This is a free photo editing course in twelve lessons. It takes you from opening a raw file to a finished print, in the order a working edit actually happens: organize, crop, set exposure and white balance, shape tone and color, make local adjustments, retouch, sharpen, and export. Each lesson explains the idea, gives you a short exercise, and links to the full guide for that step.
The lessons work with any modern editor. Panels and slider names vary a little between programs and versions, but the controls described here exist in all of them. Work through one lesson at a time, on your own photos, and do the exercise before moving on.
How to use this course
- Use your own photos. Pick ten raw files you care about: a landscape, a portrait, an indoor shot in mixed light, a high-contrast scene and a few ordinary frames. You will reuse them through every lesson.
- Edit a copy, never the original. Every lesson assumes non-destructive editing, where the original file is never changed and every adjustment can be undone.
- Allow about an hour per lesson. Read it, do the exercise, then compare your result with the unedited file side by side.
- Calibrate your screen if you can. If your display is too bright or too blue, every edit will be off. Monitor calibration explains why and how.
Lesson 1: Raw files and non-destructive editing
A JPEG is an image the camera has already processed: white balance, contrast, sharpening and color are baked in, and much of the original data is thrown away. A raw file keeps everything the sensor recorded, so you can recover highlights and shadows, change white balance without loss, and push colors much further before the image breaks down. Editors store your changes as instructions alongside the file, so the original pixels never change.
Exercise: If your camera can, shoot the same high-contrast scene in raw and JPEG at once. Open both and try to recover the sky and the shadows. Note how much further the raw file goes.
Read next: Raw vs JPEG and photo editing for beginners.
Lesson 2: Choosing editing software
Editors fall into two groups. Raw editors and catalog programs (the kind that hold your whole library) handle global and local adjustments on thousands of photos quickly. Layer-based editors handle detailed pixel work: removing objects, compositing, advanced retouching. Many photographers use one of each. Free editors can do everything in this course; the paid ones mainly add speed, library management and polish.
Exercise: Open the same photo in two editors you have access to and find the exposure, white balance, crop and export controls in each.
Read next: Best photo editing software, free photo editors and Lightroom vs Photoshop.
Lesson 3: Importing, organizing and culling
Editing starts before the first slider. Import to a consistent folder structure (one common pattern is year, then date and event), add keywords while you remember the shoot, and back up straight away. Then cull: go through the shoot quickly, reject the obvious failures (missed focus, closed eyes, bad exposure), and mark only the best few for editing. Editing ten strong frames teaches you more than editing a hundred average ones.
Exercise: Take a shoot of 200 or more frames and get it down to the best ten in under fifteen minutes, using only flags or star ratings.
Read next: Photo culling workflow, photo file management and photo backup guide.
Lesson 4: Lens corrections, cropping and straightening
Turn on lens corrections first: they remove distortion, vignetting and color fringing that the lens added, and they change the edges of the frame, so they belong before the crop. Then straighten horizons and vertical lines, and crop to strengthen the composition: remove distractions at the edges, place the subject deliberately, and choose an aspect ratio that suits the picture and where it will be shown.
Exercise: Crop one photo three ways (the camera’s own ratio, square and a tall 4:5) and decide which tells the story best.
Read next: Crop and the rule of thirds.
Lesson 5: Exposure and the histogram
Set overall brightness with Exposure so the midtones look right. Then use Highlights to bring back detail in bright areas, Shadows to open up dark areas, and Whites and Blacks to set the end points of the tonal range. The histogram shows the result: data piled against the right edge means lost highlight detail, against the left edge lost shadow detail. Many raw editors show a clipping view if you hold Alt (Option on a Mac) while dragging the Whites or Blacks slider.
Exercise: Edit a high-contrast scene using only these six sliders, keeping detail in both the sky and the darkest shadow.
Read next: Exposure, clipping, black point and white point.
Lesson 6: White balance and color
White balance sets the overall color of the light. Use the eyedropper on something that should be neutral gray or white, or set the Temperature (blue to yellow) and Tint (green to magenta) sliders by eye. Then adjust intensity: Vibrance boosts muted colors and protects skin tones, while Saturation boosts all colors equally. The color mixer (hue, saturation and luminance for each color range) lets you change one color, such as darkening a blue sky or calming an orange skin tone, without touching the rest.
Exercise: Take a photo shot indoors under warm light and make it neutral, then make a second version that keeps some warmth on purpose.
Read next: White balance, vibrance vs saturation and saturation.
Lesson 7: Contrast and the tone curve
The Contrast slider is blunt. The tone curve gives precise control: a gentle S shape (shadows down, highlights up) adds contrast through the midtones while protecting the ends, and lifting the bottom-left point gives a faded look. Texture and clarity sliders add contrast to fine and medium detail, and dehaze cuts through atmospheric haze. Use all three lightly, since they quickly make an image look harsh.
Exercise: Add contrast to one photo twice, once with the Contrast slider and once with an S curve. Compare skin, sky and shadows in both.
Read next: Curves and levels, contrast and dehaze.
Lesson 8: Local adjustments and masking
Global edits treat the whole photo the same, but real scenes need different treatment in different places. Masks let you apply an adjustment to one area only: a linear gradient to darken a bright sky, a radial mask to brighten a face, a brush for anything irregular, and automatic subject or sky selections. The classic use is dodging and burning, lightening and darkening areas to guide the viewer’s eye toward the subject.
Exercise: On a landscape, darken the sky with a gradient, brighten the main subject with a radial mask, and darken the corners slightly. Turn the masks off and on to judge the effect.
Read next: Masking, masking and selective adjustments and dodge and burn.
Lesson 9: Retouching and removing distractions
Use the spot removal or healing tool for dust spots, blemishes and small distractions; it copies texture from nearby and blends it in. For larger work, such as removing a sign or a person, use a layer-based editor with content-aware fill or cloning on a separate layer. In portraits, retouch temporary things (a spot, a stray hair) and leave permanent features alone unless the subject asks. Frequency separation is a more advanced method that edits skin tone and skin texture separately.
Exercise: Shoot a plain sky at a small aperture such as f/16 to reveal sensor dust, then find and remove every spot.
Read next: Spot removal, photo retouching, layers and masks and photo retouching ethics.
Lesson 10: Sharpening and noise reduction
Raw files get no sharpening in camera, so they look slightly soft and need some. Sharpen at 100 percent view, and use the masking control so sharpening applies to edges and not to smooth areas like sky and skin. Noise reduction works the other way, smoothing grain from high ISO shots; too much makes surfaces look waxy. Apply noise reduction first and sharpening after, and sharpen again for the final output size.
Exercise: Edit a high ISO night photo twice, once with no noise reduction and once with enough to clean the sky while keeping detail in the subject.
Read next: Sharpening and noise reduction.
Lesson 11: Black and white and color grading
A good black and white conversion is not just desaturation. Use the black and white mixer to control how bright each original color becomes in gray: darkening blue makes skies dramatic, brightening orange lightens skin. Color grading adds a mood by tinting shadows, midtones and highlights, for example cool shadows with warm highlights. Grade last, after the image is technically right.
Exercise: Convert one portrait and one landscape to black and white using only the color mixer, then give a color version of each a subtle grade.
Read next: Black and white photography, color grading and split toning.
Want to go beyond a single exposure? What is HDR explains when blending several exposures beats editing one, and panorama covers stitching.
Lesson 12: Consistency, export and print
Save the settings you reuse as presets, and sync edits across a set of photos shot in the same light so a series looks consistent. Export for the destination: sRGB and a long edge sized for the screen for the web, full resolution and a wider color space for print, with sharpening set for the output. Before printing, soft proof to see how the paper and printer will render the colors and darkest tones.
Exercise: Edit one photo from a shoot, sync it to nine others, adjust each where needed, then export the set for the web and one image for an 8×10 inch print.
Read next: Lightroom presets guide, batch editing, export, preparing photos for print and color management.
The editing order in one list
Once you have worked through the lessons, this is the sequence to follow on every photo. The photo editing workflow guide explains each step in detail.
- Import, back up and cull.
- Apply the camera profile and lens corrections.
- Crop and straighten.
- Set white balance.
- Set exposure, highlights, shadows, whites and blacks.
- Refine contrast with the tone curve.
- Adjust individual colors.
- Make local adjustments with masks.
- Retouch.
- Reduce noise and sharpen.
- Grade or convert to black and white.
- Export for the destination.
Software guides
If you have chosen your software, these guides cover it tool by tool:
- Lightroom for beginners, then the Lightroom tutorials, including editing landscape photos and editing portraits.
- Photoshop for photographers, then the Photoshop tutorials.
- Mobile photo editing apps for editing on a phone or tablet.
Choosing a paid or in-person editing class
A free course and steady practice will take you a long way. If you want a paid online class or a local workshop, these questions separate the good ones from the rest:
- Does it teach principles or only buttons? Software changes; an understanding of tone, color and light does not. Look for lessons that explain why, not just where to click.
- Does it use raw files you can download? Following along on the instructor’s files, then on your own, is how the skills stick.
- Is there feedback on your work? Critique of your own edits is the main thing a paid class can offer that free material cannot.
- Can you see the instructor’s own edited work? Choose someone whose finished photos you would like to make.
- Does the syllabus match your software and your subjects? Portrait retouching and landscape editing need different skills.
Looking for a course on shooting as well as editing? Online photography courses for beginners compares the free and paid options and what each teaches.
Common mistakes
- Pushing every slider. Fix: make each adjustment, then reduce it by a third. Edits that look strong after ten minutes of staring usually look overdone the next day.
- Editing out of order. Fix: set white balance and exposure before color and grading, or you will chase the same problem twice.
- Too much clarity, saturation and sharpening. Fix: halos around edges, crunchy texture and glowing colors are the signs. Pull back and check at 100 percent.
- Judging edits on an uncalibrated or very bright screen. Fix: calibrate, lower screen brightness, and compare with a print or a second device.
- Trying to rescue weak photos. Fix: editing improves good photos; it rarely saves a missed focus or a bad moment. Cull harder.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free photo editing course?
Yes. The twelve lessons above form a complete free course, and each links to a detailed guide. Work through them in order on your own raw files and do every exercise.
How long does it take to learn photo editing?
The basics of exposure, white balance, cropping and export take a few evenings. Getting fast and consistent, and developing your own look, takes months of regular editing. Practicing on a few photos often beats long sessions now and then.
Which software should I learn first?
Start with a raw editor that also organizes your library, because it covers most of what photographers do every day. Add a layer-based editor later for detailed retouching and compositing. The skills transfer between programs because the controls work the same way.
Do I need to shoot raw to edit well?
No, but raw makes editing far more forgiving, especially for white balance, highlights and shadows. If your camera shoots raw, use it for anything you plan to edit.
What is the most important skill in photo editing?
Judgment: knowing when a photo is finished. Technically, getting exposure and white balance right does more for a photo than any effect, and everything else builds on it.