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Dan Rodney/3 min read

Exporting Photos

Lightroom vs Photoshop

Lightroom for Volume

Process hundreds of photos quickly with consistent edits.

Photoshop for Pixel-Level

Composites, retouching, and detailed corrections.

Round-Trip Workflow

Right-click → Edit In Photoshop, returns as a copy in Lightroom.

Non-Destructive

Both apps preserve originals — edits stored separately.

Master Adobe Tools at Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop's Graphic Design Certificate covers Photoshop alongside the broader Adobe toolkit that complements Lightroom in any photography workflow.

Learn the intricacies of exporting photos and saving export presets in Lightroom in this detailed tutorial, complete with steps and crucial tips for achieving optimal results.

Topics Covered in This Lightroom Tutorial:

Exporting Photos, Saving an Export Preset

Exercise Preview

lightroom preview4I

Exercise Overview

In this exercise, you’ll export a set of photos you edited in the Develop module.

Exporting Photos

  1. Go into the Library module.

  2. On the left-hand side, in the Folders panel, click on the Develop folder.

  3. Press Cmd–A (Mac) or CTRL−A (Windows) to select all the photos.

  4. Go to File > Export.

  5. At the very top of the dialog from the first Export To menu, select Hard Drive.

  6. Do NOT close this dialog until we say so! First let’s decide where to export the photos. Under Export Location, from the Export To menu choose Specific folder.

  7. Click the Choose button.

  8. You’ll export the photos into a new folder on the Desktop. Navigate to the Desktop.

  9. Click the New Folder button.

  10. Name it YourName Pictures and make sure it is selected after you create it.

  11. Click Choose (Mac) or Select Folder (Windows).

  12. Check Put in Subfolder.

  13. In the text field next to the Put in Subfolder option, type Developed Photos.

  14. Under File Settings, set the following (you may have to scroll down):

    Image Format: From the menu, choose JPEG.
    Quality: 100
    Color Space: sRGB

  15. Under Output Sharpening, make sure Sharpen For is checked. Then set:

    Sharpen For: From the menu, choose Screen.
    Amount: Standard

  16. Under Metadata, from the Include menu, select All Metadata.

    Make sure all options in this section are NOT checked.

  17. Under Watermarking, make sure Watermark is NOT checked.

  18. Under Post-Processing, set After Export to Do nothing.

  19. We are going to create a new preset for this export setting, so do NOT close out of the dialog box yet. Before moving on, double-check that your settings look like this:

    screenshot export settings

Saving an Export Preset

  1. At the bottom left of the dialog, click on Add.

  2. In the New Preset dialog that appears, set Preset Name to Export to YourName Pictures Folder.

  3. Click Create.

  4. Click Export.

  5. Wait until Lightroom finishes exporting the photos (there is a progress bar at the top left).

    Nice! That’s all it takes to export your photos.

Color Spaces

One of the advantages of RAW files (compared to JPEG) is the camera does not automatically assign a color space to the image. The choice is up to you (and you can even change it later). In this exercise, we chose sRGB because it’s a good device-independent workspace for publishing on the web.

However, you should be aware that this color space has a small gamut and is not good to work in for print. If you are exporting for this purpose, we recommend Adobe RGB (1998). In the Output Sharpening section, you would choose to Sharpen For the type of paper you intend to print on (either Matte or Glossy).