PSA: Do NOT Auto-Apply Lens Corrections in Adobe LR

I got a bit annoyed by constantly needing to apply lens corrections manually on 99% of my photos in Adobe Lightroom, so I did some research on how to do this automatically upon import rather than syncing across photos. I wasn’t looking for opinions; just a how-to. However, I stumbled across some forums and blogs that mostly stated one thing: don’t do it.

Wait — What is Lens Correction?

Lens correction is a neat feature in Adobe Lightroom that matches a profile to the lens associated in EXIF data and then tries to fix issues often encountered in digital photography. These include: chromatic abberation, vignetting, and distortion.

If you’re an amateur photographer who doesn’t do too much post-processing to begin with, this may not be a problem for you. However, those more involved in settings beyond contrast, brightness, saturation, and other such basic settings, might want to brief over the bullet list below. It outlines the main points of concern:

• Distortion. Especially an issue for photos of faces. Although many people fail to pinpoint the concern, they do realize that something is off about it.
• Healing. Since there’s pixel loss associated with the lens profile correction, you lose the ability to better correct spots (i.e. spot removal)
• Losing effect. Most of my lens correction needs are when the shot was taken with my 16–35mm wide-angle lens. Sometimes that distortion is appealing when it comes to cool architecture and such photos.
• Vignetting. While some see it as a plus, I don’t like vignetting on 75% of my photos (probably a low-ball actually).

Of course, you could just add in a few extra steps and either apply lens corrections manually or deselect the option while you edit the rest of the image first, and then apply the correction. What’s your process when it comes to lens corrections?