Best Lightroom Settings for Exporting Photos for Print and Web

If you're new to Lightroom, you may be wondering how to save your edited photos for printing or sharing on the web. What you actually do is export your photos using specific export settings that will vary depending on if you're going to send them to a print lab or share them on the web. In this new Lightroom Classic tutorial, I'll walk you through all the steps and show you the best export settings to use for print and for sharing on the web, such as for uploading to Facebook.

First, a brief reminder about how Lightroom's workflow and catalog work. If you watched my earlier video on importing photos into Lightroom you will know that Lightroom is based on a catalog. When you import your photos what you're doing is adding them to the catalog's database, you aren't physically moving them anywhere. Once you've imported your photos, the catalog keeps all the information about your photos such as where they're located on your hard drive, keywords, and other metadata, and all the adjustments you make to your images.  When you're done with your adjustments, you need to export your final image. Most often it will be as a JPEG, so you can print it or share it.

In my video tutorial on how to export your photos for print or web sharing, I'll take you step by step through the export dialog. I'll also show you how to create a print preset so you can save your print settings for future use.

One of the important things you'll learn is that there are your export settings will be different depending on whether you are going to print your photo at a photo lab or if you are going to share your photos on the web. Be sure to watch the whole video to see these important settings.