Lightroom hides many of its most useful features behind single keys, modifier keys and right-click menus. A handful of them, such as Lights Out (L), the clipping preview you get by holding Alt (Option on a Mac) while you drag a slider, Solo Mode for panels, Auto Sync and Reference View, can change how fast and how accurately you edit. The tips below are for Lightroom Classic on the desktop. Where a shortcut uses Ctrl and Alt on Windows, use Cmd and Option on a Mac.
The quickest way to find more on your own: press Ctrl+/ in any module and Lightroom shows that module’s keyboard shortcuts.
Viewing your photos without distraction
- Lights Out (L). Press once to dim everything around the photo, twice to black it out, a third time to return. Judging color and brightness against a black or dim surround is far easier than against busy panels.
- Hide the panels (Tab and Shift+Tab). Tab hides the side panels; Shift+Tab hides every panel, including the filmstrip and the top bar. Press again to bring them back.
- Full screen (F). Shows the photo full screen with nothing else. Shift+F cycles through the screen modes of the window itself.
- Toolbar (T). Hides or shows the toolbar under the photo.
- Info overlay (I). Cycles through overlays showing the file name, capture settings and more in Loupe view. Ctrl+J opens View Options, where you choose what each overlay shows.
- Before and after (\ and Y). In Develop, the backslash key flips between your edit and the photo before editing. Y shows before and after side by side.
Sorting and culling faster in the Library
- Single-key views. G for Grid, E for Loupe, C for Compare (two photos), N for Survey (several photos side by side) and D to jump to Develop.
- Flags, stars and labels from the keyboard. P flags a pick, X a reject and U removes the flag. Number keys 0 to 5 set stars, and 6 to 9 set the red, yellow, green and blue color labels.
- Auto advance (Caps Lock). With Caps Lock on, every flag or rating moves you to the next photo automatically. A full shoot can be culled with one hand.
- Delete the rejects in one go. Ctrl+Backspace (Cmd+Delete on a Mac) removes every photo flagged as rejected in the current folder or collection, after asking you to confirm.
- Filter bar (\ in Library). In the Library, backslash shows or hides the filter bar, where you can show only picks, only four stars and up, or only photos from one lens. Ctrl+F jumps straight to the text search.
- Stacks (Ctrl+G). Group a burst, a bracket or a set of near duplicates under one thumbnail to clean up the grid.
- Quick Collection (B). Adds the selected photos to a temporary collection, handy for gathering a set from many folders.
- The Painter tool. The spray can in the Grid toolbar applies a keyword, label, rating or develop preset to every photo you click or drag across.
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Hidden controls in the Develop sliders
- See clipping while you drag. Hold Alt while dragging the Exposure, Whites or Blacks slider. The photo turns black (or white for the Blacks slider) except where tones are clipping, so you can see exactly which areas are losing detail. Press J to toggle the red and blue clipping overlays at any time; they are also the two small triangles at the top corners of the histogram.
- Drag the histogram itself. Click and drag left or right inside the histogram. Depending on where you grab it, you move Blacks, Shadows, Exposure, Highlights or Whites.
- Set white and black points automatically. Shift+double-click the Whites or Blacks slider and Lightroom sets it to the point just short of clipping.
- Reset a single slider. Double-click a slider’s name to return it to its default. Hold Alt and a panel’s section names turn into reset buttons, so you can reset a whole group at once.
- Type exact values. Click the number at the end of any slider and type a value.
- Adjust by dragging on the photo. The Targeted Adjustment Tool, the small target icon in the Tone Curve and HSL/Color panels, lets you click a tone or color in the photo and drag up or down to change it. Drag on a blue sky to darken just the blues.
- White balance picker (W). Click something that should be neutral gray and the white balance is set from it.
Cropping and straightening tricks
- Crop overlays (O and Shift+O). With the crop tool open (R), O cycles through overlays: thirds, grid, diagonals, triangles, golden ratio, golden spiral and aspect ratios. Shift+O flips the spiral or triangle to fit your composition.
- Swap orientation (X). Turns a horizontal crop vertical and back without redrawing it.
- Straighten by drawing a line. In the crop tool, hold Ctrl and drag along something that should be level, such as a horizon. The photo rotates to match. For converging verticals, use the Transform panel.
Local adjustments and cleanup
- Visualize Spots (A). In Spot Removal (Q), press A to see the photo as a high contrast black and white edge map. Dust and specks that are invisible at normal view stand out at once. H hides the spot pins so you can judge the result. Spot removal in Lightroom covers the tool in full.
- Brush shortcuts. With a brush, the [ and ] keys change its size, and holding Alt switches it to erase.
- See the mask (O). In Masking, O shows or hides the colored overlay of the active mask, so you can check exactly what it covers.
- Automatic masks. Select Subject and Select Sky make a mask in one click, and range masks limit any mask to a band of color or brightness. Masking and selective adjustments explains how to combine them.
Keeping a set consistent
- Auto Sync. Select several photos, then hold Ctrl and click the Sync button so it reads Auto Sync. Every change you make to one photo now applies to all the selected photos as you work.
- Previous. With one photo selected, the Previous button (Ctrl+Alt+V) applies all the settings from the last photo you edited.
- Copy and paste settings. Ctrl+Shift+C opens a dialog to choose which settings to copy; Ctrl+Shift+V pastes them on the selected photos.
- Reference View (Shift+R). Shows a reference photo beside the one you are editing. Drag your best frame from the filmstrip into the reference side and match the rest to it by eye.
- Match Total Exposures. Select several photos with the one you want to match as the active photo, then choose Settings, Match Total Exposures. Lightroom adjusts the Exposure slider on the others so their overall brightness matches, taking their different shutter speeds, apertures and ISO into account. Matching exposures across photos walks through it.
- Snapshots (Ctrl+N in Develop). Save the current state of an edit under a name. Unlike History, snapshots stay easy to find, so you can compare two versions or come back to one later.
- Virtual copies (Ctrl+’). Make a second version of a photo, such as a black and white one, without duplicating the file on disk.
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Making the workspace your own
- Solo Mode. Right-click any panel header in Develop and choose Solo Mode. Opening one panel now closes the others, which ends the endless scrolling. Alt-clicking a panel header does the same.
- Hide panels you never use. Right-click a panel header and untick the panels you do not need.
- Hide modules. Right-click the module names at the top right and untick the ones you never open.
- Change the defaults. If you make the same first adjustments to every photo, set them as the default for your camera. Changing default develop settings explains how.
Exporting and handing off
- Export with Previous (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E). Exports the selected photos with the settings you used last time, without opening the dialog.
- Soft proofing (S). In Develop, S previews how the photo will look on a chosen printer and paper profile before you print. Soft proofing explains what you are looking at.
- Edit in Photoshop (Ctrl+E). Sends the photo with its Lightroom edits to Photoshop and brings the result back into the catalog beside the original.
- Smart Previews. Build Smart Previews for a folder and you can keep editing those photos when the drive holding the originals is disconnected.
Try this
Take ten minutes with one finished shoot. Turn on Caps Lock and cull it with P and X only. Press Ctrl+Backspace to remove the rejects. Edit one keeper while holding Alt on the Whites and Blacks sliders, then press L twice to judge it against black. Select the rest of the picks, hold Ctrl, click Auto Sync, and fine-tune one more photo to see the change spread across the set. Finish with Reference View to check that the set matches.
Frequently asked questions
How do I see all the keyboard shortcuts in Lightroom?
Press Ctrl+/ (Cmd+/ on a Mac) in any module. Lightroom shows the shortcuts for that module, and each module has its own list.
How do I see clipped highlights and shadows in Lightroom?
Press J in Develop to show clipped highlights in red and clipped shadows in blue. For a clearer view, hold Alt while dragging the Exposure, Whites or Blacks slider to see only the clipped areas.
How do I apply one photo’s edits to many photos?
Select the edited photo first, then the others, and click Sync to choose which settings to copy. To apply every change live, hold Ctrl and click Sync to switch on Auto Sync.
Do these tips work in the cloud-based version of Lightroom?
Some do, but the two programs differ. These shortcuts and menus are for Lightroom Classic. The cloud-based version and the mobile app have their own layouts; see the Lightroom mobile guide for those.
New to Lightroom and want the basics first? Lightroom for beginners covers importing, the Develop panels and exporting from the start.