Description
What’s included:
This course includes:
- Approximately 47 lessons (video tutorials) on Lightroom Classic
- Over 15 hours of instruction
- A dedicated Facebook group where you can ask questions and share your images
CLICK HERE to see a full outline of the course.

It also includes the following FOUR bonus items:
- A set of Darlene’s RAW files for you to work with and practice each of the lessons. These are the same image she will be using in the tutorials so you can follow along easily.
- A Lightroom keyboard shortcuts PDF cheat sheet that Darlene has curated for you to include the most common ones that she uses.
- A sample of a few DPM Lightroom Develop Presets so you can follow the lessons
- LIVE Q&A sessions with the instructor (this is invaluable even if you cannot attend you can submit your questions and get them answered and the recordings will become part of the course afterward)
Larry Chamney (verified owner) –
I have been using Lightroom for several years and struggled at times to find an efficient and intuitive workflow. Darlene’s course brought it all together for me by first providing a basic understanding of the Lightroom functionality and then systematically introducing an effective workflow. I particularly like that she provided a variety of sample image files that we were able to work on in parallel with her during the video presentation, as well as being able to return to them after each video chapter to practice the techniques and tips she had demonstrated. The focus is on working through actual examples rather than being a dry presentation of slides, and is very effective in showing how the various Lightroom tools work individually and in concert with the other tools. This course is an absolute must for Lightroom users at all levels, not just beginners!
Alan Meikle (verified owner) –
Darlene is a very effective communicator and in this course she has succeeded in distilling and passing on her vast knowledge of Lightroom in such a way that even the rank beginner can grasp what they need to know to make use of this amazing tool. The video presentation coupled with the provided sample images allows the user to proceed at their own pace and Darlene is always available to answer questions. This course is a must have for anyone who wants to master Lightroom.
Alice Fraser –
This course is fantastic. Although I have been using LR for years, there were so many things I wasn’t aware of and didn’t utilize. This course helped my streamline my workflow and change the way I edit. Darlene’s courses are all amazing. She touches on items that many people leave and shows multiple way to use each function. So much detail in each lesson and I love the way she keeps the lessons up to date as new features arrive. I have purchased several of her classes.
Knocke –
I’ve used Lightroom Classic for many years and have watched other instructors’ videos on editing techniques. DPM’s Lightroom for Photographers course is highly recommended. In almost every lesson, I’ve learned more about each function/shortcut, the value of the features and most importantly how to use them correctly. Darlene has a straightforward teaching style. She is systematic and thorough with her explanations in each lesson. The course is easy to follow, and each lesson has its own page with the lesson video and additional useful resources. I found the separate recorded videos of the Q&As helpful and have picked up more tips from Darlene’s answers to the questions submitted. This course also includes updated lessons when there are major changes to Lightroom application and this is very beneficial. This course was well worth the time and investment.
Kathy Penner (verified owner) –
I have been utilizing an earlier version of Lightroom for many years. Recently, I transitioned to the latest version, Lightroom CC and I am genuinely pleased with the value this course added to my skill set. This well taught and evolving course is beneficial for individuals at both beginner and intermediate levels of expertise, as it demonstrates the application of tools across various scenarios. I’m eager to make the next acquisition with the Photoshop course.
Gina Magee (verified owner) –
I absolutely LOVED this course! I learned SO much about LR that it has greatly increased my LR abilities and decreased my workflow when editing images! Darlene is a great instructor and mentor. I highly recommend any course she teaches! The best part is that you can go back to each lesson to get a refresher if you forget anything, and she states there will be updates to the course when LR makes any changes. I enjoyed this class so much that I went ahead and purchased Photoshop and Luminar Neo as well! Don’t wait! Sign up today; you won’t regret it! Especially since her courses are very reasonable in price and have intensive content!
Larry Coen (verified owner) –
This Lightroom Classic course has been a game changer. I have had a camera in my hands since 1973 when I purchased my first film SLR. I am retired now from my career in Geology, and am wanting to get more involved in photography. The first time I opened Lightroom, I poked around and it was just so confusing that I just gave up. I am familiar with Photoshop, but Lightroom was a complete mystery to me. Then I stumbled on an ad for a new DPM course in Lightroom Classic. Since I knew that Lightroom was supposed to be created specifically for photographers, I decided to join. Now I know why I couldn’t just figure it out on my own. Lightroom Classic is truly a comprehensive and useful tool for photographers, and I now have a completely different view and respect for what this software can do.
Darlene has put so much into this Lightroom course. She walks the student through each and every piece of what the software can do. She points out it’s strengths, which are many, and it’s few weaknesses, so she had a fair and honest perspective of the usefulness of Lightroom, as well as suggestions where other software packages can be more productive, but those instances are limited. She fills her lessons with her own tricks and tips, such as turning your image upside down to reveal hidden weaknesses that can easily be corrected. The lessons are all basically bite sized so that the student is not overwhelmed during a lesson. Most lessons are a half hour or less. After retirement as a Geologist, I began teaching college courses in science and I value that fact that in our fast paced world, things need to be bite sized or you will lose your student interest.
I am completely satisfied with my experience in this Lightroom course, and am very happy that I joined and learned some new tools. I am grateful to Darlene for making this course available.
Jerry Gladstone (verified owner) –
I’ve used Lightroom Classic for several years, and I’ve taken another excellent, complete course on using Lightroom, as well as watching several videos on specific techniques. I’ve used a downloaded eBook and Adobe’s help site. I didn’t think I needed another course, but decided to give it a chance.
Well! The things I never knew I never knew!
In almost every lesson, I learned about features, shortcuts or functions I had not known existed or had not recognized the value of, and I took lots of notes. Darlene systematically discusses almost every feature of Lightroom, step by step, with her advice on the best way to use each, and why she recommends what she does. I had lots of light bulb moments.
Her page of keyboard shortcuts, included with the course, is the most useful of several I’ve seen. She explained several features that I had been baffled by.
Every lesson has its own web page, with a video lesson and a list of subjects covered, and a separate recorded video of the (now finished) live Q & A sessions that followed, with a detailed table of contents for those live sessions, so you can jump to the subject you want to view. I am sure I will go back to several of the lessons to watch parts over again. While I won’t use every feature she covered, this course was well worth the time and the cost. Kudos to Darlene and her excellent, straightforward teaching!
Richard Lee (verified owner) –
Great material, great teacher. I learned a lot!
Dr Steven Gottlieb (verified owner) –
This was not the first class I have taken on-line with a live component. Actually, I have tried several and found most severely lacking. Typically, in the interest of time, the instructors cram as much as they can into as short a period as they can manage. The initial result is often a feeling that you have gotten a lot out of the class because so much was covered/included. Then reality—you got a lot less internalized; you covered much, maybe too much and in a short period of time and touched the material only once. Darlene’s class is unique in that if you follow the recommended process, you will have gone through the recorded class, then jointly with Darlene, repeat the recorded class, then while the information is fresh, go right into a Q&A that in a real sense, was not time constrained. She spent the time necessary to ensure that EVERYONE’S questions were addressed.
Let me put it simply, Darlene’s class was superior to any of the very large number of classes in which I have been a student. Five stars and well deserved.
David (verified owner) –
After struggling with Lightroom Classic for over 7 years, at times feeling more abused by the program than productive with it, I decided to make the effort to really learn. My needs coincided with the release of the Digital Photo Mentor’s, Darlene Hildebrandt’s, Lightroom for Photographer’s course, so I purchased and committed time and effort to learn the program.
This scope of this course exposes the immense depth and breadth of Lightroom Classic and is targeted towards those of us who are not professionals but want to use Lightroom effectively to manage and process our photos.
Working through the lessons I was gob-smacked, again and again, as Darlene demonstrated a feature or capability that I had no clue Lightroom offered or explained how the program worked, many times solving challenges I struggled with.
While this course teaches you how to use Lightroom as an application, it also teaches you how to edit and process your images as Darlene shares her expertise on how she edits and processes images and the additional software programs and tools she uses. The sharing of her image processing skill and knowledge is a significant value-added bonus to this course.
As an instructor, Darlene demonstrated that she cares about her students and goes above and beyond patiently answering questions and helping her students.
This course has transformed my anger and frustration with Lightroom, and I now feel enlightened and empowered to continue to develop my skills and proficiency with Lightroom and my image editing.
If I could give this course 6 stars out of 5 I would!
Elaine Wilkerson (verified owner) –
This course is definitely the Complete Course for anyone wanting to learn Lightroom Classic. Darlene uses basic building blocks that make a foundation that will last into the future with your Lightroom use. She is a great instructor and no question is left on the table. Her style is relaxed and confident. Her desire is for you to learn at your pace and to encourage you with different modalities of learning that reinforce her teaching. It has been most helpful to gain confidence in this realm of editing my pictures.
bonbon212 (verified owner) –
I cannot say enough good things about this Lightroom course. I’ve played with Lightroom for a couple of years but never had any formal training on how to use it. As far as editing my photographs, I moved sliders around until I saw what I liked. After this course, I know more about the powerful tools in Lightroom and how to best use them. And, an excellent benefit to the course is the ability to go back and watch each video lesson over and over again if there is something I don’t quite understand or if I need a review. Darlene and Rob work extraordinarily hard to provide excellent and concise information about all aspects of this important editing software. The price is unbeatable-each lesson costs about $2, but the ability to use Lightroom correctly and efficiently is priceless! After this great learning experience, I won’t take a class from anyone else-looking forward to the masking course and the Luminar course with Darlene (and Rob).
Marc Jacobs (verified owner) –
Before taking this course, I felt like I was maybe a 7 in Lightroom Classic knowledge on a scale of 1 to 10. No more, I have learned so much here, that I now think I’m a 7, and afraid to think of what I WAS. I only say a 7 now, because Darlene might do an advanced Lightroom course later on and find that I have even more to learn.
I have taken many courses from many pro photographers and spent hundreds, if not thousands, on all these courses. This is the best I have ever taken. It serves beginners well, and for more advanced users there are always more tips, tricks and techniques to learn. I can’t recommend this course highly enough to anyone with a camera and Lightroom. Darlene explains everything clearly and concisely, and if you ask questions she responds quickly with a sound answer. WONDERFUL!!!!
Virginia Huang (verified owner) –
Excellent Lightroom course for both beginners and experienced users. I really like the format of having the opportunity to attend live ZOOM classes followed by a question and answer questions with Darlene. If you miss the ZOOM class, they are recorded as well as the Q & A session so you can easily make up a missed session. In addition, you can submit your question online, via email, or on the private FB page for enrollees in the course. Darlene has a very organized and clear way of presenting the material. Even though I have been using LR for a number of years (having taken a course at least 6-7 years ago), there have been so many updates and improvements in LR since my original course that I found Darlene’s course very useful. Highly recommended!
Ellen Lindhurst (verified owner) –
Wow! I am a newcomer to using the Adobe Lightroom Classic. I signed on about 4 months ago and began using YouTube videos and the Adobe site to learn. I wanted to start right, especially with the database side of Lightroom. Still I didn’t learn enough. There were many YouTube videos for Lightroom but they only provided a small glimpse into its immense power. However, knowing YouTube was out there, I was reluctant to spend money. What a mistake that would have been! Fortunately I signed onto Darlene’s course before getting too bogged down. She has been an incredible teacher and helper. She answers email promptly. She goes over every little detail in her video training. I can’t believe how much I have learned, and how much more I have still to absorb. I like how Darlene explains slowly, concisely and in detail every little step. The videos are available to watch over and over again at my speed and on my own time. Overall, I’d give this course 10 stars if I could. I am an enthusiastic believer! Now on to becoming proficient—with hopes of advancing to her Photoshop courses in the future.
Edward Barbieri (verified owner) –
I have taken a number of online as well as in person courses, and this Digital Photo Mentor Lightroom course is unquestionably the BEST. Darlene Hildebrandt instructs Lightroom Classic in a logical, clear and concise manner making every minute of one’s time count. She also has extraordinary patience and won’t leave a student’s question unanswered. Besides the excellent original content of the course, the course includes questions and responses from the live lesson viewings.
I have been using LRC for the past 18 months, and wish I had taken this course before I started. I have learnt so much in just a few weeks!
ruth.e.steer (verified owner) –
I have been using Lightroom for 10 years and recently upgraded to LRC. I knew there were upgrades and thought I needed to also upgrade my knowledge. I was totally right and Darlene has provided so many tips and views that I realize that I never really knew Lightroom at all. Learning how the tools all work together is absolutely mind boggling. This is the most in depth training you could benefit from. Thank you Darlene!!
James Henkel (verified owner) –
I consider myself to be an “advanced intermediate” user of Lightroom and I hesitated to sign up for the course because I was not sure I would learn anything new. I was wrong to think that. I have received new insights in nearly every lesson, sometimes finding out about a shortcut I was not aware of, other times discovering new uses for an existing control that I thought I knew well.
Unless you are a true expert in all things Lightroom, this course will provide you with fresh insights to enhance your post-processing ability and the pace at which you can work. Bravo, Darlene!
Sheila Ferguson (verified owner) –
If you think you know how to use Lightroom, I promise you will get some very useful information in Digital Photo Mentor’s- “Lightroom-for-Photographers Course”. The instructor is extremely knowledgeable and has many year of using Lightroom. Darlene makes it easier to understand the entire program, she uses the current version 11.4.1 (giving instruction on the improvement made to the masking tools). Images are provided, you can downloaded and follow along with each lesson. I have been using Lightroom since 2013 – and finally I am understanding how and why certain tools work better than others. Darlene establishes a workflow that makes sense. I had no idea just how powerful Lightroom is; much more than cataloguing software. Every frustrating minute that I have experiencing thus far in the course is totally worth it! If you are like me and have relied on YouTube and the Adobe Training Site…you will benefit greatly from this course. Sincerely S. Ferguson