My Must Know Lightroom Edits For Bird Photography

Since moving to Florida a few years ago, my photography has taken a new turn—literally. Gone are the mountain and waterfall scenes I used to chase, replaced by an abundance of birds. At first, I resisted the idea of photographing them, but curiosity got the better of me. And I’m glad it did. Bird photography has introduced me to a whole new set of creative challenges and opportunities.

In this post, I’ll walk you through my editing workflow for a photo of a great blue heron using Lightroom Desktop. Everything I cover here can be adapted to Lightroom Classic as well.

The Photo and Camera Settings

The photo was taken using a Sony A1 II paired with a 100–400mm lens and 1.4x teleconverter. This gave me a 50MP RAW file—plenty of resolution for cropping without sacrificing detail. Because I needed a fast shutter speed, I bumped the ISO to 5000, which introduced noticeable noise. Let’s fix that first.

Step 1: Reduce Noise with AI Denoise

Lightroom’s AI Denoise tool is excellent for high-ISO images like this one. I zoomed out and clicked on a key area (in this case, the bird's wings), adjusted the noise reduction amount to balance noise removal with detail retention, and clicked Enhance. This generated a new DNG file, which we’ll use for the rest of the edit.

✦ Tip: Don’t aim to remove all noise—it’s okay for a photo to retain some texture. Over-processing can reduce natural detail.

Step 2: Apply the Adaptive Color Profile

With the new DNG selected, I switched the profile to Adaptive: Color. This profile does a great job balancing tone and color right out of the gate. It gave me a strong starting point with more vibrant colors and improved dynamic range. I left HDR off for this edit since my screen recording doesn’t support HDR output, but normally I’d enable it.

Step 3: White Balance and Cropping

I used the White Balance Dropper on a neutral gray area of the bird. In this case, there wasn’t much adjustment needed.

Then I rotated and cropped the image. Initially, the bird was flying from right to left, but I decided to flip the image horizontally so the bird flew left to right. This aligns better with how we naturally read images in Western cultures—left to right.

Step 4: Tone and Contrast Adjustments

Rather than using Auto Tone (which is discouraged with Adaptive profiles), I manually adjusted:

• Exposure slightly upward

• Highlights slightly downward

Then I applied a custom S-curve using the point curve:

• Pulled up the highlights

• Dropped the shadows

• Raised the black point to add a slight gray tone (for soft contrast)

• Adjusted the Refined Saturation slider to about 50% to balance out color changes introduced by the tone curve

Step 5: Masking for Targeted Edits

Subject Mask (The Bird)

I used Select Subject to isolate the heron and increased Texture to bring out feather detail. I also lifted the Shadows a bit to bring out more midtone detail without overdoing it.

✦ Tip: When adjusting sliders like Texture or Shadows, don’t focus on the numbers—watch the image and let it guide your adjustments.

Background Mask

To help the bird stand out more, I created a Background Mask (the inverse of the subject). I:

• Lowered Exposure slightly

• Warmed up the Temperature

• Reduced Saturation a bit

This subtly pushed the background into the distance and brought more attention to the heron.

Step 6: Color Calibration and Finishing Touches

In the Color Calibration panel:

• Increased Blue Primary Saturation for more richness in the sky and shadows

• Boosted Green Primary Saturation to add more depth to subtle tones

Then I added a bit of Dehaze to cut through atmospheric softness.

I skipped vignetting on this image, as I wanted to keep the entire frame evenly lit. Instead of darkening the edges, I could’ve used a Radial Gradient to emphasize the bird’s head, but in this case, the image already had good balance.

Step 7: Sharpening

Finally, I zoomed in to 100% and adjusted Sharpening:

• Held Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) while adjusting the Amount slider to fine-tune edge sharpness

• Used the Masking slider (again with Option/Alt) to restrict sharpening to high-contrast edges

Before and After

Here’s a look at the before and after of the image. While Lightroom doesn’t show the uncropped version, the improvement in tone, detail, and clarity is clear.