There are small portable hard drives available you don’t really have to worry about having to travel with a couple of them. That way my photos are always easy to find. I often use numbers (1., 2., 3., etc.) to preface the folder names if I want them to fall in a certain order. I typically organize by the destination, then by day. The above screenshot is a sample of how I organize all of the photo files from my trips on an external hard drive. If you are in the habit of saving photos to your desktop, I would suggest getting a portable external hard drive and saving them there.Īll of my photos are saved on external hard drives to free up space on my computer-but more on that later.

I would recommend getting to a point where you can shoot and edit RAW.Īs you start saving your image files (and before you start editing) it’s important to organize your photos into ‘easy to find’ folders. But, are you are limited in the quality of the image and it’s much more difficult to lift shadows and drop highlights while retaining the image detail. If you are still learning how to shoot, JPEG is totally fine. For example, you are able to lift shadows without losing the details of your image. With RAW, there’s a lot more wiggle room to saving or recovering a photo, just in case you didn’t nail your settings or are shooting in tricky lighting. And both options present their own pros and cons. Then, download Lightroom Classic to get started! Here’s the beginner’s guide to editing photos in Lightroom Classic! Editing RAW VS JPEGĮditing RAW and JPEG photos can be a little bit different. I’d recommend signing up for the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Package.

These tips are for editing in Lightroom Classic for desktop. I know that Lightroom can seem overwhelming with all the different develop settings and sliders-so that’s why I’m breaking it down to explain it step-by-step! And for that, learning how to edit them in a consistent manner in Lightroom is key! Are you looking to improve your photography game? While one of the number one ways to make drastic changes and take the photos you actually want is by learning how to photograph in manual mode-you can also make your photos shine with a good edit.

Lightroom for beginners