Why Learn Lightroom?

Adobe Lightroom is a photo editing and storage application available through the Adobe Creative Cloud. This program allows users to quickly and easily edit their photographs with tools to alter contrast, balance color, and change brightness on mobile devices immediately after taking the picture. Lightroom also allows users to archive their photos in Creative Cloud albums, making sharing and publishing photos significantly easier.

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.

How Do You Download Lightroom? How Much Does it Cost?

Adobe Lightroom is available for direct download through Adobe’s website. Since 2013, Adobe has required users to pay a monthly subscription fee to access the Adobe Creative Cloud suite of applications rather than requiring a one-time licensing fee. Adobe offers several different subscription packages to help users customize their payment plans.

Users can license Lightroom on its own for $9.99 a month. They also have the option to bundle Lightroom with Photoshop as part of Adobe’s Photography package. For $9.99 a month, users will have access to Lightroom and Photoshop, plus 20 GBs of online storage (approximately 4,000 photos). For $19.99, users can access Lightroom, Photoshop, and a Terabyte of cloud storage (approximately 250,000 photos). Adobe also offers a complete creative package, which costs $54.99 a month and includes access to all Adobe Creative Cloud applications.

Adobe offers a free trial of Lightroom to new users. In addition to the free trial, Adobe offers packages including a 30-day free trial of Adobe Stock, which gives users access to Adobe’s library of royalty-free stock photographs and assets. After the trial, Adobe Stock costs $29.99 a month.

What Are the Benefits of Learning Lightroom?

Adobe Lightroom is an ideal skill to learn for both professional graphic designers and amateur photographers. By using Adobe Lightroom, creatives can alter and catalog their photographs immediately after they’ve been taken, giving photographers the tools that they need to create ideal photographs on the spot. This makes Lightroom an ideal program to learn for creative professionals who plan to regularly take and alter digital photos. Photographers will obviously benefit from being able to alter photographs immediately, but Graphic Designers, Web Designers, and marketers like Social Media Managers all stand to benefit from learning Lightroom.

Lightroom is also closely linked to the other creative programs that make up the Adobe Creative Cloud, particularly Photoshop. Users who learn how to use Lightroom may find it much easier to learn how to use other Adobe creative software in a professional capacity, and learning Lightroom will help creatives optimize their workflow when this skill is paired with training in Adobe Photoshop. Few creative professionals only use a single creative design tool, so learning the whole of the Adobe Creative Cloud will both make prospective employees more well-rounded, and it will make their lives easier as they can utilize multiple different programs.

Read more about why you should learn Lightroom.

Lightroom Careers

As it is often used as a companion to Photoshop, Lightroom is commonly used in almost all creative industries that regularly make use of Digital photography. From Graphic Designers and Photographers to Digital Marketers and Social Media Managers, Lightroom is an excellent complementary skill in almost every digital creative field.

• Graphic Designers: These creatives are responsible for designing images and graphics that quickly and effectively communicate meaning to audiences. Graphic designers often use several different creative programs, but many find themselves regularly using Photoshop to touch up and alter digital photographers. This means that Graphic Designers will also benefit from learning Lightroom, as the two skills go hand-in-hand, and learning how to use one dramatically opens up the possibilities when using the other.

• Photographers: Professional digital photographers work in a number of different industries, and they are responsible for capturing the images and photographs that Graphic Designers will later build into things like brochures and advertisements. Photographers need to get their photos right the first time, and Lightroom gives them the tools to modify their images on the fly to look at how a photograph will appear in different lights, contrasts, or situations.

• Digital Marketers: Digital advertising often makes use of photographs as a component of building attention-grabbing advertisements that draw viewers in as they browse the internet. Digital marketers will work closely with Graphic Designers to help build advertising campaigns for their clients. This means they will often work closely with graphic design software such as Lightroom and Photoshop to make digital photographs look precisely like their clients want them to look.

• Social Media Managers: Social Media Managers are responsible for controlling and curating the social media accounts of their clients. On highly-trafficked, image-based platforms like Instagram or Facebook, this can mean posting photos intended to build a specific brand identity. Social Media Managers can use Lightroom to perfect the photos being shared by their clients and to make sure that those photos communicate ideas in line with the client’s brand.

How to Learn Lightroom

One of the best ways to learn a new skill, such as Adobe Lightroom, is to enroll in a live, professional training program. These courses, taught by expert instructors either in-person or online, offer students a space to receive hands-on training in the advanced features of Lightroom. Often, Lightroom instruction is paired alongside other complementary skills, such as Adobe Photoshop, to help students get the most out of their training. Additionally, many live courses and bootcamps represent industry-recognized skills training programs, ideal for preparing prospective professional creatives to work with Lightroom in their careers. Consider visiting Noble’s Classes Near Me tool to learn more about available in-person or live online Lightroom courses.

Another option for students wishing to learn Lightroom is to enroll in an on-demand or self-paced training program. These courses allow students to build their own schedule and learn Lightroom at their own pace. Self-motivated students may find this route preferable to more structured instruction, but these classes tend to lack the one-on-one professional instruction available in live classes. Whether a student opts for live instruction or self-paced learning, these professionally designed classes are ideal places to learn how to use Lightroom.

Students who want to learn the basics of Lightroom without enrolling in a costly professional training program may wish to explore some of the free options available to them. While these free options can’t replace more immersive learning options, they are a great place to get a feel for the program before enrolling in a paid course. Noble Desktop offers free resources and tutorials, such as a YouTube channel and a video seminar detailing the differences between Photoshop and Lightroom.

Read the full guide on how to learn Lightroom.

A Brief History of Lightroom

Adobe Lightroom was released as a companion to Adobe Photoshop in 2007. This version of the program was optimized for Desktop use, has since been rebranded as Lightroom Classic, and is still receiving support to this day. In 2017, Adobe released a new version of the program, which is designed to run on desktop computers, iOS, and Android mobile devices, and AppleTVs. The release of the new version of the program coincided with Adobe’s shift to its Creative Cloud platform.

Comparable Applications

The most similar application to Lightroom is Adobe Photoshop, the other raster-image editing tool available through the Creative Cloud. The two programs are closely linked, and it can be challenging to decide which one to use for a given project. Lightroom is optimized for making non-destructive edits to photographs immediately after taking a picture, which makes it ideally suited for on-site use or for users who will take dozens or even hundreds of photographs simultaneously. Photoshop is optimized for desktop computers and offers a wide range of tools for altering and editing photos. Many creative professionals will use both programs regularly.

Noble Desktop provides users with a free introductory seminar that explains the difference between the two applications in greater detail.

Key Insights

• Adobe Lightroom is a photo editing and storage application available through the Adobe Creative Cloud.
• Lightroom lets users store and edit their photographs on the fly, performing non-destructive manipulations immediately after taking a photo.
• Lightroom is available as part of an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, and the monthly cost will range from $9.99 to $54.99 a month depending on the services a user receives.
• Lightroom is used in many different creative fields, and learning Lightroom is a boon to any professional who uses another Creative Cloud program.
• Photoshop and Lightroom serve different but complementary purposes, and learning one of the programs will help users master the advanced functionalities of the other.
• Noble Desktop offers comprehensive Lightroom training in both live online and in-person formats.

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.