover over a Version in the Named or Auto tab to see the preview in your photo.

In the Named tab, to rename or delete a Version, click the three-dot icon.

To save an Auto Version to the Named tab, click the three-dot icon next to the Version in the Auto tab and select Save as Named Version. You can also find an option to delete the Version from the three-dot menu.

Quickly save a Version from Auto to the Named tab

Common questions

Installing custom, third-party presets and profiles

For help instructions, see Import profiles.

Note:

If you're looking to migrate your Lightroom Classic develop presets into Lightroom, see Migrate Presets.

Install Lightroom on your desktop.

Launch Lightroom desktop.

When you launch Lightroom desktop (v1.4 June 2018 release or later) for the first time after installing or updating, the existing Lightroom Classic profiles and presets on your computer are automatically migrated to Lightroom.

(Optional) If you make any changes or add new presets to Lightroom Classic (after auto-migration to Lightroom desktop), do one of the following:

a. Migrate the new/updated presets to Lightroom manually

For Help instructions, see Migrate Presets.

b. Use the import dialog in Lightroom desktop

From the menu bar, choose File > Import Profiles & Presets.
In the Import dialog that appears, browse to the required path and select the presets that you want to import. Check the file location for Lightroom Classic presets on Win and macOS.
Click Import.

Make sure that the Lightroom app on your mobile device is updated to the latest version.

The presets and profiles that you've installed in Lightroom desktop will automatically sync with Lightroom on mobile.

From the menu bar, choose File > Import Profiles & Presets.

In the Import dialog that appears, browse to the required path and select profiles or presets that you want to import.

Click Import.

First, install the VSCO presets and profiles into Lightroom Classic.

VSCO preset packs include an installer that provides setup support for both Lightroom Classic and Lightroom.

For Lightroom Classic, the installer in the VSCO packs installs presets, curves, and camera profiles.
For Lightroom, it installs presets and curves but not the camera profiles.

Open Lightroom.

Manually import all VSCO camera profiles in Lightroom.

From the menu bar, choose File > Import Profiles & Presets.

In the Import dialog that appears, navigate to the path below and select the VSCO profiles that you installed in Step 1.

Win: C:\ProgramData\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles
Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/CameraProfiles

Click Import.

When you launch Lightroom for the first time after updating to the latest version, the existing profiles on your computer are automatically added. If you want to install new XRite or DNG Profile Creator profiles after the first launch, do the following:

Save the profiles from XRite or DNG Profile Creator to your desktop.

Open Lightroom.

From the menu bar, choose File > Import Profiles & Presets.

In the Import dialog that appears, browse and select the profiles that you saved in Step 1.

Click Import.

In Lightroom, choose File > Import Profiles & Presets from the menu bar.

In the Import dialog that appears, navigate to the path below and select the profiles that you want to import.

Win: C:\ProgramData\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles
Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/CameraProfiles

Click Import.

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Copy and paste edits

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