So you’ve done all your post-processing homework and the results you achieve still leave something to be desired. What’s up with that? According to instructor Steve Arnold, it may be because you’re making five “huge” editing mistakes that are super easy to fix.

Arnold is a notable Australian landscape specialist and educator known for straightforward shooting and editing tutorials for beginners and experienced photographers alike. Today’s eye-opening episode will likely set you free when it comes updating your everyday post-processing workflow to get things right every time.

This handful of errors can sneakily sabotage your results. Arnold begins with a “massive” mistake that can wreck your edits even before you open an image on the computer. It goes like this: “Imagine editing the same photo twice, each time making the same adjustments, yet one result has noticeably higher quality than the other.”

The quick solution involves one tiny setting you may have missed because it’s tucked away in a dark corner of Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). Arnold moves on to mistake #2 that’s particularly insidious because “it literally changes how your photos look after you’ve edited and shared them.” And once again, there’s a magic pill.

Next on the list is a common mistake that makes your edits look Photoshopped rather than beautifully realistic. Arnold uses the analogy of cooking in the kitchen and asks two simple questions: “Do you grab a handful of each ingredient, throw them all into the mix, and hope for the best?” Or do you “add ingredients one at a time, with a quick take taste in between?” It’s clear where he’s going with this one.

Arnold concludes the video with “the one single mistake that’s most responsible for anyone’s photos looking poorly and unprofessionally edited.” This one reveals a problem with making selective adjustments with masks to control color, exposure, contrast, and other key attributes. What you want to prevent is a situation in which your masking becomes visible in the end result.

Each of these mistakes are discussed in detail, as are the necessary step-by-step solutions for doing things right. Once you’re done watching be sure to visit Arnold’s popular YouTube channel where there are many more instructional videos to be found.

We also recommend taking a look at the tutorial we featured with another post-processing expert who demonstrates how to unlock the power of Lightroom’s Dehaze tool for creating stunning cityscapes and other photographs captured outdoors.