Learn how to control the overall brightness of your image using the Blacks, Whites, Shadow, Highlights, and Exposure sliders inside of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic in this advanced tutorial.
Click here to download the examples in this video and play along! (Subscribers Only)
This video jumps right into professional-grade skills like using the Clipping Indicators to maximize detail as you move each of these tone control sliders around. If image processing with Adobe Lightroom is new for you then I urge you to start with the first video in this series where I cover the basics.
Come back to this tutorial please once you understand how each of these luminance sliders functions inside of Adobe Lightroom Classic’s Basic Panel or inside of the Adobe Lightroom CC for Mobile App’s Light Panel.
My goal when I am working on any digital image is to get as much detail as I possibly can out of my original raw capture. As a general rule, that means that I need to move the Whites and Blacks sliders first so that my image’s tonal range extends from almost inky black all the scale of brightness to almost paper white. By carefully positioning the Whites and Blacks sliders, and then fine-tuning those results with all of these other controls, I can carefully set the overall exposure for my improved photograph.
Now not every image is going to require the use of advanced skills like the Alt (PC) / Alt-Option (Mac) – Click trick as you move each of these sliders. There is no need locking on Lightroom’s exposure Clipping Indicators on for every picture. When it really matters though, like when Lightroom’s new Auto button fails you, now you will know what to do.
