How moving an adjustment layer in Lightroom can save you time

One of the most helpful tools in Lightroom is the adjustment brush. It allows you to selectively adjust various parts of an image by simply brushing a mask in place and tweaking the settings until it looks as you want it to.

One of the lesser-known and lesser-used features of the brush tool is the ability to move the adjustment brush edits after you’ve brushed them in place. If you’re wondering why you’d want to move around the edit after you meticulously shaped it in Lightroom, you’re not alone.

Here to explain why you might want to move the brush is photographer and Lightroom guru Scott Kelby of KelbyOne.

In this three-minute tutorial, Kelby explains how the ability to move a brush edit can be incredibly helpful when you’re trying to edit a series of images that were captured in the same pose and same lighting environment, but are composed slightly different due to hand-holding the camera.

As shown in the video, the process involves creating a brush adjustment layer on the first image of the series and using Lightroom’s Autosync feature to apply it to all of the photos. With the first image taken care of, go to each image and fine-tune the placement so it lines up with the area you want altered.

By effectively batch editing the adjustment layer and fine-tuning it from image to image, you save yourself the problem of painting in the layer on each image in the series.

It’s a small feature and a niche trick, but it’s one that may very well save you valuable time in the future. For more Lightroom tutorials, head on over to the KelbyOne YouTube channel and subscribe.