20 awesome Lightroom tutorials for creating popular photo effects

• October 19th, 2015
• Tutorials

Adobe Lightroom is a powerful tool that can be used by both professional photographers and amateurs alike. With its numerous features, it is especially great for managing large amounts of photos. In addition, one of the best things about Lightroom is its ability to create unique photo effects that can enhance the overall look and feel of your photography.

In this blog post, we have compiled a list of 20 popular photo effects that you can easily recreate using Lightroom. These photo effects are not only worth trying out, but they are also easy to implement. Whether you are a long-time Lightroom user or just a beginner, you will not only learn a new effect, but you will also pick up a few tricks along the way.

Aside from the photo effects, Lightroom also offers other features that can help you take your photography to the next level. For example, it has a powerful editing tool that allows you to adjust exposure, contrast, and color balance. It also has a feature that can remove unwanted objects from your photos, as well as a tool that can straighten crooked lines.

In summary, Adobe Lightroom is a versatile tool that can help you manage and enhance your photography. With its advanced features and easy-to-use interface, it is definitely worth checking out if you haven’t already.

1. Building a Film Style Look in Lightroom

If there’s has been a noticeable trend in post-production in the past few years, it’s the enthusiasm for old school, film-style looks. Multiple preset packs and actions exist to take your images back in time. However, in this tutorial, we’ll learn how to build and customize our look in three easy steps in Adobe Lightroom.

2. How to Create a Grainy Matte Effect in Lightroom

Matte effects are pretty simple to create in Lightroom and it’s possible to give your photos a stylish film-like appearance with these simple steps. In this tutorial we’ll go through the steps for creating this matte effect, but if you want to take a shortcut you can download a preset that includes all of the effects used in this tutorial. Keep in mind that the specifics of your settings and adjustments may vary a little depending on the specific photo that you’re working with, so don’t afraid to experiment a little.

3. Tilt Shift Effect in Lightroom

<
Tilt shift is known in photography as a way of correcting distortions created by cameras on what regards to perspective. But an interesting effect that can be achieved in Lightroom is actually using the tools of what makes the Tilt Shift effect to make an image look tinnier than its actual size. This will give us the feel (most noticeable with buildings) that we are looking at a scale model rather than watching an aerial shot. Follow up this guide on how to create a Tilt Shift Effect in Lightroom to add a new cool looking feature to your digital portfolio!

4. How to Create a Soft Pastel Effect in Lightroom

In this tutorial you’ll walk through the process of creating a nice, soft pastel effect in Adobe Lightroom. At the end of the tutorial you’ll also be able to download a free preset that will apply the settings shown in the tutorial, so you can use the preset on your own photos if you don’t want to work through the steps. This pastel effect can be used with a wide variety of photos, but they tend to work very well with portraits and outdoor photos.

5. How to Make a Sharp Color Pop Effect in Lightroom

If your photo comes out looking a little dull some work in Lightroom can do wonders to make the colors pop and really bring the image to life. So let’s take a look at how you can easily make a sharp color pop effect in Lightroom. If you like this effect and you want to easily apply it to your own photos you can download a free preset here that will apply the settings used in this tutorial. The free preset is a sample from our set of Color Delight Lightroom Presets, which gives you a really big variety of different types of color effects that you can apply very easily.

6. Creating Beautiful Black & White Conversions in Lightroom

Lightroom makes it easy to convert a color photo to a black & white, but in order to get the best results you will need to do a little more than simply removing the color. Let’s take a look at how the Black & White Mix sliders impact your black & white conversions.

7. Creating HDR Effects in Lightroom and Photoshop

HDR processing can be a great option for creating powerful photographs, but you may not always have multiple exposures of the same shot. In a case where you don’t have 3, 5, or maybe even 7 different exposures to create a true HDR image you can still replicate the HDR look in Lightroom or Photoshop using a single exposure.

8. How to Create a Lomo Effect in Lightroom

The lomography look can be replicated in Lightroom for creating fun, vintage-style effects for your photos. The colors and vignetting created by toy cameras result in a distinct look, and in this tutorial we’ll go through the process of creating a lomo-inspired effect in Lightroom. And if you want to save a little bit of time, you can also download a preset created in this tutorial and put it to use in your own work.

9. How to Use Split Toning in Lightroom

Lightroom’s split toning sliders provide great opportunities to enhance your photos in several different ways, but if you have never used the split toning sliders it can be a little confusing.

10. How to Create a Nice Haze Effect in Lightroom

Haze can add a nice touch to outdoor photos, from nature photos to portraits. Recreating a hazy effect can easily be done in Lightroom or Photoshop. In this article we’ll go through the simple process of adding haze in Lightroom.

11. How to Create a Dramatic Portrait Effect in Lightroom

With many portraits you will want a soft and pleasing look, but that is not always the case. In this tutorial we’ll walk through how you can create an intense and dramatic portrait effect very easily in Lightroom. This effect will work very well with some portraits, especially when you want a rough or grungy feel.

12. How to Create an Awesome Cross Processed Effect in Lightroom

If you’re looking for a way to add some intrigue to a photo, applying a cross processing effect is one option. Cross processing in film photography involves intentionally processing film in chemicals intended for a different type of film. The results are unpredictable, but the shifts in color often creating a really interesting look.

13. How to Create a Powerful Dragan-Inspired Effect in Lightroom

Andrzej Dragan is well-know for his distinct style of portraits. In this tutorial we’ll walk through the process of creating a Dragan-inspired effect in Lightroom. The result will be a high-contrast photo with a rough, textured look and feel. This effect isn’t ideal for all portraits, but in the right situation it can help you to create powerful and impactful images.

14. How to Create a Cinematic Effect in Lightroom

In this tutorial we’ll go through the process of creating a cinema-inspired effect in Lightroom. The cinematic style works well with a lot of photos, and it is not difficult to create.

15. How to Create a Vintage Film Effect in Lightroom

Giving your digital photos a film-inspired effect is a great option and in this tutorial we’ll look at how it can be done very easily in Lightroom.

16. How to Get a Film-Inspired Look in Lightroom
In this tutorial you’ll walk through the process of creating a simple film-inspired effect. This is not intended to replicate a specific type of film, but rather give a general look that resembles a typical film style.

17. Easily and Selectively Desaturate Colors in Lightroom

In a matter of just a few seconds you can easily make one (or a few) of the colors in a photo pop.

18. How to Create a Vintage Photo Effect in Lightroom

With all the new technology, it can sometimes be nice to harken back to the past with retro or vintage photo effects. There’s a reason Instagram is so popular.

19. How to make a bleach bypass effect using Adobe Lightroom

Bleach bypass effect” on photos is a very popular effect now a days. Today we are going to learn how to give your photos a very cool bleach bypass effect by using Adobe Lightroom. Adobe Lightroom is a wonderful photo processing software, mostly used for adding presets on photos.

20. How to make a wonderful antique effect using Adobe Lightroom

“Antique effect” on photos is another popular effect mostly used in film posters now a days. Today we are going to learn how to give your photos a very cool antique effect by using Adobe Lightroom. Adobe Lightroom is a wonderful photo processing software, mostly used for adding presets on photos, but in this case presets are not going to give us good results. Suppose you have an underexposed photo you want to give a wonderful “Antique effect”.