Interested in sharpening your Lightroom Skills? Below, we have compiled a list of the 9 best Adobe Lightroom courses that are available online. This list includes both free and paid Adobe Lightroom tutorials that will teach you everything you need to know to use the tool effectively – whether your goal is to be a highly-skilled creative professional, or just to use Adobe Lightroom in another role or for your own enjoyment.
But first, let’s answer an important question – what is Adobe Lightroom?
In short, Lightroom is a digital photography editing program. In the quest to nail the perfect shot, you’ll have to take lots of photos. Lightroom is popular among photographers and other creatives because, unlike other softwares, Lightroom can handle having thousands of post-shoot photos uploaded to it. In Lightroom, you can organize and manage your photos with ease. You can edit your images and to save time, you can apply the same settings to countless images. You can also whiten teeth, reduce red eye and do many other things. This editing feature is ‘non-destructive’, which means it doesn’t alter the original image.
To be able to use Lightroom properly, you don’t need years of training or experience. Instead, you can gather all the Lightroom skills to beautifully edit post production photos perfectly through online classes. In this article, I’ve gathered the best online Adobe Lightroom classes. They are suitable for a wide range of levels, budgets, and time frames. So, whether you’re a marketing executive looking to advance your skills, someone looking to make a full-time career in photography, or a small business owner who is wanting to cut costs and edit their own marketing photos, we guarantee that there will be a Lightroom class for you.
1. Fundamentals of Lightroom 1: Organize Files and Boost Your Workflow (Skillshare)
- Level: Beginner
- Completion time: 2h 20m
- Cost: 14-day free trial
- Certification: No
- Number of people who have completed the course: 9,526
- Course rating: N/A
Taught by Lotus Carroll, who is an artist and photographer with a passion for Adobe Lightroom, this Skillshare class will help you nail the perfect shot!
In this class, Lotus helps you to learn ways to use Lightroom efficiently and creatively. You’ll start by getting a feeler for Lightroom as Lotus introduces you to the software. You’ll then learn about file handling and how to important files. Lotus will also teach you how to organize your files, how to work with these organized photos and how to sort and share your work. You’ll also complete a class project where you must organize images in Lightroom yourself and work on these with Lotus. By the time you’ve finished this course, you should feel confident using Lightroom to produce beautiful images.
2. Adobe Lightroom: Finding Your Unique Editing Style (Skillshare)
- Level: Beginner
- Completion time: 1h 18m
- Cost: 14-day free trial
- Certification: No
- Number of people who have completed the course: 19,517
- Course rating: N/A
Taught by Sean Dalton, a professional photographer, this Skillshare class will cover everything you need to know about using Lightroom to edit photos.
Suitable for anyone who is looking to improve their Lightroom skills, during this course you will begin by discussing the steps you can take to find your unique editing style. Sean will show you how to edit in several different artistic styles, such as dark and moody or vintage. You will then dive into how to use Adobe Lightroom as a tool to bring your images to life. Finally, you will take a look at the editing process, important features and much more!
By the end of this class, you should have found your own unique editing style and should feel confident using Lightroom to produce breath-taking images.
3. Adobe Lightroom Classic CC & CC: Photo Editing Masterclass (Udemy)
- Level: All levels
- Completion time: 1h 18m
- Cost: $159.99
- Certification: No
- Number of people who have completed the course: 58,287
- Course rating: 4.3/5 (out of 6,700 ratings)
Taught by Phil Ebiner and Jon H, who are both experienced and award winning instructors, this short Udemy class is designed for anyone who is wanting to make their photos look better.
Phil and Jon will cover all the Lightroom essentials. You will learn how to navigate Lightroom, how to import photos, how to use basic editing tools, how to use advanced editing tools, how to ensure Lightroom is running efficiently, how to export photos and how to add watermarks. By the end of this course, you should be able to use Lightroom to its full potential! You’ll be able to professionally retouch images – and spend minimal time doing it!
4. Adobe Lightroom CC+ Classic//Learn Photo Editing by Pro (Udemy)
- Level: All levels
- Completion time: 13h 1m
- Cost: $49.99
- Certification: No
- Number of people who have completed the course: 14,100
- Course rating: 4.6/5 (out of 1,715 ratings)
Suitable for anyone who is wanting to improve their photography and Lightroom skills, this course is lengthy, but covers the Lightroom in a huge deal of depth. Taught by Chris Parker, who has over 30 years experience as a photographer and is a Lightroom expert, this course begins with a quick overview into Lightroom so you know what version to use.
After, Chris then takes you over all the Lightroom necessities. You will take a look at quick start editing, how to import images, how to adjust images, how to create slideshows, frequently asked questions, and much more. By the end of this 13 hour class, you will be able to fully understand how to use Lightroom properly and productively.
5. Lightroom Classic Essential Training (LinkedIn Learning)
- Level: Beginner and Intermediate
- Completion time: Approx. 2.5-3h
- Cost: $35.00
- Certification: Yes
- Number of people who have completed the course: 10,134
- Course rating: N/A
In this course, experienced photographer and instructor Theresa Jackson, shows you how to professionally use Lightroom for photo management, enhancement and publishing. You will discover how to get photos from your computer or hard drive onto Lightroom. You will also learn how to organize them into collections, how to add rating and keywords, how to make both complexed and simple adjustments to photos, and how to export your images from Lightroom.
By the end of this course, you’ll be able to use Lightroom to create professional images and art. You’ll be able to touch up images you’ve already taken and ensure they are breath-taking!
6. Lightroom CC Fundamentals (Pluralsight)
- Level: Beginner
- Completion time: 3h 49m
- Cost: Free 10-day trial
- Certification: No
- Number of people who have completed the course: N/A
- Course rating: 5/5 (from 59 rating)
Instructed by Matthew Pizzi, an Adobe Certified Instructor with over 15 years experience teaching Adobe Applications, this Pluralsight course is suitable for anyone looking to enhance their photo management and enhancement skills.
In this course, you’ll explore many of Lightroom’s capabilities and most popular functions. You’ll learn how to import photos and how to use the Lightroom catalog. Then, you’ll learn ways to manage your photos (e.g., reviewing, rating or organizing them). You will also explore how to use smart previews and you’ll learn all about the Develop module and its features that improve images by adjusting tone, color, fixing perspectives, sharpening and much more. By the end of this class, you should feel confident using Adobe Lightroom to edit and manage a wide range of images!
7. Lightroom for Faces (LinkedIn Learning)
- Level: Intermediate
- Completion time: Approx. 1.5h
- Cost: $49.99
- Certification: Yes
- Number of people who have completed the course: 468,611
- Course rating: N/A
Taught by Kristina Sherk, who is a professional photographer with years of experience in retouching, this LinkedIn learning course is best suited to to those with some Lightroom experience, but are wanting to take it one step further.
After taking this tutorial, you should be able to use Lightroom to touch up faces. You’ll be able to use the spot removal tool, clone stamp tool, Adjustment Brush tool, syncing capabilities tool and much more. You’ll save lots of time using these advanced, but easy to learn, Lightroom techniques.
8. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (YouTube)
- Level: All levels
- Completion time: N/A
- Cost: Free
- Certification: No
- Number of people who have completed the course: 310,000 subscribers
- Course rating: N/A
Ranging from 15 second long videos to some that are over an hour, the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom YouTube channel has a video for everyone. It includes panel interviews with some of the worlds most experienced photographers, to bite sized bits of information, such as how to use the color mix tool, how to make basic edits, how to share with Lightroom, how to use Pinch-Zoom to view thumbnail files, and much more.
Whatever you’re looking to do with Lightroom, you are guaranteed to find a video (for free!) that can tell you everything you need to know in less than a minute.
9. Lightroom: Two Minute Tips (Nicolesy)
- Level: All levels
- Completion time: 4h 57m
- Cost: Free
- Certification: No
- Number of people who have completed the course: N/A
- Course rating: N/A
Nicole S. Young is a full-time photographer and author with a passion for helping people understand Lightroom, and other photography softwares. Nicole has a bunch of tutorials, books, presets and overlays available to help those looking to advance their photography skills.
Specifically for Lightroom, Nicole has a series of free two minute tip videos. In these videos, you get short, bite-sized and easily digestible videos that cover the main Lightroom topics. You will learn about importing photos, organizing photos and editing photos in a simple, straightforwards and uncomplicated manner. At the end of this free series, you should feel a lot more confident using Lightroom, whether you’re using it as a professional photographer or just to cut costs in a non-photography role.
Conclusion
So, there you have it… the 9 best Lightroom classes online.
There are a huge variety of Lightroom tutorials available. Some of them are quick and cost effective. Others are more expensive and take more time – but they offer a more in-depth Lightroom skills and knowledge.
All of the above Lightroom courses are excellent. They are the best of the best. Each is taught by an experienced and dedicated teacher and they all have satisfied and happy customers.
So, which course you decide to take depends on you experience, funds and spare time. Have you ever even picked up a camera? Or have you got some experience with taking photos for instagram campaigns? Do you have a huge amount of money to spend on your skill development? Do you have a lot of spare time, or are you just looking for a quick, but effective, skill top up?
