New to post processing in Lightroom 5

Hello Nikonites,

As the title states I'm new to post processing within light room. In the past, I have used LR for basically cropping and straightening. Now I at the point where I took some pictures at my daughters Sweet Sixteen and I feel that they are a bit overexposed. How should I go about improving the images? Should I start with a preset? What preset should I use? If not using a preset, should i try to adjust according to the histogram? I know it seems like i'm all over the place. Thanks in advance for the advice.

There are more complex ways to do it, methods that are more flexible and give you more control, but for something quick and dirty see This Tutorial to get started.

....
....

Good link, learnt new things about lightroom myself reading that

There are some good tutorial videos out there addressing about every part of LR. It's also interesting to check how others process certain shots since there is no one method that works for all. Some type of shots require a whole different approach.

I am sure you can find a video tutorial on nearly every aspect of LightRoom on YouTube by now. Some are very good and some are not worth watching. You just have to find them and figure out for yourself which are the most helpful