The Adobe

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Chapter 4 Making Minor Adjustments

The Adobe Lightroom eBook for Digital Photographers

Step One:

If you want to make the exact same

change to a number of similar photos,

then this couldn’t be easier: you start by

Command-clicking on all the photos you

want to have the exact same adjustments

applied to (as shown here).

Step Two:

Now, just head over to the Quick

Develop panel and any changes you

make here will automatically be applied

to every selected photo (here I just sim-

ply turned on the Convert Photograph to

Grayscale checkbox, and all the selected

photos are then converted to grayscale,

as shown here).

Editing Multiple

Images the Easy Way

With digital photography, and “free” film, we’re pressing that shutter release more

than ever and instead of just editing 24 or 36 photos, we’re importing and editing

hundreds. That’s why it’s so important to be able to edit one photo and apply

those same edits to dozens, or even hundreds, of photos taken under similar light-

ing conditions. Here are a few different ways to make an edit once and have it

applied to as many photos as you’d like, quickly and easily.

©SCOTT KELBY

57Chapter 4Making Minor Adjustments

Continued

The Adobe Lightroom eBook for Digital Photographers

Step Three:

More likely, you’ll be performing your

edits all on one photo, and then if you’re

happy with some or all of your edits,

you’ll choose which other photos you

want to have those same edits applied to.

Start by choosing a photo and then make

your adjustments in the Quick Develop

panel (in the example shown here, I

increased the exposure and contrast by

clicking on the right arrow button for

each setting three times. I changed the

white balance to Cloudy by choosing it

from the White Balance pop-up menu,

and then I lowered the saturation a bit

to remove some of the green from the

photo). Now, click on the Copy Settings

button (shown circled in red here).

Step Four:

This brings up the Copy Settings dialog

(shown here). This is where you get to

choose which of the adjustments you

applied to the first photo that you want

applied to other photos you select.

(Note: If most of the checkboxes here

sound unfamiliar, it’s because most of

them are in the full Develop module,

instead of just Quick Develop.) I want

to apply just some of the changes I

made to the other photo, so first click

the Check None button (so all the

choices are unchecked), then only turn

on the checkboxes for White Balance

and Saturation, and then click the Copy

button. Now, only those two edits are

copied into memory—my exposure and

contrast changes are ignored.

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Chapter 4 Making Minor Adjustments

The Adobe Lightroom eBook for Digital Photographers

Step Five:

Press-and-hold the Command key, go to

the Grid view, and click on all the photos

that you want to have the same white

balance and saturation changes applied

to. Now, near the bottom of the Quick

Develop panel, click on Paste Settings

(it’s shown circled in red), and just those

two corrections that you applied to the

first image will now be applied to all your

selected images (as shown here).

Step Six:

If you’ve got hundreds (or thousands)

of photos to process, instead of copy-

ing-and-pasting your changes from one

photo to a group of other photos (too

slow), try Synchronize, which works par-

ticularly well when all your photos are in

the same collection. Here’s how it works:

You click on the photo that has the look

you like (in this case, I just applied the

Antique Grayscale preset to one image),

then press Command-A to select all

the other photos in your collection (or

Quick Collection). You’ll notice that your

selected photo has a thicker white border

around it, so you know which photo is

your source for the changes. Now press

the Synchronize button (shown here

circled in red).

59Chapter 4Making Minor Adjustments

The Adobe Lightroom eBook for Digital Photographers

Step Seven:

As you can see, the Synchronize Settings

dialog looks exactly like the Copy Settings

dialog. In this case, since we used a pre-

set, I’m not sure which settings where

actually used, so click the Check All but-

ton (so we’re sure we got everything),

then click the Synchronize button (as

shown here).

Step Eight:

Now those edits are applied to every other

photo in your collection (as shown here).

Photo by Scott Kelby Exposure: 1/125 Focal Length: 46mm Aperture Value: ƒ/4.5