Using Process mode

Perform all of your image adjustment in Process mode. In Process mode, image correction tools are separated into Develop and Edit sub-modes. Begin processing your image in Develop mode, and then take your image into Edit to add final touches such as watermark or borders. Further description of the Develop and Edit sub-modes are below.

Develop

Edit

Start your image corrections in Develop. Develop is where you make most of your image adjustments. Changes you make are applied to the entire image.
Tweak image adjustments you made at any time. If you re-open a developed image in Develop, the settings are the same as you left them. Develop allows you to revisit the image at any time to reset or adjust the previous settings.
When you make a change, the changes are saved in a separate file, and the original remains untouched. Every time you open the image, the original image opens with the changes applied. This allows non-destructive developing of your images.
Discard your Develop settings and revert back to the original image at any time. The original is saved for all file types.

Use the editing tools to selectively apply adjustments to parts of your image.
Add final touches to your image such as borders, text, watermark and special effects.
Use the pixel-editing tools to fix red eye or remove flaws from your image.
Discard your edit changes and revert back to your Develop settings or to the original. When you revert back to the Develop settings, the settings are exactly the way you left them.

You can easily group your images in Manage mode so that you can find the images that have been developed or edited, or developed and edited. Use the Group By feature and select Processed State.

Working in Process mode

In Process mode, the Develop and Edit panes are displayed on the left. These sub-modes provide access to all of the developing and editing tools and effects, allowing both non-destructive and pixel-based processing of images.

To open an image in Process mode:

Do one of the following:

In Manage mode, select an image and click Process.
In View mode, select an image and click Process.

Develop

The Develop pane allows non-destructive processing of RAW, JPEG and other file types. Develop pane contains the following tabs:

Tune

A histogram at the top of the Tune tab is updated each time you make an edit to your image. Use the Clipping Display button to display clipped pixels and monitor details in the image that are lost.

The Tune tab is made up of the following groups:

General: Adjust exposure, highlight, fill light, contrast and vibrance.
White Balance: Select a white balance from the drop-down list, or create a custom white balance for the image using the Temperature and Tint sliders.
Lighting: Adjust highlights, midtones, and shadows. Use the advanced view for precise control over lighting.
Advanced Color: Adjust the image's saturation, brightness and hue.
Tone Curves: Use this tool to change the tonal range of an image. Select the RGB color channel to adjust the entire range of the image, or select a specific color.
Output Color Space (available for RAW images only): Select an output color space from the drop-down list. For example, if the image is going to be displayed online, select sRGB as your color space.

Detail

The tools in the Detail tab add clarity to your images:

Sharpening: Sharpen an image by enhancing the contrast of medium- and high-contrast edges. You can specify the amount, radius and threshold for sharpening.
Noise Reduction:Decrease noise caused by high ISO setting or long exposure.
Chromatic Aberration: Reduce the colored fringes that can appear in high contrast areas.

Geometry

On Geometry tab, correct the image's perspective or other distortions:

Lens Distortion: Correct perspective distortion caused by wide-angle lenses, which distort the perspective of large or far-away objects.
Rotate & Straighten: Rotate or straighten photos that are crooked. This is especially useful for straightening horizons in an image.
Perspective: Correct the horizontal and vertical perspective.
Crop: Remove unwanted parts of your images, or to reduce the image canvas to a particular size.
Vignette Correction: Brighten the corners of images.

The Settings feature is only available when the Develop pane is selected. Use Settings to revert an image to the settings you last saved, or revert to the as shot settings. You can also save your settings as presets, and apply these presets to other images.

Edit

For any touch-ups to specific areas of your images, use the tools in the Edit pane. Use the Selections tool to further fine tune a part of an image. Edit contains the following groups:

Selections	Select a specific area of an image to edit.
Repair	Repair red eye, or remove flaws using the Heal or Clone tool.
Add	Prepare photos for publishing by adding text, watermarks, borders, vignette, or artistic effects.
Geometry	Rotate, flip, and crop images. You can also correct perspective or lens distortion, or resize the image.
Exposure/Lighting	Improve lighting and contrast by adjusting the Exposure, Levels, Auto Levels, Tone Curves, and Lighting tools.
Color	Adjust white balance, hue, saturation, and lightness. You can also convert an image to black and white.
Detail	Increase sharpness, remove noise, or apply blur to an image.