Improve Your Developing Skills With Adobe Community

Do you ever get stuck for ideas when developing photos in Lightroom Classic? Or do you ever wonder what the alternatives to your own developing style are? If so, you’re in luck – you can find the answers in Adobe Community.

Adobe Community is one of Lightroom’s hidden secrets. It’s so well hidden that you can’t access it in Lightroom Classic. Instead, you need to use the Lightroom for desktop or mobile apps, or Lightroom for web. All these apps and services are included in your Photography Plan subscription.

What is Adobe Community?

Adobe Community is a place for seeing the work of other photographers,  learning how they develop their photos and viewing tutorials. It’s like a photo sharing network aimed at helping other photographers – without the politics! 

To start, open the Lightroom for desktop app, Lightroom for mobile or go to Lightroom for web at https://lightroom.adobe.com/ (and sign in with your Adobe ID).

There are four ways you can use Adobe Community to up your Lightroom skills. Let’s take a look at them.

1. Learn and Academy

There are two places to access Lightroom tutorials in Adobe Community.

The first is in Lightroom for desktop. Start by opening it up and then click on Learn (marked below). You can use the menus at the top to search for tutorials by subject.

The second is in Lightroom for web. But wait, there’s a bonus – click on the Academy option to reveal even more Lightroom and photography tutorials. There’s a treasure trove of photography and Lightroom learning here for you to enjoy. 

You can also visit the Academy without signing in at this url: https://lightroom.adobe.com/academy

Note that most of the tutorials are aimed at Lightroom app users, but you can apply the same techniques in Lightroom Classic.

2. Find new ways to develop your photos with Develop Presets

There are two ways to find alternative options to develop your photos in Adobe Community. The first involves opening a photo in the Lightroom for desktop or Lightroom for mobile apps, or in Lightroom for web, then letting Adobe’s AI recommend Develop Presets submitted by millions of users.

This is how it works.

1. In Lightroom Classic, add your photo (or photos) to a new synced Collection.

Note: You can more about synced Collections, including setting them up and using them, in Three Ways To Get Creative With Synced Collections

2. Select All then go to Photo > Create Virtual Copies. This lets you try out experimental edits on copies without losing any work you’ve done to the originals. It’s also a good way to compare the results with the originals. 

3. Open Lightroom (the screenshots below are from Lightroom for desktop, but you can use Lightroom for mobile or Lightroom for web).

4. Open a Virtual Copy in Detail to access the developing tools. Here you’ll see any adjustments already made in Lightroom Classic. 

5. Click/tap on the Presets button top right. Make sure the Recommended option is selected. You’ll see a set of thumbnails, each one representing a different Develop Preset provided by a community member.

6. Hover on a thumbnail to see the effect in the main window. You can click/tap on the keywords at the top to refine the Presets, or on the More like this button on any of the thumbnails. Click/tap a thumbnail to apply the Preset to your photo. Use Amount slider if required to reduce/increase intensity of effect. 

7. Now you can look at the develop settings to see how the Preset created the effect you see. You can make further edits here, or back in Lightroom Classic once the photo has synced. Click/tap the Compare button (marked below) to compare the new photo with the original, or use Compare View in Lightroom Classic.

3. See other photographers’ photos and download Develop Presets in Adobe Community

The second way of finding alternative developing options is to go to Adobe Community and look at photos uploaded by other photographers. Here’s the clever bit – many of those photos let you turn the Develop settings into a Develop Preset that you can download and import into Lightroom Classic. 

Here’s how it works.

1. Open Lightroom for desktop or mobile, or Lightroom for web, and click/tap on Community (the screenshots below are from Lightroom for mobile). Click the Featured heading. 

2. Scroll down and browse the photos (you can use the Subject Matter menu at the top to search photos by subject). 

3. See something that interests you? Click/tap on it to open the photo. On the right, you can see the Develop settings. 

4. If you like what you see then you can turn the Develop settings into a Develop Preset with the Save as Preset button (marked above). 

5. Choose the settings you want to include in the Preset (include all settings to make sure you don’t miss something important) and click/tap the Save button. 

6. Underneath the photo you can see Remixes – more versions of the photo created by other Lightroom users. You can click/tap on any of these to see the settings and turn them into new Develop Presets.

6. Open one of your photos in Detail view and click/tap the Presets icon. The new Develop Preset is in the Saved from Community group.

7. The Develop Preset automatically appears across Lightroom for desktop, Lightroom for mobile and Lightroom for web. 

To use a Develop Preset in Lightroom Classic, right-click, select Export and save the file on your hard drive. Select the folder opened by Lightroom so Lightroom Classic knows where to find it.

In Lightroom Classic go to the Presets panel, click the Plus icon and select Import Presets from the menu. Lightroom Classic automatically adds the imported Preset to a Saved from Community group in the Presets panel.

4. Follow photographers in Adobe Community

Another useful feature of Adobe Community is that you can follow photographers to see their latest photos and edits, and turn their Develop settings into brand new Develop Presets.

1. First, find your photographers. In Lightroom for desktop, Lightroom for mobile or Lightroom for web go to Community and click/tap the For You or Featured headings (the screenshots below are from Lightroom for desktop). 

2. Click/tap a photographer’s name to see their profile and all their photos. 

3. Click/tap the Follow button (marked above) to follow their work. 

4. To see the latest from photographers you’re following go to Community > My Profile and click/tap the Following heading.

Practical example

Here’s a practical example showing how I used Adobe Community to find a new way of developing a photo. 

1. I started with the following landscape photo. This screenshot shows how I chose to develop it in Lightroom Classic.

2. But I noticed that photographer Glyn Dewis had a photo of the same scene that looked completely different. It’s partly because of the weather conditions, but also due to the Develop settings.

I saved Glyn’s settings as a Preset, imported it into Lightroom Classic and applied it to my photo. This is the result.

3. Some further refinement and this is what I came up with.

Here you can see all three versions – my original photo (left), the photo with Glyn’s preset applied (center) and the final version after further edits (right).

Mastering Lightroom Classic: Book Two – The Develop Module

Learn more about Generative Remove and all aspects of developing photos in Lightroom Classic in my ebook Mastering Lightroom Classic: Book Two – The Develop Module