Clipping is a very common problem when working on photos in Lightroom. It happens when there are areas in the photo with no information. Typically, this is caused when the lighting is either too bright or too dark. Most of the time, photographers call these areas “blow outs”. Having small areas with clipping isn’t really an issue, but when there are large areas of highlight or shadow clipping it would be in your best interest to fix it.

There are a few ways to fix clipping in your images. You can find presets made by other people and download them (sometimes these options cost money), or you can use the sliders in the Tone Curve Panel. However, the easiest and most cost efficient way to solve clipping is by using the highlights and shadows slider in the basic panel.

Lightroom will use either the color red or the color blue to show you that there is clipping in your photo. Red indicates highlight clipping, while blue indicates shadow clipping. Press the “J” key on your keyboard to turn these on if you do not already have it turned on. Along with that, there is a way to turn them on and off individually. On the histogram in the top right corner of Lightroom, there are two little triangles, one on either side. Simply clicking on those will turn the clipping indicators on and off. The one on the left is shadows and the one on the right is highlights.

Once you have the indicator turned on, you will just need to move whichever slider to up or down until you do not see the color anymore. If you fix all of the clipping and are not satisfied with how your photos looks, then just stop the slider in a place where you have most of the clipping gone but still like the way the image looks. Like I said before, having some clipping isn’t a problem, it’s just the large areas that you should be on the look out for. Along with that, when it comes to editing pictures, a lot of what you do depends on personal preference. It is important that you are satisfied with your work!

Be sure to stop back again tomorrow for another blog post! Feel free to share your thoughts with me, and to share my thoughts with the world!