From Lightroom Mobile to Instagram – The Best Way To Do It (well, the right way anyway)

If you do this wrong, you won’t be happy with the results (but luckily the fix is actually incredibly easy, even though it’s not obvious).

But first: It’s only 20 days to the Photoshop World Conference 2018 (Orlando, FL – May 31st – June 2nd). It’s not too late – details and tickets at PhotoshopWorld.com – three solid days of Lightroom classes (and lots of Photoshop, lighting, photography, and more). 

OK, back to our tutorial. Here’s what to do (and what NOT to do):

STEP ONE: In Lightroom on your Mobile device, tap on the image you want to post to Instagram, then tap the Share button at the top of the screen. This brings up the share menu you see above. Tap on ‘Open In’ (as shown here, where the red dot is representing where I tapped).

STEP TWO: This brings your phone’s Share menu, and you’ll see an icon that says ‘Instagram.’ That not the one you want, but I’ll show you why in the next step.

STEP THREE: This is all you get. A single text field to write your caption. No location field; no help with hashtags, no option whether to make the image wide or square; no filters, no nuthin’. You would only do it this way if your goal was anonymity, and you didn’t want anyone to find your image. Ever.

STEP FOUR: Instead, keep looking through your phone’s Share options and look for a 2nd Instagram icon that says “Copy to Instagram.” This is the one you want to use (not that first one. Yeech!).

STEP FIVE: This brings up a screen asking if this image in Lightroom is to be shared to your Instagram Story, or your regular Image Feed (and here you can see I chose ‘Feed.”

STEP SIX: That’s better! When you tap that Plug sign under Feed it takes you to the familiar, full-featured regular Instagram App layout where you have all the regular options, including location services, the ability to tag people, sharing to other services simultaneously, and much more. So, in short, now you know the trick.

Okey dokey smokey, that’s it for me. Here’s wishing you a great weekend, and a Happy Mother’s Day to the most amazing, dedicated,  and just plain awesome people on this planet. This is simply nothing like a mom (and the older I get, the more I realize just how true that is, and also, I’m reminded of how blessed our family to have Kalebra as our children’s mother. She could teach a course). ☺

See you next week, and don’t forget to sign up for Photoshop World this week. You know you want to be there, and I want you there, too.

Best,

-Scott