Luxury NO FLASH Editorial Image Editing in Lightroom | Interior Design Photography

Hey there! It’s Cole Connor, and today I want to walk you through how I took a simple photo from an interior design shoot and transformed it into an editorial-quality image using Lightroom—without flash. I’m all about creating beautiful, natural-looking shots, and in this post, I’m going to break down the exact process I used to achieve that look.

I recently released a video on how to get that editorial look for an interior design or architectural shoot without using flash, and if you haven’t seen that video yet, be sure to check it out [here]. But today, I want to focus on what happens after you’ve taken the shots—how to bring them to life in Lightroom and make them pop.

Let’s dive in.

The Starting Point: Out-of-Camera and HDR Merging

So, here’s the starting point—this is the original image straight out of the camera:

The shot is taken with no flash, relying entirely on the natural light coming in through the windows. As you can see, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. We’ve got light pouring in from the windows, which is pretty bright, while the rest of the room is quite dark. For this particular shoot, I used a five-bracketed HDR technique to capture a range of exposures, and I’ve already merged those brackets in Lightroom.

Now that we have that, it’s time to dive into the edits.

Step 1: Basic Adjustments to Brighten and Balance the Image

I always start with one of my presets as a base and make adjustments from there. These presets are designed to save time and give me a consistent look, but of course, every image needs a little tweaking. Here’s what I did for this image:

Exposure: The overall image needed to be brighter, so I bumped up the exposure slightly.
Contrast: I increased the contrast, which really helped make the image pop. This is a key step in achieving that editorial look.
Highlights: The light coming in from the windows was too bright, so I brought the highlights down. This helped balance the exposure and keep those windows from being completely blown out.
Shadows: I left the shadows as is because I didn’t want to introduce more shadow in the image. I’m aiming for contrast without making the image look too “HDR-y.”
Whites and Blacks: I nudged the whites up just a little bit to keep the bright areas crisp, and I lowered the blacks for more contrast. I love how lowering the blacks adds depth and gives the image that editorial quality.

Step 2: Adding Texture and Vibrance

Next, I added a touch of texture—just a teeny bit to make the details stand out more. This is subtle, but it makes a big difference in making the image look more polished.

I also boosted the vibrance to bring out the colors. The difference here is huge. Just a slight increase in vibrance makes the colors more lively and true to the space, without looking oversaturated.

Step 3: Fine-Tuning Colors

Colors are always a big deal, especially in interior design photography. I usually play with the color sliders to fine-tune things, and in this case, I made some adjustments:

Yellows: I noticed I had initially cut the yellows, but after looking at the image again, I realized it looked better with the yellows up. It gave the image more warmth and helped highlight the natural light.
Blues: The cabinets were looking a bit too blue for my taste, so I dialed down the blues to make sure the colors were more natural.
Oranges: I brought the oranges down slightly to keep things balanced. The goal here is always to make sure the colors feel true to the real space, while also being visually appealing.

Step 4: Brushing for Local Adjustments

After those global edits, I went in with the brush tool to make some local adjustments. This is where you can really take control of how specific areas of the image look.

I brushed over the darker areas of the room (except the windows) and increased the exposure slightly. This made the room look brighter and more evenly lit without overexposing the windows.
I also added a second brush to highlight the shelves and objects on display. These details were too dark and didn’t stand out, so I brushed over them and bumped up the exposure to make them pop. A slight increase in saturation helped give those areas more life.

Here’s a look at what the image looks like after brushing:

Step 5: Correcting Cabinet Color

The cabinets were still looking a bit off. They had this yellow cast that didn’t feel right, so I used another brush to lower the temperature specifically on the cabinets. This small adjustment brought them back to a more natural tone and helped the overall balance of the image.

Step 6: Export, Re-Edit, and Add Final Touches

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with a new step in my process: exporting the image and then re-uploading it to Lightroom for a final round of tweaks. For this image, I exported it with all the previous edits and then made a few more adjustments:

Increased the contrast again for more depth.
Lowered the highlights slightly to keep the bright areas in check.
Brought the blacks down just a little more for added contrast.

I like to do this because sometimes when I see the image outside of Lightroom, I notice things I didn’t catch during the first round of edits. This final step gave the image that extra punch I was looking for.

Final Result

And here’s the final image:

I’m really happy with how it turned out (and the client was too). The balance between light and shadow feels natural, the colors are true to the space, and it has that editorial quality I was going for—all without using any flash.

Wrapping It Up

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for sticking with me! I hope this breakdown gives you some insight into my editing process. As always, if you want to see more of how I edit my photos, feel free to check out the video on my YouTube channel and grab some of my presets in the description.

If you have any specific requests for how I edit, or if you want to see me tackle other types of shots, leave a comment below. I’m here to help!

Catch you in the next one.

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