Loved following the adorable family around town. We stopped to pet horses, run in the splash pad, snack on Starbucks, and walk by the river. They’ll be even busier once baby No. 2 arrives!

Maternity sessions are such a sweet time to capture a family. So much change and joy is about to happen in this little family’s future, but these special moments just before the change happens is so sweet. If you wondering if a maternity session with your littles is worth while, I would whole-heartedly say it is.

If you’re looking to schedule your maternity session soon, let me know! I’d love to start planning with you.

The post Spending Time Around Town appeared first on Donya Luana.

Sometimes the Lightroom workspace is distracting.

That’s exactly why Adobe made Lights Out mode.

This feature allows you to dim or black out the Lightroom Classic workspace so that just your photo is visible on screen.

There are two levels to Lights Out, one where the screen is partly covered or dimmed, and the second which completely blacks out the rest of the screen. This is super handy when you want to eliminate distractions and focus only on the image you’re selecting or editing.

How to Use It

The Lights Out Function is another quick shortcut I use often. The simplest way to cycle through the levels of Lights Out is to press L. Here’s an example:

Of course, you can also do this through the menus: Windows > Lights Out

Customizing the Lights Out Level

There are another few features of the Lights Out function that you can control. Though the menus: Preference > Interface > Lights Out

First, you can change the color! Black is Lightroom’s default Lights Out mode, but you can change that to 5 shades of white, gray, and black. Personally I like using white to replicate what you often will see in online viewing.

You can also change the dim level.

Quick Gallery Viewing

One of the main reasons I use this feature is to do a basic slideshow for clients so they’re not distracted by the rest of the Lightroom interface or thumbnails.

Cropping

In the editing process, I like to use the partially dimmed Lights Out mode for cropping. I can more easily get a feel for what I’m cropping out, while still seeing the parts of the image I’m removing. And you can easily move to cropping the next photo by clicking Command + Arrow Key to speed up your cropping process.

Love this Lightroom tip and want to see more? Click here!

A big thanks to Amanda Donaho Photography for allowing me to share their catalog in this tutorial!

The post Lightroom’s Lights Out Mode appeared first on Donya Luana.

While the focus of my blog these days is to share Lightroom tutorials, my background in Lightroom stems from my desire to capture magical every day moments. I was a scrapbooker for many years, but as time has gone on, my documentation has transitioned more to photos and words in the form of a Day One journal. During that time, creating a simple preset became important to me so that I could easily touch up an image and record it in my journal.

I’m so excited to finally share my creation with you. This preset collection is something I use nearly every day and I hope that you too can find use in them as you document your days.

Without further ado, here’s the lightroom mobile preset and a look at each what each preset does.

Mobile Lightroom Presets by Donya Luana

01 Original

This is my go-to preset. It adds those creamy skin tones, it subtly warms the image a touch, and overall just gives a *chef’s kiss* to the image.

02 Clean & Bright

I tend to use this preset for photos taken indoors. It isn’t meant only for interior home shots, but this photo demonstrates the brightening and clean whites it applies to the image.

03 Pop

In the Original preset, bright colors are sometimes subdued. I generally don’t mind that, but occasionally I have images that I really want those colors to still be present. That’s where Pop comes into play. I also use this preset on my iPhone videos as well!

04 Lavendar Haze

My go-to sunrise and sunset preset.

05 Black & White Matte

I’m a black and white lover, and this is my favorite black and white preset of all time. It creates a soft filmy matte look, keeps that creamy feeling in the skin tones, and focuses your eye on the details that matter. This preset and the Original are my most used presets.

06 Black & White Grain

Occasionally there are images that need a touch more contrast and oomf and that’s where my second black and white preset comes in. The grain adds in a bit of texture to the image as well.

If you are using these new presets, I would love to hear from you and how you are enjoying them!

And if you haven’t, you can grab them right here!

With your purchase, you will get a complete step-by-step walk-through of how to install and use them. They work for both Apple iOS and Android OS and were created exclusively for Lightroom Mobile. 

I can’t wait to see all the beautiful memories you capture and create!

The post Mobile Presets for Your Everyday Snapshots appeared first on Donya Luana.

Oooh, I’m excited about this one! Shortcuts are my favorite Lightroom Hacks.

When you learn to use Shortcuts without even thinking about it, the time you save starts to add up!

After 10+ years of editing in Lightroom, these shortcuts are what I find myself routinely using, often without even realizing it. Sometimes it takes thinking back to the days of being a newbie Lightroom user, to remember the little hacks I hadn’t yet learned. So if you’re reading this, you’re likely learning them faster than I did!

This first one was such a game changer when Adobe added it to Lightroom.

Reference Mode

SHIFT + R

Easily compare photos in the catalog to ensure consistency through your edits. As a photo editor for other photographers, I use this frequently to ensure I’m matching my clients’ edits. But even when editing my own images, having a reference to compare to makes all the difference when I want to create consistent imagery.

Syncing

CTRL + OPT + S (mac) / CTRL + SHIFT + S (WIN)

This shortcut for syncing will bypass the Sync Settings dialog box, so you’ll want to make sure you already have what you want to sync already selected or unselected, but it sure is a speedy feature.

Lights Out Mode

L

Hide the busy interface of Lightroom and isolate your image or images. I love to use this when cropping through a set of images because it will hide the parts of the image that I’m cropping out.

Crop Tool

R

Speaking of cropping, when I find myself needing to make a speedy adjustment to an image, this shortcut is a must.

Virtual Copy

CMD + ‘ [apostrophe] (MAC) / CTRL + ‘ [apostrophe] (WIN)

Almost anytime I make a black and white image, I first create a virtual copy. 

A big thanks to Kortni and Chris Photography for allowing me to share their catalog in this tutorial!

Look for a cheat sheet of all the Lightroom Shortcuts? Check out my freebie section!

The post My 5 Most Used Lightroom Shortcuts appeared first on Donya Luana.

Yay, are you ready for another Lightroom Hack to simplify your editing workflow?

Today’s Lightroom tip made a big difference in my editing process years ago.

As I edit through a catalog, I will click on the photos in the Filmstrip to sync a group or select a new photo.

I constantly found myself accidentally clicking on the badges on these images, which would quickly transition me into a new module, stack or unstack a group, or even open up the crop tool.

These can certainly be handy shortcuts if you want them, but in my case, they were slowing me down because I’d have to back out of whatever transition it thought I wanted.

Until I found out I could “Ignore” those clicks with a simple setting. A simple setting change has now prevented me from these unwanted transitions for years.

Hopefully these unwanted clicks will be a thing of the past for you as well!

Looking for more helpful Lightroom hacks? Check out my Lightroom Tips here.

More of a visual learner? Here’s a video walkthrough:

The post Lightroom Tiny Tip: Ignore Clicks on Badges appeared first on Donya Luana.

Hey there! It’s Lightroom Hack learning time!

The Lightroom User Interface can be exceptionally overwhelming with so many different toolbars and panels.

One change I like to make to customize my Lightroom set up is to clean up the top panel of my workspace and eliminate unused options. It may be a small change, but the minimalist in me loves it.

Get rid of the “Book | Print | Map” options or whichever you don’t use by Ctrl-click-ing (Windows) or Command-click-ing (Mac OS) to bring up the option the check or un-checkmark which options you want visible.  I rarely use anything but Library and Develop so that’s what I keep shown, while everything else goes away.  

And to take it a step further, I often will close this panel altogether by clicking the arrow at the top, because most often I will use the keyboard shortcuts G and D to toggle between Library and Develop mode.

Looking for more helpful Lightroom hacks? Check out my Lightroom Tips here.

The post Lightroom Tiny Tip: Clean Up The Top Panel appeared first on Donya Luana.

If I’m not careful with my time, I can easily go a full work day with only a few hours worth of work actually completed. If you’re anything like me, some structure and strategy will greatly improve your focus.

Here’s 5 strategies that may help you!

1| Remove the phone from your office/desk

It’s amazing how addicted we can be to these devices! More than we admit to. It’s usually right about the time I get to a tricky image that my mind begins to wander and thinks, hey you haven’t posted on Instagram today yet, maybe you should just check the feed quickly and see if anything cool is happening. Removing the ability to open the Instagram app (or Facebook or CNN or, or, or…) by having the phone in another room makes me focus so much more. It keeps me on task and getting edits done.

2| Chrome Extensions

Even with the phone removed from my office, the computer is still accessible, which means I can still pop over to Facebook or any other distracting, attention grabbing website instantly. The Facebook Feed Erradicator and StayFocused Chrome extensions are two that I use to eliminate distractions and restrict the time I spend on social media and time wasting sites.

3| Toggl

I’m always tracking how much time it’s taking me to edit images and when I use Toggl, it’s like a race against the clock to get it done as quick as possible without stopping for distractions. Have you ever tracked your editing time before? I highly suggest giving it a shot! P.S. – Toggl‘s basic plan is totally free!

4| Blocking work in LR

Breaking down Lightroom catalogs into wedding categories, camera serial number, or any smaller bite sized chunk helps me feel like I’m getting somewhere fast. Kind of like when you’re running a 5k and you break it down by focusing on one mile at a time. This really helps me mentally chip away at a those 1000+ image galleries.

5| Keeping your mind engaged (but not too much)

Editing for hours on end can quickly become boring to the mind. Despite the gorgeous images I see on a daily basis, my mind wanders often. To keep myself focused on the the day’s edits, I like to keep my mind engaged with podcasts, long form interviews, or old tv shows. Anything that doesn’t require me to look up from my screen, but still entertains me.

With these strategies in place, you’ll have no problem getting edits done, make money, and grow your editing business!

The post 5 Strategies For Staying Focused While Photo Editing appeared first on Donya Luana.

Culling down your photos should be the first step in your editing process.

A lot of my favorite tips for Lightroom are tiny adjustments to your workflow that don’t feel like they’re doing a whole lot to speed up your editing process, but when you add those half-seconds together over a few hundred or thousand photos, it results in quite a bit of saved time.

Today’s tip is primarily aimed at speeding up your culling or rating process. The first thing I do after I import photos into Lightroom is start selecting my favorites by adding a flag (I tap ‘P’ to quickly flag a photo), but you can tap any number, 1-9 to quickly add a star rating (1-5) or color rating (6-9) if you’d prefer that rating system over a flag.

Instead of having to arrow over to the next photo after giving it a rating, making every photo a two keystroke operation, I use the Auto Advance option in Lightroom to automatically move on to the next photo once it’s rated.

You will find the option to turn on Auto Advance under the Photo menu, but it can only be turned on while in the Library module. If you’re having trouble finding the option, it may be that you are in Develop module rather than Library mode, so make note that you must be in Library module for the option to appear.

I’d love to hear how you like to rate your photos in Lightroom! Are you a star, color, or flag user? You can reach out to me here anytime!

The post Auto Advancing in Your Lightroom Culling Process appeared first on Donya Luana.

Did you know there’s a quicker way to transition between recently used Lightroom catalogs?

When I first began using Lightroom I put everything (yes, everything!) into one catalog.

I didn’t even realize having multiple catalogs was an option until I had 3 years worth of photos in a single catalog and it was running extremely slow.

A quick decision to break up my catalogs into yearly catalogs was made, and from there, I started sorting out client work into their own catalogs as well.

These days I am routinely switching between my personal yearly catalogs and the catalogs I am editing for clients. I may not finish an entire client catalog in one day and that evening I may want to quickly edit the a cute photo of my boys.

Instead of navigating through folders, which takes a bit of time no matter how organized you are, I made this setting tweak to Lightroom so that I can easily close up my personal photos and pick back up with those client edits.

Make This Settings Adjustment

Open the Preferences menu

Select ‘Prompt me when starting Lightroom‘ as your new option for ‘Default Catalog’.

From now on, Lightroom will ask you which catalog you’d like to view and edit from every time you open the program up.

For my personal use, typically this means I will be choosing between which yearly catalog I want to open.

As a photographer or photo editor, you can easily select which client/wedding catalog you would like to edit.

If you enjoyed this Lightroom trick on catalog organization or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out!

The post Lightroom Tiny Tip : Catalogs appeared first on Donya Luana.

1| Apple Trackpad

I love using the Apple Trackpad. I’ve given Wacom tablets a try twice and each time, as much as I wanted them to work out, it felt clunky.  I know several editor who love to use a tablet for editing, but I have found that the Apple Trackpad works just like a tablet, but additionally it allows for multi-touch gestures (like easily scrolling up/down, left/right, quickly toggling between applications) that I could not replicate with a tablet or other tool.  I often have one hand using the Track pad and the other using quick key (shortcuts) on the keyboard.

2 | Wrist Rest

This one is a bit of a personal preference and dependent upon your desk set up situation, but I quickly learned that I needed somewhere to rest my wrists while I’m using my computer for extended periods of time.  This white wrist rest was the perfect addition for my keyboard/trackpad combo and compliments my white desk very well.

3 | Dropbox

Over the years I have tried a few different ways of exchanging Lightroom catalog files with my clients, but Dropbox remains the easiest.  Having the app on my computer allows me to easily drag and drop the files when completed. Investing in a Dropbox Plus account is one of the very few costs of doing business I have and the 1 Terabyte of storage has been perfect.

4 | SSD External Drive

I recently added this SSD External Drive to my workflow as a way to keep my client files easily portable and organized.  Prior to using an external drive, I kept my client files in their own folder separate from my personal files, which worked great.  Occasionally I will edit away on my laptop, and the ability to quickly move the external drive from my iMac to the laptop makes the transition seamless.

5 | Podcasts/Audiobooks

I am a lover of learning!  This is probably one of my favorite perks of working as a photo editor. I get to listen to podcasts and audiobooks all day long. From learning business strategies to keeping up with political discussions to staying motivated with fitness podcasts, I listen to it all. Have a favorite podcast, let me know!

Do you use any of these tools for editing? What are 5 things you can’t edit in Lightroom without?

The post 5 Tools I Couldn’t Edit in Lightroom Without appeared first on Donya Luana.