Lightroom Certifications and Certificates

If you’re looking for a way to demonstrate your skills in Lightroom, you might be overwhelmed by the different certifications and certificate programs available. You might also have a lot of questions, such as how much will getting certified improve my job prospects, what is the difference between certifications and certificates, what is the best path to becoming certified, and why should I become certified?This article aims to answer these questions so you can efficiently choose the right path towards a Lightroom certification. Keep reading to find out more.

What is Lightroom?

Adobe Lightroom is compact photo organizing and editing software that allows users to catalog and edit photographs from any device using the Adobe Creative Cloud. Using Lightroom, users can examine and edit photographs on the fly immediately after taking them without having to leave the site. This makes Lightroom ideal for photographers who want to create perfect photographs for advertising, social media, or personal printing, as Lightroom lets them take a photo and immediately start the process of editing. Lightroom provides tools for color correction, altering contrasts, modifying brightness, and basic editing functions such as correcting red-eye or blurring/sharpening an image. Since Lightroom is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud, it is also optimized for photo sharing, letting users work with the same photo across multiple devices and including tools to help users prepare their photos for publication.

Adobe Lightroom is closely related to Adobe Photoshop. The major difference between the two programs is that Lightroom is optimized for mobile devices and on-the-fly photo editing, whereas Photoshop is optimized for desktop use and has more precise and granular editing tools. Lightroom is best suited for users who want to take a photograph and immediately begin editing it to suit their needs, particularly photographers working on-site, away from their desktop computers. Lightroom also lets users create and import preset filters and settings to help them quickly edit their photos.

Read more about what Lightroom is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with Lightroom?

Adobe Lightroom is a powerful photo editing tool with a number of features that make it useful for both professional and hobbyist photographers. Whether a photographer is taking photos of models for a series of print advertisements or just taking vacation photos for their own personal social media account, the ability to edit photos quickly and efficiently will greatly improve the quality of their output. This versatility makes Lightroom an ideal choice to learn for anyone who is regularly taking photos as a part of their day-to-day life.

Lightroom lets users make on-the-fly edits to photographs, altering colors, shade, contrast, and other digital details with only a few clicks. Owing to its easy-to-use sliders and built-in/customizable presets, users can begin editing their photos within seconds, easily letting them identify the issues that need to be changed to get a perfect shot. Recent updates to Adobe Lightroom allow users to build and edit rudimentary video animations, opening a whole new world of possibilities for creative photographers.

Lightroom is also a powerful tool for archiving and publishing photos. Linked to the Adobe Creative Cloud, Lightroom lets users easily share their photos across multiple devices and programs. Users can take a picture, edit the basics of the color and contrast in Lightroom, then import that photo into Photoshop to perform more detailed photo editing. Then, they can import the newly edited photos into a program like Adobe XD in preparation for publication on a website or digital advertisement.

Certifications vs. Certificates: What’s the Difference?

Lightroom users outside of the industry may not know that there are many different ways to become certified in a program. Receiving certification is different from receiving a certificate demonstrating mastery of a skill.

Certifications usually require users to pass an official exam designed by a first-party developer to demonstrate mastery of the skill being tested. These exams merely test mastery and often only take a few hours to complete, though they expect test takers to have hundreds of hours of experience with the program to pass.

Certificate programs are skills training programs that award a certificate upon completion. These programs are much longer than certification exams, often running for multiple weeks or months, but they teach users skills rather than testing existing skills. Certificate programs are also ideal places to build the skills and receive the hands-on experience required to pass a certification exam.

Certification exams are ideal for professionals who regularly work with a program and have built up career skills over time. Certificate programs are better suited for new users of a program who feel that they would benefit from professional training rather than trying to self-teach a program in preparation for a certification exam.

Top Certifications & Certificates for Lightroom

Noble Desktop offers the Photo Retouching Certificate program that includes Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop training as part of its curriculum. This program teaches students how to edit and alter photographs professionally using both Lightroom and Photoshop. This program will teach participants how to alter images, correct colors, shift and alter shades, and delete or fix unwanted digital artifacts. Students will learn which program is suited for what tasks, and at the conclusion of the course, they will have both an official certificate of completion and a fully built sample portfolio to take onto the job market.

At the time of writing, Adobe does not offer an official certification exam in Lightroom. While they offer professional accreditation in many of their other visual design programs, such as Photoshop and Illustrator, they do not have a formal exam available for Lightroom certification.

Should I Get Certified in Lightroom?

Lightroom certification is rarely required for any professional field that uses the program. Like most other creative design software, Lightroom is used in fields that prioritize strong portfolios above official certifications. However, that doesn’t mean that getting certified in Lightroom won’t help a certified professional stand out from their competitors in the eyes of potential employers. A certification can also be particularly beneficial for those who choose to freelance; it’s a helpful way to demonstrate your mastery of Lightroom to potential clients and show them you possess a great deal of knowledge on the subject.

How to Get Certified in Lightroom

The best way to get Certified in Lightroom is to complete an industry-recognized certificate course such as those offered by Noble Desktop. Many of these programs will train students in skills beyond just using Lightroom, but very few jobs solely make use of the program. This makes pairing Lightroom alongside other skills like Photoshop in a certificate program an ideal path forward for career-focused students.

Key Insights

• Lightroom users who want to use their skills professionally can set themselves apart from others by becoming Lightroom certified.
• Adobe doesn’t offer any official certification programs in Lightroom, but many service providers, such as Noble Desktop, offer training programs to become certified in Lightroom.
• Since so few professionals only utilize Lightroom, most certificate programs train users in multiple complementary career skills such as Photoshop and digital photography.
• Few jobs require employees to become certified in Lightroom (this is true for most creative design programs). However, it is still helpful for demonstrating to potential employers that a prospective employee has formal training to complement their strong sample portfolio.

Learn Lightroom with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop offers a wide range of Lightroom courses designed to fit the practical and professional needs of all students. Participants can take these courses both at Noble’s Manhattan location in-person, or they are available through live, online instruction. Even if taken online, these courses boast small classes taught by experienced instructors who can respond to student needs in real-time. Taking a class online through Noble provides students with the same high-quality instruction and professional skills training as the in-person courses, with the advantage of being available to students from all over the country. Noble’s courses offer a free retake option within one year, allowing students to hone their skills at no cost.

Noble’s Adobe Lightroom Classic course gives students hands-on experience using Lightroom to edit, share, and publish photographs. Students will practice manipulating photos and learn strategies to optimize these photos for different purposes, such as social media advertising, web design, and physical printing. Students will also learn how to utilize the Adobe Creative Cloud integration to share, publish, and archive their photos safely and effectively. This course will provide students with the experience they need to use Lightroom Classic for professional and personal purposes.

Noble also offers Lightroom instruction as part of its Photo Retouching Certificate program. This training program teaches students the skills that they need to take and edit their own high-quality digital photos for professional use. Students will learn the best ways to take a digital photo and then be taught how to edit those photos using both Lightroom and Photoshop. Students will learn how to optimize their photographs by taking advantage of Lightroom’s editing and sharing capabilities alongside learning how to make more advanced and complex manipulations in Photoshop. Completing the course provides students with an industry recognized certificate of completion, and participants are also eligible for a free retake within one year to continue honing their retouching skills.