Using Lightroom and Photoshop

The first step is to install Adobe Creative Cloud - go to the link specified in the "Buy Adobe" section of the Info Centre. This will install the Adobe Creative Cloud application. You will need to be logged in to Adobe first using the accout that you used to purchase Adobe.

Installing Lightroom

After installation, the Adobe Creative Cloud application should launch automatically. On the left hand side, click on the Apps icon. You will now see a section in the window called "Essential in your Plan" and within the window, a number of rectangular panels. Look for the one that says "Lightroom Classic" and click on the Install button. Do NOT install the app called "Lightroom" - it is not as good. When it finishes installing you can close the application.

Running Lightroom

Find Adobe Lightroom Classic on your PC/Mac and run it. When it runs you may see a "What's New" window which you can close. At this point Lightroom will beusing a default catalog and the concept of catalogs is covered in the next section. For now, click on the menu entry "Edit" followed by "Catalog Settings". A window will pop up that shows you the name of the catalog.

Catalogs

A catalog is a database that contains links to where your images are stored, a record of all edits made to those images and thumbnails that allow you to preview the editing images. The default catalog is stored on the disk inside your computer and in due course when you have imported some images in to Lightroom these will also be on your disk. Whatever edits you make to your images in Lightroom, the original images on your disk are never changed - because Lightroom stores a list of the edits in its catalog. To enable you to review thumbnails of the images you have stored, small images - including your modifications - are also stored in the catalog.

It is possible to have multiple catalogs with Lightroom and there are some good reasons for why you might want to do this. However, this is not covered until the end of this page so that you can get familiar with using Lightroom with the default catalog first.

Getting Ready to Import Images

The process of getting your images in to Lightroom is called "Importing" and before you start, you need to create a folder on your disk using File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac). Create a folder whose purpose is clear, for example, "C:\My Pictures" on a Windows PC. The choice of folder name is yours, but for convenice, this page will refer to the "My PIctures" folder from now on. Once this is done, then in Lightroom, look for the "Folders" panel on the left hand side and click on the "+" which is to the right of "Folders". You will then be shown File Explorer or FInder - navigate to folder you created and select it. Lightroom will now show your disk drive in the folders panel - click on the white left pointing arrow and you will then see "My Folders" greyed out. You can now create sub-folders in lightroom and this is where your images are stored. For example, you may want to create a sub-folder "London July 2025". To do this, right click on "My Pictures" and choose "Create Folder in My Pictures" then in the pop-up window, enter a sub-folder name.

Once you have created the sub-folder, you will see a white arrow pointing right on the "My Folders" line - click it to then see the sub-folder you've created.

Importing Images

If you were to plug a camera memory card in to your machine now, then an "Import" window will pop-up. It is not advised to use this method as you can easy end up with your images in the wrong location. So, before inserting a memory card for the first time, go to "Edit" and then "Preferences" on the Lightroom menu. The popup window has a number of tabs, but sould be showing the "General Tab". Look for "Show Import Dialog when Memory Card Detected" and uncheck the box.

To import some images in to the sub-folder you created, right click on the sub-folder and choose "Import to this Folder". The Import window will now appear and on the left hand side you can find your memory card and navigate to the folder where the camera has stored the images. They will then appear as thumbnails on the screen. All will be ticked and when you start the import, all ticked images will be imported. Before starting, check the top of the window to ensure that "Copy" but not "Copy as DNG" is selected. On the right-hand side, check the destination for the import - this should match the chosen sub-folder on the left. Finally, in the destination panel on the right, ook for the dropdown box that has a label of "Organize". By default this is set to "By Date" which means on your disk, in the sub-folder under "My PIctures", a sub-sub-folder is created for each different dates that the images were taken. The author of this web page (Alvin) finds this annoying so changes it to "Into one folder" (once changed, Lightroom will always use the new setting). Now press the "Import" button and all the images will be copied on to your disk.

For detailed instructions on importing images to a catalog, see the table later on this page.

If you attempt to import images from this camera card again in the future, be aware that Ligtroom checks if you have already imported images. If you have, then their thumbnails will appear greyed out in the import window. However, you can change a setting near the top of the screen from "All Photos" to "New Photos" so that Lightroom only shows any images not already imported.

Navigating your Lightroom images

After your import has finished, the Folders panel on the left hand side should show your sub-folder and the number of images in it. Click on the sub-folder to see thumbnails of the images in the sub-folder. You are in the "Library" module, and you will see the word "Library" is highlighted at the top right hand side of your screen.

Some simple things you can do are to press "G" (Grid) to see all your thumbnails, scroll and and down, and click on a particular thumbnail to select that image. By pressing "F" (Fullsize) you can see that image full size.

Some basic editing

To edit an image, you need to select that image in the Library then do to the "Develop" module. You can do this by clicking on "Develop" to the right of "Library" at the top right of your screen, or just press the "D" key. You can do simple things such as adjust shadows, highlights, crop, straighten and so on. As you get more familiar with Lightroom, more advanced edits are possible, for example, removing objects, masking, vignetting and changing colours. See the resources section for some suggested links.

Exporting an image

Exporting an image is the process whereby you can create a new file (for example a jpg) on a disk which includes all of the edits you have made to the image. Right-click on the image and choose "Export", then in the window that pops up, choose "Export…". A new window called "Export One FIle" appears and you will then see that there are a number of panels (there's a scroll bar to go through them) which give you several options for how to export. A suggested set of settings might be to specify a location in the "Export Location" panel, and a JPEG with 100% in the File Settings panel. Once you've specified the required settings, click on the "Export" button and the file will be created. You can then use this exported image to email to friends, post to social media or whatever. However, for use in TDCC Competitions or Projects, please also set a maximum file size of 10,000K in File Settings.

Using multiple catalogs with Lightroom

There are a number of scenarios where by you might wish to use multiple catalogs. One example is if you want to have a catalog and associated images on an external SSD so you can use the SSD with your desktop or your laptop. A second example is if you want to handle a very large photoshoot involving hundreds of images - you could create a new catalog on an external drive, import the images (to the external drive also), whilttle it down to a small number of images you want to keep, prost process them and then import the final processed images in to your main catalog. Later in this document there is a link to an Adobe video that gives a few other examples. For detailed instructions on creating a catalog, see the table later on this page.

To create a new catalog on an external disk drive, choose "File" then "New Catalog" in the Lightroom menu. In the Explorer (PC) or Finder (Mac) window that appears, navigate to the external drive, type in a name for the catalog and click on the "Create" button. The catalog will now be created and this is the one that Lightroom now uses - you can only use one catalog at any time. Its a simple matter to switch between catalogs - use File / Open Recent on the menu.

You can use this new catalog by using the same steps for creating folders as described earlier - just make sure that you create the top level folder on the external disk drive. You can then import some images from a camera card - the images and the catalog will all be on this disk drive.

NEVER remove the external disk drive if you have a catalog open in Lightroom that is on the drive. Always quit from Lightroom first. If you subsequently start Lightroom and the drive is not there, you will be given an opportunity to choose a different catalog to work with, for example, you might plugin another drive with a different catalog and choose to open that.

Resources for using Lightroom

Some suggested links are given below, but do remember to do your own searching in Google, Youtube or even with an AI.

Installing Photoshop

Photoshop, if included in your Adobe plan, is installed by clicking on "Install" in the Photoshop panel in the Adobe Creative Cloud Application. When installation is completed, you can run it from here, but it is recommended you run it from within Lightroom as described below.

Getting started with Photoshop

To edit an image in Photoshop, right click on the image in Lightroom and choose "Edit in Adobe Photoshop 2025" (or whatever year it is). If your file is a raw file, then Photoshop will run and your image will appear in Photoshop. If it is not raw, for example a jpg, tif or other format of file, a window will appear asking you to choose between "Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments", "Edit a Copy" or "Edit Original". Always choose the first unless you understand the significance of the other two options.

Photoshop is a very powerful editing package and one cannot even begin to cover it in this short article. You should research to find articles and/or videos that talk you through the basics of using it. But for the purposes of understanding how it works with Lightroom, go to "Image" in the menu, then choose "Adjustments...", then "Brightness and Contrast". A window pops up letting you adjust both of these. Make some adjustments and close the window. Now do File / Exit to leave Photoshop - it will ask you to confirm the changes. Photoshop will create a new tif file with the same name as your image and in Lightroom, you will see you now have this new modified image, in addition to the original image. Your original image on your disk drive will not have been changed, but there will now be a tif file with it.

You now have the basic steps to go in to and out of Photoshop and you can be confident that you are not impacting your original image nor any lightroom adjustments you made to it. You can now try things out in Photoshop as you learn. If you end up with tif files you do not want to keep then press the "Del" button and in the popup window, click on the "Delete from Disk" button. Just be careful you are not deleting your original image by mistake.