“Now, why didn’t I think of that…?”
I’ve just taken part in the Lightroom Virtual Summit, hosted by Matt Kloskowski and Dave Cross, and it inspired me to write a post about Lightroom shortcuts. I learned a couple of new ones while watching their series of videos, and I’m happy to share them all with you.
First of all, I should say that this piece is intended for reasonably advanced Lightroom users. If you’re only just starting to play around with it, then it might be a bit overwhelming.
However, for those of you who spend hours and hours editing your photos in Lightroom, this is intended to help you simplify and speed up your workflow so that you can spend more time taking pictures rather than slumped over your laptop!
The picture above is taken from a site on GitHub called Application Shortcut Mapper. This is a great site that shows keyboard shortcuts for all kinds of software programs for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Check it out!
Modules
Lightroom has seven different modules, and the keyboard shortcuts available depend on which one you’re using:
Library
Develop
Map
Book
Slideshow
Print
Web
Let’s go through each of them in turn. These tables are the ones shown when you press Command + / in any of the modules.
I almost exclusively use Library and Develop in Lightroom, so I don’t know or use any of the shortcuts in the other modules, but I’ve included the tables anyway for the sake of completeness.
(Note that the tables show the Mac versions of the shortcuts. If the equivalent PC shortcut is different, you usually just need to replace the Command key with Control.)
Library
The Library module is the one where Lightroom users probably spend most of their time, so it’s important to be familiar with these particular shortcuts.
You can see a full list above, but here are the main ones I tend to use:
G Enter Grid mode. This gets you back to the basic view of your images in the Library module, so you’ll probably find yourself using it every time you finish working on an image.
E Enter Loupe view. This makes the selected image full-screen while remaining in the Library module, so it’s very useful for checking or editing metadata such as the filename, title and keywords.
Command + Return Enter Impromptu Slideshow mode. This is quick and easy way of showing people a collection of images. I often have people looking over my shoulder when I’m editing my images on my laptop, whether I’m in a safari lodge or on a cruise ship, so it’s nice to be able to show people the best shots I’ve taken on the trip.
F Full Screen Preview. This shows nothing but the selected image and hides all the panels around the active window, so it’s useful for getting an overall impression of any changes you’ve made to an image.
1-5 Set ratings. Rating images on a scale of one to five stars is a good way to prioritise images. All you need to do is press the relevant numbered key, and you’re done!
6-9 Set color labels. The other way in which you can categorise images is using the colour labels. This is easy enough as the numbers 6-9 are reserved for Red, Yellow, Green and Blue. There’s no shortcut for Purple, so you’ll just have to right-click on the image and choose it from the Set Color Label menu.
` Toggle Flagged Status. A lot of people use P to flag and U to unflag a photo, but this is really the only one you need as it toggles on and off. Flagging a particular image as a ‘pick’ is helpful if you want to put together an off-the-cuff selection of images, and you can even filter on the flagged status or base a smart collection on it, so it’s very useful.
(By the way, I don’t recommend using X to set images as Rejected. That’s just a waste of time if you use the rating system as the unflagged photos are automatically ‘rejected’ and can easily be selected using the Unflagged filter and deleted after you’ve finished editing all your images.)
B Add to Target Collection. This is very handy for me when I do my weekly upload of 100 images to stock agencies. Once I’ve selected the images I want, I can simply tap the B key and send them all into a temporary collection that I call Latest Images, where I can work on them before exporting them into the right format for upload.
Command + Shift + I Import photos and videos. I used to use this shortcut all the time to import images, but I usually right-click on folders to synchronise them now as it’s a bit quicker.
Command + Shift + E Export. This is always my final step in Lightroom when I need a copy of my images to upload to my website, social media, stock agencies or competition websites or just to share with friends and family.
Command + S Save Metadata to File. This is unfortunately necessary more often that you might think! Lightroom doesn’t immediately save all your metadata but works on it in the background, so it’s handy to be able to save the metadata in order to be sure that you’ve got the latest version of all your titles and keywords, say, before exporting your files.
Z Toggle Zoom View. This can be used in the Library or Develop module and is a nice, quick way of zooming in on an image. It toggles between the two most recent views you’ve used, but you can easily change those in the Navigator section of the left-hand menu panel.
One of the cool shortcuts I learned in the Lightroom Virtual Summit is that you can press and hold the Z key in Grid view in order to get a zoomed-in preview of an image. This is going to be a godsend when I’m rating images…!
fn + cursor keys View each part of an image in sequence. Once you’ve zoomed in to an image, you can press fn + left (or right) arrow to get to the top left (or bottom right) corner of the image. You can then press fn + down (or up) arrow to view every part of the image in sequence. This is particularly useful when you’re searching for sensor spots or other distractions that you want to clone out.
Delete Remove from Library. When you press the Delete key after selecting an image in a folder, you can actually choose whether to Delete from Disk or Remove from Lightroom. When you’re in a collection, the image is simply removed immediately from that particular collection (but not deleted from disk). Note that you can’t delete a photo directly from a Smart Collection.
Command + Shift + C Copy Develop Settings/Command + Shift + V Paste Develop Settings. This is occasionally useful if you’re working with Virtual Copies or TIFF files that you’ve edited in an external program such as DeNoise AI, and you want them to look just like the original file.
Command + Left arrow Previous selected photo/Command + Right arrow Next selected photo. You only really need the cursor keys to go to the next or previous image when you’re in the Library module, but that won’t always work in the Develop module as you might be using something like the Spot Removal Tool. Using the cursor keys will just move the selected area around (rather than going to the next selected image), so you need to press Command at the same time.
This is also handy for editing metadata. If you edit a field such as the title and then press Command + Right arrow, you’ll go to the very same field in the next selected image, and it’ll be highlighted so that you can immediately edit it.
Command + L Enable/Disable Library Filters. This is a handy way to cancel any filters you’ve been using.
Tab Hide/Show the side panels. The panels in Lightroom take up a lot of screen real estate and often get in the way, so it’s handy to be able to press Tab to hide them both in one go. It’s a toggle switch, so you can simply press Tab again to show the panels once more.
T Hide/Show the toolbar. I don’t often need the toolbar, but it’s handy to have when I’m using the Spot Removal Tool and want to tick the Visualize Spots checkbox. I also use it when I’m adding keywords to my images and need to click on the Painter spray can.
Command + F Activate the search field. This is one of the most common commands, so it’s worth knowing the shortcut. It works in Grid view and Loupe view in the Library module, but not in the Develop module. You can search through all kinds of text field, but it’s worthwhile checking what’s selected in order to avoid a nasty surprise! I often think I’ve lost an image when all that’s happened is that I’m using the wrong search parameters…
Shift + fn + down/up arrow (Shift + Page Down/Page Up) Scroll by page. This was a new feature added to Lightroom Classic 10.3, and it’s very handy when you want to scroll through your pictures in Grid view.
Another shortcut I discovered during the Lightroom Virtual Summit but not shown in the table above is the ability to set folders as Favourites. All you need to do is right-click on a particular folder and click on Mark Favorite. You can then click in the search bar at the top of the Folders section and choose Favorite Folders from the drop-down menu next to the magnifying glass icon. That will filter out any folders that aren’t in your favourites. To show all the available folders, just select All from the same menu.
You can also add colour labels to folders and filter them in a similar way, but I don’t have enough folders to make that worthwhile…!
Develop
V Convert to Black and White. This is obviously tremendously useful if you take a lot of black and white images, but I don’t!
Command + ‘ Create Virtual Copy. I tend to create sepia and black and white versions of all my five-star images, so this is a handy shortcut. A Virtual Copy is just that. It’s not a new file, just a ‘virtual’ one that you can edit in a different way. As Lightroom is a non-destructive program, all the edits are simply strings of instructions, so the Virtual Copy allows you to try out a different approach. You can always delete it later without having to worry about deleting the original file.
R Enter Crop Mode. Cropping is usually the first step in editing an image, and it’s easy to do by just pressing R. This is the first of six important local tools all in a row in the right-hand panel of the Develop module, and using them judiciously will give you a much better result than relying on global changes.
Q Enter Spot Removal Mode. This is a very useful tool for cloning out sensor spots or other distractions.
M Enter Graduated Filter Mode. This is a handy way of darkening or lightening a particular band of your image such as the sky.
Shift + M Radial Filter Mode. This allows you to create a circular or oval zone that you can then edit using all the usual settings. It’s handy for creating lens flare artificially or producing a slightly softer custom vignette than what you can get by using the Post-Crop Vignetting tool in the Effects section of the Develop panel.
K Enter Adjustment Brush Mode. The Adjustment Brush allows very fine editing of local details in your image, and you can apply a whole host of different settings.
D Loupe View. Pressing D when you’re in Grid view immediately displays the selected image in the Develop module, so you don’t need to double-click on it first or press Return.
Y View Before and After left and right. This shortcut allows you to see very quickly the impact of your editing in the Develop module. Sometimes, it’s easy to get so wrapped up in your editing that you get further and further away from real life, so it’s a good idea to compare your edited image to the original every now and again to make sure you haven’t gone too far.
X Rotate Crop. This is very useful in a couple of ways, firstly if I want to change an image from portrait to landscape (or vice versa) and secondly if I just want to reduce the size of it. If you press X twice, the image will rotate and then rotate back at around half the size. That’s a great time-saver!
O Show/Hide Mask Overlay. This shortcut comes into its own when working with the Adjustment Brush and the Radial and Graduated Filters. It shows (and hides) the area affected by the brush or filter, and it’s very convenient to be able to turn it on and off, depending on the situation, especially if you’re making several different changes in a small area.
H Show/Hide Pins. This is another shortcut that’s useful when using brushes and filters. There are times when you want to see the pins in order to update a previous edit, but there are also times when they just get in the way and prevent you selecting the area you want.
Command + 1-9 Activate sections of the Develop panel. This is not shown in the table above, but I discovered it during one of the sessions in the Lightroom Virtual Summit, and it looks like a real time-saver. Each of the sections in the Develop panel can be reached by simply pressing Command plus the appropriate number. For example, the first section is Basic, and you can reach it by pressing Command + 1. For the Tone Curve, which comes next, you press Command + 2 and so on. Genius!
/ Cycle through spot removal options. This is another option not shown above, and I only just discovered it myself during the Lightroom Virtual Summit. Essentially, it’s a way of improving the default selection of the area to copy from when using the Spot Removal Tool. Lightroom is particularly bad at choosing the right area to match to the sensor spot or other distraction that you want to remove from an image. This is especially a problem when you’re zoomed in, and the spot selected isn’t even shown in the window! Many’s the time I’ve had to zoom out, drag the spot somewhere closer and then zoom back in to choose the optimal area. Now, though, all you need to do if that happens is to press the / key a few times. It will cycle through half a dozen or so options, and, in my experience, will generally get there on the first press.