Editor's note: The 2026 class of my Lightroom Classic Secrets course is open for enrollment now. Learn the tips, techniques and secrets used by the Lightroom masters. Click here for the details. Thanks for reading, Andrew.
The first exercise I’m going to give the students enrolled in my new course Clean Up Your Mess In Lightroom Classic is to think about their photography goals.
The reason is that when you know your photography goals, you can use Lightroom Classic to help you achieve them.
For example, a friend of mine told me that she’d like to have a website showcasing her nature photography.
Now she has a goal, she can set up Collections in Lightroom Classic to help her achieve it.
I’ve reproduced the exercise below. You’ll find it useful even if you don’t enroll in the course.
Make something you can hold in your hand
But first, I’d like to explore another important idea – the importance of making physical objects with your photos.
For most photographers these are prints, photo books and zines. The more arty amongst you may also use printed photos in collages and other artworks.
Prints, photo books and zines are important because they will last the longest.
By comparison, a website will disappear the moment you stop paying your hosting fees. Your Adobe Portfolio website will disappear when you cancel your photography plan subscription.
Prints, photo books and zines are also your legacy to your children and other family members. Older readers will be thinking about their legacy and how to pass photos onto family.
But this also applies to younger readers If you’re a young photographer in your twenties, making prints, photo books and zines is a great way of both organizing your best photos and presenting them in ways you can enjoy for many decades to come. Zines especially, which are easy and inexpensive to make, are like a visual journal of your life journey.
What are zines?
Zines are like small, paperback photo books. They’re booklets printed on high quality photo paper.
Zines are great. They’re my favorite medium. If I could go back in time 20 years I’d tell my younger self to make as many as possible.
They’re easy to make and inexpensive to get printed. They have less photos than photo books which makes them easier to design.
Here are a couple of recent zines I made for my flower and garden photography.
Photo books are bigger, more serious projects. They’re longer and more expensive to make, so you spend more time on the design process. This adds friction and increases the chance that the project stalls and doesn’t get finished.
With those thoughts in mind, here’s the exercise from the course.
Exercise: Why do you use Lightroom Classic?
The aim of this exercise is to get you thinking about what you want to use Lightroom Classic for and how you want to use your photos.
The big question: what do you do with your photos after you’ve developed them? Make a list, using the suggestions below if needed.
Hobbyist photographers mostly want to do some or all of the following:
- View and organize photos
- Find their best photos easily
- Print photos
- Make zines and photo books
- Make web galleries for friends and family
- Make Adobe Portfolio websites (both personal and public)
- Organize photos by theme, project, place, people, time (linear) or a mixture
- View galleries in Lightroom for mobile
- Prepare photos for blogs and other personal websites
- Submit photos to portfolio websites like Ignant or Monovisions
- Upload photos to social media, especially Instagram
Pro photographers have more specialized needs. For example, a wedding photographer (in addition to the reasons listed above) may need to:
- View and develop photos fast (time is money)
- Archive past clients
- Find past clients fast
- Prepare web galleries for client viewing (but may use specialized software for this)
While a commercial photographer may need to:
- Archive past jobs
- Find past jobs fast
- Shoot tethered
- Interact with clients and art directors (for example, by putting photos into a synced Collection that a client or art director can view in Lightroom for mobile)
A stock photographer needs:
- Good organization and extensive keywording
While all pros need to prepare photos for:
- Blogs and websites
- Portfolios (physical and online)
- Books, cards and other promotional material
Your list is important. Once you know what your goals are, you can set the 12 Step System up to achieve them.
Note: The 12 Step System is explained in the course.
Closing thoughts
Was that useful? Different photographers’ needs can vary wildly. But one of the great things about Lightroom Classic’s Library module is that it can cope with just about anything you can think of.
The easiest and most robust way of organizing your photos is through Collections and Collection Sets. If you missed this, check out last week’s article How To Use Organizational Metadata In Lightroom Classic for more detail.
Mastering Lightroom Classic: Book One – The Library Module
You can learn more about using Collections to organize your photos in my best-selling ebook Mastering Lightroom Classic: Book One – The Library Module.
