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Edit photos

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Learn how to edit photos using different controls and presets in Lightroom (desktop).

Lightroom offers various features and tools to help you refine your photos. Try out the editing tools in Lightroom to make precise adjustments to your photos and achieve a creative result. You can also share your edited photos with fellow photographers and the Lightroom Community.

Note:

Working with Lightroom on your mobile devices? See Edit photos in Lightroom for mobile (iOS) and Edit photos in Lightroom for mobile (Android).

To know more about editing videos in Lightroom, see Edit Videos.

To begin editing a photo using any of the Edit controls, follow the steps below:

Select icon to bring up the My Photos panel. You can either select Cloud or Local to bring up your photos.

Cloud

Select this option to access photos that are synced and stored in Lightroom cloud.

Local

Select this option to directly access photos stored locally on your device. You don't need to import or sync the images. The edits will be automatically saved once you edit the locally stored pictures in Lightroom.

Tip:

Learn more about how to access photos in Lightroom.
If you're in Photo Grid () view or Square Grid () view, select the photo that you want to edit. Now, select () icon in the toolbar at the bottom to switch to the Detail view.

If you're already in Detail () view, select the photo that you want to edit from the filmstrip appearing at the bottom of your current selection.

Note:

The Edit controls are only available in Detail view. Starting with the October 2023 release of Lightroom, you can access Point Color to make adjustments to specific colors in a photo.
To bring up the Edit panel in Detail view, select () icon at the upper-right corner.

Shadow and Highlight clipping indicators

You can view Highlight and Shadow clipping indicators in the upper corners of the histogram to check areas in your photo that are either too light or dark, respectively, as you make edits.

To view highlight and shadow clipping in your photo, follow these steps:

In the Detail () view, select a photo that you want to edit. Select () icon at the upper-right corner to view the Edit panel.
In the Edit panel, select the three-dot menu icon and select Show Histogram.
In the Histogram:

The shadow clipping indicator.

The highlight clipping indicator.
- If the upper-left clipping indicator is illuminated (the triangle in the clipping indicator is white), it implies that shadows are clipped in your photo. Click the illuminated indicator to view the shadows in your photo. The shadows are displayed as a blue overlay mask.
- If the upper-right clipping indicator is illuminated (the triangle in the clipping indicator is white), it implies that highlights are clipped in your photo. Click the illuminated indicator to view the highlights in your photo. The highlights are displayed as a red overlay mask.
Re-click the upper-left or upper-right illuminated clipping indicator to hide the respective clipping in the photo.
Note:
Alternatively, you can press the J key to show or hide the shadow and highlight clipping in the photo.

Right-click (Windows)/Cmd-click (macOS) the Histogram and deselect Show Clipping in Histogram to hide the Histogram clipping indicators.

In this article, you can learn more about:

Presets
Profile
Light
Color
Effects
Detail

Optics
Lens Blur
Geometry
Copy & Paste the settings
Healing
Local Adjustments
Versions

Apply Presets in Lightroom

Select the Presets icon in the right panel.
Select from the following:
- Recommended These presets are automatically provided based on your photo, with the help of Adobe Sensei. The results can change with time, even for the same image. Use the given carousel options such as Subtle, Strong, B&W, and more to easily filter these presets.
- Premium These presets are updated with every release and include categories like Travel, Cinematic, Adaptive Presets (Portraits, Subject, and Sky), Seasonal, subject-wise presets, etc.
- Yours These are all the presets you've created or saved and all the default presets included with Lightroom.
Note:
Partially compatible presets are included in the panel.

In Recommended Presets, hover over the preset thumbnail and click More like this to view more similar presets. You can also click the three-dot icon in the thumbnail to view who the preset is from, follow the author, save the preset, or create an edit Version.
To preview the effect of a preset, hover over the thumbnail in the Presets panel. To apply a preset to the photo, simply click the preset.
Use the Amount slider to adjust the intensity of the preset. You can start from 0 and go up to 200.

Preset Amount Slider

Create a User Preset in Lightroom

You can create and save custom-developed presets based on the current edit control settings (in the Edit panel) of the selected photo.

In the Presets panel, click the three-dots () icon and choose Create Preset from the pop-up menu.
In the New Preset dialog that appears, specify a name for your preset. Click Save.

The saved preset is added in the list of User Presets in the Presets panel.

Update a User preset in Lightroom

In the Presets panel, expand the User Presets group.
Select a user preset to apply it on the photo and then modify the edit settings (in the Edit panel) as required.
Now, right-click the user preset and select Update With Current Settings option in the pop-up menu.

Export Presets in Lightroom

Select the Presets Icon on the top right (Shift+P), select Premium or Yours tab.
Right-click the preset that you wish to export and then select Export.
Select the location where you want to export the Preset. Your Preset will be exported as an XMP file.

Delete a User Preset in Lightroom

In the Detail view, select the Presets icon in the sidebar.
In the Presets panel, right-click a user preset and choose Delete from the pop-up menu.
In the Delete Preset dialog, click Delete to confirm the action. Otherwise, click Cancel.

Manage Presets in Lightroom

Lightroom allows you to show or hide various preset groups that are displayed in the Presets panel.

Note:

Your settings to show or hide preset groups are specific to each computer or device. For example, you can hide some preset groups on Lightroom desktop, but they will still be visible in Lightroom on your mobile device and vice versa.

In the Detail view, select the Presets icon in the sidebar.
In the Presets panel, click the three-dots () icon and choose Manage Presets from the pop-up menu.
Under Manage, select the preset groups that you want to show in the Presets panel. Deselect the preset groups that you want to hide from the Presets panel.
Click Back to navigate back to the Presets panel.

Profile

Note:

Presets and Profiles (including third-party, custom user presets and profiles) sync automatically across Lightroom desktop and mobile. However, the custom user presets and profiles do not sync with Lightroom Classic desktop.

Profiles allow you to control how colors and tonality are rendered in your photos. The profiles provided in the Profile panel are intended to serve as a starting point or foundation for making image edits.

Applying a profile on your photo doesn't change or overwrite the value of other edit control sliders. Therefore, you can make edits to your photos as you like and then choose to apply a profile on top of your edited image.

Browse and apply profiles

To browse and apply profiles, do the following:

If you're in Photo Grid () view or Square Grid () view, select a photo that you want to edit. Now, click () icon in the toolbar at the bottom to switch to Detail view.

If you're already in Detail () view, select a photo that you want to edit from the filmstrip appearing at the bottom of your current selection.

Click () icon at the upper-right corner to bring up the Edit panel.

In the Profile panel at the top, use the Profile pop-up menu to quickly access Adobe Raw profiles. To view other available profiles, click Browse.

Types of Profiles available in the Profiles tab.

Note:

When you import photos, Adobe Color and Adobe Monochrome profiles are applied by default to color and black-and-white photos respectively.
Expand any of the profile groups (explained below) to view the profiles available in that group.

Note:

While browsing the profiles in the Profile panel, click the three-dot menu to access the viewing and filtering options. You can choose to view the profiles as a List, as Grid thumbnails, or Large thumbnails. You can also filter the profiles to be displayed by 'type' - Color or B&W.

Favorites:

Displays profiles that you've marked as favorite. See Add a profile to Favorites.

Adobe Raw profiles

Creative profiles for raw and non-raw photos

Creative profiles work on any file type including raw photos, JPEGs, and TIFFs. These profiles are designed to create a certain style or effect in your photo.

Artistic: Use these profiles if you want the color rendering in your photo to be more edgy, with stronger color shifts.

B&W: Use these profiles to get optimal tone shifts required for black and white work.

Modern: Use these profiles to create unique effects that fit in with the modern photography styles.

Vintage: Use these profiles to replicate the effects of vintage photos.

Profiles for raw photos

The following profile groups appear when you are editing a raw photo.

Adobe Raw: Adobe Raw profiles significantly improve color rendering and provide a good starting point for editing your raw images. Adobe Color profile─which is designed to provide a good color/tone balance for any image─is applied by default to the raw photos that you import in Lightroom.

Camera Matching: Displays profiles based on the camera make/model of your raw photo. Use Camera Matching profiles if you prefer the color rendering in your raw files to match what you see on your camera’s display screen.

Legacy: Displays legacy profiles that were also provided in the earlier versions of the Lightroom app.

Artistic profiles

Note:

When you apply any of the Artistic, B&W, Modern, and Vintage profiles, Lightroom provides an additional Amount slider that allows to control profile intensity.
Move the pointer over any profile to preview its effect in your photo. Click the profile to apply it to your photo.

Add a profile to Favorites

To add a profile to the Favorites profile group:

When browsing the profiles in the Grid or Large view, hover on the profile thumbnail and click the star icon that appears at the upper-right corner of the thumbnail.
When browsing the profiles in the list view, hover on the profile and click the star icon that appears next to the profile's name.

Import profiles

You can import third-party camera profiles in XMP format. Do the following:

In the Profile panel, click Browse.
Click the three-dot icon at the upper-right corner of the Profile panel. Then, select Import Profiles option from the pop-up menu.
In the Import Profiles dialog that appears, browse to the required path and select one or more XMP profiles.
Click Import.

Manage profiles

Lightroom allows you to show or hide various profile groups that are displayed in the Profile browser - Adobe Raw, Camera Matching, Legacy, Artistic, B&W, Modern, Vintage, or any other profiles that you've imported.

To show/hide profile groups in Lightroom, follow the steps below:

Note:

Your settings to show/hide profile groups is specific to each computer or device. For example, you can hide some profile groups in Lightroom desktop but they will still be visible in Lightroom on your mobile device and vice versa.

Click () icon at the upper-right corner to bring up the Edit panel.

In the Profile panel at the top, click Browse.
Click the three-dot icon at the upper-right corner of the Profile panel. Then, select Manage Profiles option from the pop-up menu.
Under Manage, select the profile groups that you want to show in the Profile browser. Deselect the profile groups that you want to hide from the Profile browser.
Click Back to navigate back to the Profile browser.

Profile browser now displays only those profile groups which you've selected using the Manage Profiles option.

Light

Using the slider controls provided in the Light panel, you can adjust the overall tonal range of your image. Learn more about the local adjustments within the Light tool.

Note:

In the Light panel, click the AUTO button to have Lightroom automatically apply the best edits for these slider controls in your photos: Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks, Saturation, and Vibrance.

Fine-tune the tonal scale using the Curve

Curve in the Light panel gives you greater control over the tonal range and contrast in your photo.

The horizontal axis represents the original tonal values (input values), with black on the left and progressively lighter values toward the right. The vertical axis represents the changed tone values (output values), with black on the bottom and lighter values progressing to white at the top.

If a point on the curve moves up, it becomes a lighter tone; if it moves down, it becomes darker. A straight, 45-degree line indicates no changes to the tonal scale; the original input values exactly match the output values.

Tone Curve in the Edit panel — Editing the Parametric Curve

To adjust the Curve, select the Curve and drag it up or down. As you drag, the affected region and the new tonal value are displayed in the lower-right corner of the tone curve.

You can adjust the Point Curve in the Red, Green, and Blue Channels or all three channels simultaneously. Do the following to select a Channel and adjust its Point Curve:

Point Curve in the Edit panel — Representative Point Curve screenshot showing Control Points.

Choose a Point Curve option: RGB Channels, Red Channel, Green Channel, or Blue Channel.
Select the curve to add a Control Point. To remove a Control Point on the curve, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) and choose Delete Control Point from the menu. Drag a point to edit it.
(Optional) Choose an option from the Curve dropdown (at the lower-right corner): Linear, Medium Contrast, or Strong Contrast.
To return to a linear curve anytime, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (macOS) anywhere in the graph and choose Reset Channel.
Use the Refine Saturation slider to adjust saturation in RGB Channel.

Color

Make targeted edits with Color Mixer

The Color Mixer gives you greater control over targeted colors in your photo. With this, you can adjust specific colors sampled from the desired area where you drag the pointer, enabling you to adjust the hue, saturation, or luminance for the colors directly under the pointer.

To adjust colors using the Color Mixer tool:

Select the icon in the floating toolbar to show Color Mixer controls. Choose the setting you want to adjust: Hue, Saturation, or Luminance.
Move the pointer over a color that you want to adjust in the photo. Then, drag horizontally in the photo to increase or decrease the selected setting for that color. Dragging right increases values; dragging left decreases values.

Fine-tune individual color in a photo with Point Color

Achieve precise, accurate, and detailed color refinements in a photo using the Point Color control. You can now select and refine an individual color in a photo across Hue, Saturation, and Luminance. Point Color can also be used with Masking, giving greater control over specific colors without changing the vibrancy of the entire image.

Use the picker to select a specific color in the photo or color selector from the Color Field. A swatch of the selected color will be created next to the picker. You can create and store up to eight swatches at a time.
From the panel, refine your selection with the Hue Shift, Saturation Shift, and Luminance Shift sliders. You can view the before and after shifts in the image reflecting on the color bar below the Color Field. The original color is displayed on the first half of the bar, and the shifted color is displayed on the second half.
The Range slider controls the range of the affected colors. You can make specific refinements to the Hue Range, Saturation Range, and Luminance Range.
You can select Visualise Range to view only the areas affected by the current color selection.

Tip:

You can reset the settings for the sliders by selecting Reset or double-clicking on the applied setting.

Add color tint to your photos with Color Grading

The Color Grading feature lets you add a color tint to a photo's shadows, mid-tones, and highlights. You can explore this option to stylize your images by adding a color from the opposite color wheel to make shadows and highlights appear more prominent.

Select a color by dragging the color wheel. You can manually adjust the color grading using the Midtones, Shadows, and Highlights sliders.
You can select either of the three options by choosing the specific icons from the menu bar and making precise adjustments to the required areas.
Select Global if you wish to add a tint to the entire image. You can manually adjust the Hue, Saturation, and Luminance.
Work with Blending and Balance sliders to create a transition between Midtones, Shadows, and Highlights.

Effects

Texture:

Smoothens or accentuates textured details in your photo. Move the slider to the left to smoothen details; move it to the right to accentuate details. When you adjust the Texture slider, the color or tonality does not change.

Clarity:

Changes the contrast around the edges of objects in your photo. Move the slider to the left to soften edges; move it to the right to increase edge contrast.

Dehaze:

Move the slider to the left to add simulated haze; move it to the right to remove haze.

Vignette:

Makes the outer edges of the photo lighter or darker. Adjust the Vignette sliders:

Feather: Lower values reduce softening between the vignette and the vignette’s surrounding pixels. Higher values increase the softening.
Midpoint: Lower values apply the Amount adjustment to a larger area away from the corners. Higher values restrict the adjustment to an area closer to the corners.
Roundness: Lower values make the vignette effect more oval. Higher values make the vignette effect more circular.
Highlights: Controls the degree of highlight contrast preserved when Amount is negative. Suitable for photos with small highlights, such as candles and lamps.

Detail

Using the slider controls provided under the Detail panel, you can sharpen your photo to enhance edge definition and bring out detail, as well as remove image noise that can degrade image quality. Image noise includes luminance (grayscale) noise, which makes an image look grainy, and chroma (color) noise, which is usually visible as colored artifacts in the image. Photos taken with high ISO speeds can have noticeable noise.

Sharpening:

Move the slider to the right to sharpen details.

Radius: Adjusts the size of the details that sharpening is applied to. Photos with fine details may need a lower radius setting. Photos with larger details may be able to use a larger radius. Using too large a radius generally results in unnatural-looking results.
Detail: Adjusts how much high-frequency information is sharpened in the image and how much the sharpening process emphasizes edges. Lower settings primarily sharpen edges to remove blurring. Higher values are useful for making the textures in the image more pronounced.
Masking: Controls an edge mask. With a setting of zero (0), everything in the image receives the same amount of sharpening. With a setting of 100, sharpening is mostly restricted to those areas near the strongest edges.

Denoise

Automatically correct noisy images using AI-powered Denoise.

Noise Reduction:

Move the slider to the right to reduce luminance noise, manually.

Detail: Controls the luminance noise threshold. Useful for noisy photos. Higher values preserve more detail but may produce noisier results. Lower values produce cleaner results but may also remove some detail.
Contrast: Controls luminance contrast. Useful for noisy photos. Higher values preserve contrast but may produce noisy blotches or mottling. Lower values produce smoother results but may also have less contrast.

Color Noise Reduction:

Move the slider to the right to reduce color noise.

Detail: Controls the color noise threshold. Higher values protect thin, detailed color edges but may result in color speckling. Lower values remove color speckles but may result in color bleeding.
Smoothness: Higher values apply a softened effect to the speckled color tones.

Grain:

Move the slider to the right to add film grain.

Size: Controls grain particle size. At sizes of 25 or greater, blue is added to make the effect look better with noise reduction.
Roughness: Controls the regularity of the grain. Move left to make the grain more uniform; move to the right to make the grain more uneven.

Optics

Camera lenses can exhibit different types of defects at certain focal lengths, f-stops, and focus distances. You can correct and minimize these issues using the options provided in the Optics panel.

Correct chromatic aberration

Chromatic aberration appears as a color fringe along the edges of objects. It is caused by the failure of the lens to focus different colors to the same spot, aberrations in sensor microlenses, and by flare.

Chromatic Aberration:

Select this option to automatically correct blue-yellow and red-green lateral fringes in your image.

Enable lens corrections

Lightroom includes numerous lens profiles, which can be used to correct common lens aberrations such as geometric distortion and vignetting. The profiles are based on metadata that identifies the camera and lens used to capture the photo, and then compensates accordingly.

In the Optics panel, select the Enable Lens Corrections check box.

Enable Lens Correction

Lightroom automatically selects a matching lens profile based on the camera model, focal length, f-stop and focus distance information in your photo's metadata.

Cameras with built-in lens profile support

Lens correction for all Micro 4/3 (MFT) lenses and cameras, including Panasonic, Olympus, and other cameras (Fuji X, Leica Q, plus many point-and-shoot models from Canon) happens automatically without your interaction.

If your lens is supported automatically, Lightroom displays the message 'Built-in Lens Profile Applied' in the Optics panel. Click the info icon to view Lens Profile information.
(Optional) If Lightroom is unable to find a matching lens profile automatically or if you want to change the automatic selection, do the following:
1. Click the current lens profile to change the automatic selection or click Manually Select a Profile if Lightroom couldn't find a lens profile automatically.
2. In the Select a Lens Profile dialog box, select a Make, Model, and Profile.
The lens profiles that are available depend on whether you’re adjusting a raw or a non-raw file. For a list of supported lenses, see Supported lenses.

Select a Lens Profile dialog

Manually select a profile
If desired, customize the correction applied by the profile by using the following sliders:

Distortion Correction:

The default value 100 applies 100% of the distortion correction in the profile. Values over 100 apply greater correction to the distortion; values under 100 apply less correction to the distortion.

Lens Vignetting:

The default value 100 applies 100% of the vignetting correction in the profile. Values over 100 apply greater correction to vignetting; values under 100 apply less correction to vignetting.

Defringe

The Defringe controls help identify and remove color fringing along high-contrast edges. You can remove color fringes caused by longitudinal chromatic aberrations and reduce some of the colorful artifacts that the Remove Chromatic Aberration tool cannot remove. To use this tool, follow these steps:

In the Optics panel, select the Defringe icon at the upper-right corner to view the Defringe controls.

Click the Defringe icon.
Depending on which hue you want to remove, select the purple or green radio button and click the Fringe Selector.

Use the Defringe Selector tool to remove purple or green fringe hues.
Hover over the desired hue in the photo and click it to suppress or remove it.

Alternatively, use the Amount slider to specify how much of the hue you want to suppress or remove and the Hue slider to specify the range of the selected hue.

Lens Blur

Adjust depth in a photo using the AI-powered Lens Blur in Lightroom. You can use the Lens Blur tool to blur the background or foreground by making a depth map of the photo using Adobe Sensei.

Learn more about how to blur a photo in Lightroom.

Geometry

Starting with the December release of Lightroom (version 7.1), you can find the Geometry panel within the Crop tool.

A close distance to the subject and certain types of lenses can distort perspective and make straight lines appear bowed, tilted, or skewed in your photos. You can correct these issues using the controls in the Geometry panel.

The Upright control provides four automatic perspective correction options - Auto, Level, Vertical, and Full, as well as a manual Guided option. After applying Upright, you can refine the adjustment using the Manual Transform sliders.

Choose an Upright mode to correct perspective

Choose a photo to correct.

Original photo with distorted geometry.
(Recommended) In the Detail view, open the Edit control and navigate to the Optics panel. Select the Enable Lens Corrections check box.

Note:

Enabling lens corrections is highly recommended, before processing the photo with the Upright modes.
Navigate to the Geometry panel. From Upright menu, choose an option to apply the correction to the photo.

Guided:

Allows you to draw up to four guides on your photo to customize perspective correction.

Auto:

Corrects both vertical and horizontal perspective while balancing the overall image, preserving as much of the visible image area as possible.

Level:

Corrects horizontal perspective.

Vertical:

Corrects vertical perspective.

Full:

Combines all Upright correction types to automatically correct perspective.

Using Guided Upright Tool

If you chose the Upright mode as Guided, do the following:

1. Click the Guided Upright Tool icon and then draw the guides directly on your photo.

Guided Upright Tool

2. Once you have drawn at least two guides, the photo transforms interactively.
Cycle through the Upright modes until you find the most preferable setting.

All the Upright modes correct and manage distortion and perspective errors. The best setting varies from one photo to another. Experiment with the modes before deciding on the best possible mode for your photo.
(Optional) When correcting the perspective of a photo, you may get white areas near the image boundaries. To prevent this, select the Constrain Crop option to automatically crop the photo according to the original dimension.
Use Manual Transforms to fine-tune the perspective corrections - Distortion, Vertical, Horizontal, Rotate, Aspect, Scale, X Offset, Y Offset.

Original photo with distorted geometry.

Image with corrected perspective.

Manual Transforms

Copy and paste edits

Lightroom allows you to copy the edits that you've applied on a photo and paste it across multiple photos. You can also choose which edit settings you want to copy from a photo.

Select a photo.

If you're in Photo Grid () view or Square Grid () view, select a photo from which you want to copy the edit settings.

If you're in Detail () view, you can copy the edit settings from your current photo or choose the required photo from the filmstrip appearing at the bottom of your current selection.

Note:

Starting with the April 2023 release of Lightroom (version 6.3), you can also select the Copy Edit Settings option at the bottom of the screen to copy settings.
Copy all the edit settings from the selected photo.

To copy the current photo’s edit settings, do one of the following:
- From the menu bar, choose Photo > Copy Edit Settings.
- Press Control + C (Win) or Command + C (Mac) keys.
Choose which edit settings to copy from the selected photo.
To choose edit settings to copy from the selected photo:

From the menu bar, choose Photo > Choose Edit Settings To Copy. Alternatively, press Control + Shift + C (Win) or Shift + Command + C (Mac) keys.

From the Copy Settings dialog that appears, click the Select pop-up menu at the top and choose any of the following:

All: Selects all the edit settings groups.

Modified: Selects only the edits settings that you've modified or applied on the selected photo.

Default: Selects the default set of edit settings. Tools and Geometry settings are excluded by default.

None: Deselects all the edit settings.

You can also manually select or deselect specific settings by expanding the edit setting groups.

After making the selection, choose Copy.

Choose Edit Settings to Copy
Select one or more photos to which you want to paste the copied edit settings.

If you're in Photo Grid () view or Square Grid () view, select one or more photos to which you want to paste the edit settings.

If you're in Detail () view, select one or more photos from the filmstrip.
Paste the copied settings.
To paste the copied edit settings to the selected photos, do one of the following:
- From the menu bar, choose Photo > Paste Edit Settings.
- Press Control + V (Win) or Command + V (Mac) keys.

Reset photo edits

Lightroom allows you to restore your edited photo to its original state (when you first imported it). You can also restore your photo edits to the state when last opened it Lightroom. To reset your photo edits, you must be in Detail view.

Restore the photo to its original state

Do one of the following:
- From the menu bar, choose Photo > Reset To Original.
- Press Shift + R keys.
Restore the photo to its last opened state

Do one of the following:
- From the menu bar, choose Photo > Reset To Open.
- Press Shift + Command + R keys.

Healing tool in Lightroom

Work with the Healing tools to remove unnecessary spots, power lines, people, objects, red-eye, or other such distractions from a photo.

In the Loupe view, click the Healing panel icon on the right side of the screen.

Note:

Starting with the October 2022 release of Lightroom desktop, you can quickly remove unwanted objects and blemishes using the Content-Aware Remove tool.

Healing Brush

Select one of the following Healing Brush tools:

Content-Aware Remove: Removes unwanted spots and fills the selection with generated content from the sampled area.

Heal: Borrows the texture from the source area and matches it to the color and tone of the target area in the photo.

Clone: Replicates the pixels from the source area in the photo to the target area.

The tools transfer the texture borrowed from the source area to the target area. The Content-Aware Remove tool uses the content from a custom source, Heal tool, however, considers the colors and tones surrounding the target area and blends everything together. While the Clone exactly replicates the pixels from the source area to the target area.

healing-brush-tool — Healing Brush tool in Lightroom for desktop.

Change the size, feather, or opacity of the selected Healing tool as necessary.

Size. Specifies the diameter of the brush tip in pixels.
Feather. Controls the soft-edged transition between the brushed area and the surrounding pixels in the target area.
Opacity. Controls the opacity of the adjustment applied to the target area.

Note:

To change the sampled area that is selected by default, do one of the following:

Automatically - Click the handle of a selected area, and press the forward slash key (/). A new area is sampled. Press the forward slash key until you find a sample area that fits best. You can also click Refresh to automatically sample a new area.
Manually - Use the handle of the sampled area to drag and select a new area. This is applicable only for Heal and Clone. For Content Aware Remove press Cmd/Ctrl and drag an area on the image while a Content Aware Remove spot is selected.

To move and position the source or target area on the photo, drag the blue pin at the center of that area.

Healing options

Long press on the blue pin at the center of the target or source area to bring up the Healing Options context menu:

From the context menu, choose Content-Aware Remove, Heal, or Clone to switch between the tools.
Delete: Deletes the selected source-target area pair.
Reset Healing Brush: Resets and removes all the adjustments you've made using the Healing tools.

Keyboard shortcuts and modifiers

Circular spot:

Single click creates a circular spot, and automatically finds a source.
Control/Command + click to create a circular spot; drag to set the source of the spot. This option is only available for Heal and Clone.
Command/Control + Option/Alt + click to create a circular spot; drag to set the size of the spot.
Command/Control + Option/Alt + Shift + click to create a circular spot; drag to set the size of the spot.

Delete a selected area or spot:

Select a pin, and press Delete to remove the adjustment.
Press Option/Alt and click a spot to delete it.
Press Option/Alt and drag the mouse to draw a marquee, and automatically delete spots that are within the marquee.

Red Eye correction

Quickly correct red-eye in a photo with the Red Eye tool in the Healing panel. You can do one of the following:

Auto Correct red eye - Auto Correct option in the Red Eye tool automatically corrects red eye in a photo.

Correct red-eye manually - If you wish to manually correct red eye in a photo, click the Red Eye icon. Click and drag from the center of an eye to correct red eye. You can adjust the Pupil Size and Darken controls as preferred.

Apply local adjustments

Alert:

Starting from Lightroom 5.0 (October 2021 release), the following workflows no longer apply. To access the latest tools for local adjustments, see Masking in Lightroom.

Select a local adjustment tool. You can view the respective panel.

The Edit panel in Lightroom desktop.
Make adjustments to the selected areas using these sliders in the panel:
- Temp Adjusts the color temperature of an area of the image, making it warmer or cooler. A graduated filter temperature effect can improve images captured in mixed-lighting conditions.
- Tint Compensates for a green or magenta color cast
- Exposure Sets the overall image brightness. Applying an Exposure local correction can achieve results similar to traditional dodging and burning.
- Contrast Adjusts image contrast, mainly affecting midtones
- Highlights Recovers detail in overexposed highlight areas of an image
- Shadows Recovers detail in underexposed shadow areas of an image
- Whites Adjusts the white points in a photo
- Blacks Adjusts the black points in a photo
- Texture Smoothens or accentuates textured details in your photo. Move the slider to the left to smoothen details; move it to the right to accentuate details. When you adjust the Texture slider, the color or tonality does not change.
- Clarity Adds depth to an image by increasing local contrast
- Dehaze Reduces or increases existing haze in a photo
- Hue Change colors in specific areas without affecting the rest of the selection. Keep Use fine adjustment selected if you're correcting minute color details such as skin tone.
- Saturation Adjusts the vividness of the color
- Sharpness Enhances edge definition to bring out details in the photo. A negative value blurs details.
- Noise Reduces luminance noise, which can become apparent when shadow areas are opened.
- Moiré Removes moiré artifacts or color aliasing
- Defringe Removes fringe colors along edges
- Colorize Applies a tint to the area affected by the local correction. Select the hue by clicking the color swatch. The color effect is preserved if you convert the photo to black and white. Use the toggle button to enable this slider.
Note:

The Hue slider is added starting from Lightroom 3.3 (June 2020 release). Hue allows you to easily recolor objects locally, as well as make more subtle adjustments such as fine-tuning skin tones, without impacting colors in the rest of your photo.
Move a slider to the left to decrease the value and to the right to increase the value.

Create, view, and export Versions

Note:

Starting with the June 2023 release of Lightroom desktop (version 6.4), you can access the Versions panel from the sidebar menu.

Versions help you to quickly view and compare different edits made to the same photo. You can view automatically created Versions and also create Versions. Follow these steps to know how:

Open a photo in Detail view and apply the edits you like from the Edit panel.
Select the Versions icon in the sidebar.
In the Versions panel, select the Named tab. This tab lets you save your own Versions. The Auto tab, on the other hand provides a list of Versions that have been automatically saved for you from each editing session.

The Named tab in the Versions panel

The Auto tab in the Versions panel
To create a Version in the Named tab, click Create Version, enter the name, and then click Create. A Version of your latest edits is added to the Named tab of the Versions panel. You can continue to apply more edits to your photo and create several Versions this way.

Easily create a Version in Lightroom desktop
To view the edits in a Version, simply hover over a Version in the Named or Auto tab to see the preview in your photo.
In the Named tab, to rename or delete a Version, click the three-dot icon.

Rename or delete a Version from the three-icon menu
To save an Auto Version to the Named tab, click the three-dot icon next to the Version in the Auto tab and select Save as Named Version. You can also find an option to delete the Version from the three-dot menu.

Quickly save a Version from Auto to the Named tab
To export the preferred version of your photo, click the three-dot icon in front of the version and click Export with these settings. Customize the export settings as per your requirements and click Export.

Export preferred versions of a photo in Lightroom.

Common questions

Installing custom, third-party presets and profiles

For help instructions, see Import profiles.

Note:

If you're looking to migrate your Lightroom Classic develop presets into Lightroom, see Migrate Presets.

Install Lightroom on your desktop.
Launch Lightroom desktop.

When you launch Lightroom desktop (v1.4 June 2018 release or later) for the first time after installing or updating, the existing Lightroom Classic profiles and presets on your computer are automatically migrated to Lightroom.
(Optional) If you make any changes or add new presets to Lightroom Classic (after auto-migration to Lightroom desktop), do one of the following:

a. Migrate the new/updated presets to Lightroom manually

For Help instructions, see Migrate Presets.

b. Use the import dialog in Lightroom desktop
1. From the menu bar, choose File > Import Profiles & Presets.
2. In the Import dialog that appears, browse to the required path and select the presets that you want to import. Check the file location for Lightroom Classic presets on Win and macOS.
3. Click Import.
Make sure that the Lightroom app on your mobile device is updated to the latest version.

The presets and profiles that you've installed in Lightroom desktop will automatically sync with Lightroom on mobile.

From the menu bar, choose File > Import Profiles & Presets.
In the Import dialog that appears, browse to the required path and select profiles or presets that you want to import.
Click Import.

First, install the VSCO presets and profiles into Lightroom Classic.

VSCO preset packs include an installer that provides setup support for both Lightroom Classic and Lightroom.
- For Lightroom Classic, the installer in the VSCO packs installs presets, curves, and camera profiles.
- For Lightroom, it installs presets and curves but not the camera profiles.
Open Lightroom.
Manually import all VSCO camera profiles in Lightroom.

From the menu bar, choose File > Import Profiles & Presets.

In the Import dialog that appears, navigate to the path below and select the VSCO profiles that you installed in Step 1.

Win: C:\ProgramData\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles
Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/CameraProfiles

Click Import.

When you launch Lightroom for the first time after updating to the latest version, the existing profiles on your computer are automatically added. If you want to install new XRite or DNG Profile Creator profiles after the first launch, do the following:

Save the profiles from XRite or DNG Profile Creator to your desktop.
Open Lightroom.

From the menu bar, choose File > Import Profiles & Presets.
In the Import dialog that appears, browse and select the profiles that you saved in Step 1.
Click Import.

In Lightroom, choose File > Import Profiles & Presets from the menu bar.
In the Import dialog that appears, navigate to the path below and select the profiles that you want to import.

Win: C:\ProgramData\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles
Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/CameraProfiles
Click Import.

Do more with Lightroom

Lightroom is the complete photo service for professional and enthusiasts alike. Create and edit photos easily with Lightroom presets or customize to your liking anywhere with cloud photo storage management.

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