Click Away! | All Lightroom, All The Time.

Lightroom is, like my favorite thing in the world.

You can call it all the things it technically is – an image processor, a photo product by Adobe, the thing people use when they don’t want to use Photoshop, that thing Lissa Chandler is always telling everything to use – but I’m going to call it what it really is: A computer program with black and gray packaging that is basically a magic bag of rainbows and sparklers and butterflies.

I mean, the program is magic. Magic!

I taught myself to edit on a little white 2008 MacBook in the Apple editing program “Aperture” before I even knew what the word “Aperture” meant. I pushed sliders and added vignettes and tried to edit out three zits on my chin and had absolutely no clue what I was doing but, by the time I switched to Lightroom in early 2012, was super comfortable in the program and loved it so much that, when I installed Lightroom 3 on the shiny new iMac we’d bought just for editing, I thought Lightroom was for the birds and that I’d never get used to it because there was so much more information everywhere. I disliked it so much that I considered switching to Photoshop (I do not like Photoshop) but, within a week, I was shocked and amazed at how powerful Lightroom was.

For me, Lightroom is intuitive. I don’t use Lightroom to organize my photographs (something that it definitely offers!) but it is the only program that I use to edit. Whether it be a photograph of my family or a photograph of a sunrise or a senior or a new baby boy or a bride seeing her husband for the first time on her wedding day – I only use Lightroom. The thing I love most about Lightroom is that you can do quick, simple edits and also more elaborate edits. While I do think that Photoshop is the right choice for photographers who focus on elaborate editing, I have never been interested in this kind of editing. I love that Lightroom enhances the natural colors and atmosphere of straight out of camera images and I love that I am able to edit my photographs in a very precise way. As someone who edits all images by hand, this is such a great program! I love the options that Lightroom gives – that I am still able to use brushes and control the intensity of colors – and, for me, it is the perfect fit.

And in September?

I’ll be teaching a class on Lightroom at Click Away!

There’s a few spots left in this class, so grab a seat and come see how I takes images straight out of the camera and transform them into final products in Lightroom 5 – sometimes in less than a minute. Here’s a few before and afters!

Weddings | Engagements | Seniors | Families | Personal

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* Lissa Chandler is a creative portrait and wedding photographer in Northwest Arkansas who specializes in senior portrait and wedding photography. Lissa is known for happy, emotive, real, and magical wedding and senior portrait photography in Northwest Arkansas and currently lives in Fayetteville with her family: a husband who is doing the grocery shopping this week, a four year old who shocked his mama when he didn’t care for the coonskin cap she bought him this afternoon, and a one year old who is taking the longest nap of his life. Lissa is currently booking 2015 Seniors, 2015 weddings in Fayetteville, Bentonville, Siloam Springs, Rogers, Springdale, and all of NWA. She is available for wedding work nationwide. *