How I edit my photos

Lightroom!!  Where have you been all of my life??  What an awesome program.  I discovered it this year and man has it changed the way I edit my photos.  First of all even before I load the pictures to Lightroom I have to make sure I shoot in RAW.  You have so much more control over your picture editing than just using the JPG files from your camera. 

Then after reading many, many articles on how to edit in Lightroom I have discovered a "preset" that I can apply to all of my photos to give them a head start on the editing process.  Presets are a great tool to use.  I have downloaded some free ones from the internet and have used a couple of them although sometimes the names of the presets don't really match what actually happens when you apply it.  It's just really a trial and error thing with those.  

And perhaps my favorite feature is the gradient filter tool.  You can make some pretty dramatic skies using that filter which is something you could not do in my older version of Photoshop.  

I know there is a ton more I can do in Lightroom.  I just need to do more reading and experimenting.