This post is basically about my favorite shortcuts and tricks that make working inside the Library module of Lightroom much more efficient and quick. I have organized the tips into two different sections: Browsing and Sorting/Organizing.

Browse like a Pro:

You can use G to access Grid view and E to switch to Loupe view inside the Library module (these shortcuts do work irrespective of your current module). Also note that live preview (as shown below) is only available when you hover over the photos in the film-strip or via the folder structure in the left panel. There is no live preview available when you hover over photos in Grid view.

In Library Grid view mode – use J key to toggle between expanded/compact views of the thumbnails. The expanded view shows additional info like File Name, Dimensions, Index Number etc. and can be customized by right-clicking on the gray area around the thumbnail and choosing the desired attributes:

In Library Loupe view mode – use I key to see information regarding the photo. This info can again be customized by going to View > View Options and choosing the options in Loupe Info 1 and Loupe Info 2.

Use ALT key to view or change Sharpening and Saturation instead of Clarity and Vibrance that appear by default in the Quick Develop section of Library module:

Use Ctrl+F to quickly bring up search by text field in Library module!

Bonus tip: In Library as well as other modules, pressing Ctrl + 0 (or 1, 2, 3, 4) toggles the panels in right side menu (Histogram, Quick Develop and so on).

Sort and Organize Photos Faster:

I’m sure most of you use the basic rating and labeling shortcuts already but if you don’t, here is what you must try using next time:

a.1 to 5 for rating the images (where 1=1 star and so on)

b.0 to remove the stars

c.6-9 for color labels (6=Red and so on)

d.P to flag as Pick

e.U to Unflag or Unpick and

f.X to mark an image as Reject

Phew! These may seem like a lot to begin with, but the shortcuts are all extremely logical and you’ll keep getting better and better as you use them regularly.

This tip is one of my favorites! While adding flags, stars or labels you can auto-advance through the images (yes!) and to do so – either leave the Caps Lock on or keep the Shift key pressed. This will speed up your sorting process considerably.

Here’s one more secret weapon for quickly zeroing-in on your best shots and it’s the Refine Photos command! Go to Library > Refine Photos and this basically results in unflagged photos to be flagged as rejected, and picked photos to be unflagged for further review. Also, you can automatically delete Rejected images by using Ctrl + Delete or going to Photo > Delete Rejected Images.

At times you may want to segregate some images in a “container” so that you can revisit all of them together. That’s when the Quick Collection comes handy! And what’s more, there are many ways to add an image to a Quick Collection – you can drag and drop images to the Quick Collection in the left panel, press B to add the active photo to the Quick Collection or just click on the gray-circle at the top right of the image thumbnail.

Finally, to quickly rename images, hit the F2 key!

Now I know that there is one more very important section in the Library module and it’s the Keywording panel. But since that has a lot of nuances and tricks of its own, I am going to save it for a future post.

Till then, remember Rule #5 – Enjoy!

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I am back with a post on one of the things that is an integral part of my workflow inside Lightroom and is a real life-saver if done the right away – Comparing Images.

Have you ever ended up making a lot of adjustments to your photo and then getting lost somewhere along the way as to whether you are on the right track or not? Panic no more, here’s a post on what are the different ways you can compare the before-and-after views of your images in Lightroom and figure out if the changes you made to your original image are indeed making sense.

In the Lightroom Develop module, once you have made some adjustments or even applied one of the available presets, here is how you can go about comparing the end-result with your original image –

1)Start by making sure you have the “View Modes” option enabled in the Toolbar. You can do so by clicking on the small triangle to the extreme right of the toolbar in the Develop module ( shown below):

2)Voilà! You will now see the two additional icons, the left one is the Loupe view button and the right one is yes – our magic Before-and-After button ( shown below):

3)Now, this very powerful before-and-after option is available in four different flavours that are really helpful depending on the picture you are processing. These four view options are accessible by clicking on the little triangle next to the before-after button. Here are the different views with examples:

a)First one is the good-old Before/After Left/Right view. As you can see below, it places the two images side by side. I use it very often when I am done processing my image and want to give a final review as to how far (and hopefully better) I have come from the original image:

b)Second, there is the Before/After Top/Bottom view. I personally use this most often for the final evaluation of landscape photos (especially panoramas) that are easier to compare in a top/bottom kind of alignment:

c)Next, there are the two split views that are again very nifty. I particularly like using these for interim comparisons while I am processing my images so that I know that I am headed in the right direction. To make use of Split comparison views check either the Before/After Left/Right Split option or Before/After Top/Bottom Split option. Here is an example of the Before/After Top/Bottom Split:

d)And lastly here is an example of Before/After Left/Right Split view:

Have you noticed how it is the image that really decides whether top/bottom or left/right split comparison would be logical? Had I reversed the split options in the above two images, the comparison view would actually be of little or no use at all!

Finally, here’s a little bonus trick: At any point of time while processing your images in Develop module, you can simply hit the backslash key (\) to toggle between the before and after views of the image!

That’s it! Hope you enjoyed the post!

You can find Ashu on Twitter and Flickr

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So when my friend invited me to his very interesting and informative blog to share my experiences with it, I was more than willing to jump at this chance. To illustrate, I will share with you the Before-and-After results for one of my images. This is the image straight-out-of-the-camera:

Now for a few quick steps that I performed in Lightroom:

1. Created a virtual copy and headed into the “Develop” module of Lightroom
2. Cropped the image to close-in on the flower as I felt there was too much distraction on the left
3. Increased the contrast to 100% to create a dramatic effect and emphasize the curves of the petals
4. Increased the blacks to a value of 7 to further take away focus from the background
5. Increased the saturation by 2 points

 This is the resulting image:

You may notice how the centre of the flower seems to be “glowing” and ends-up creating a more captivating image overall.

That’s it! And this is just the tip of the iceberg; Lightroom offers so many easy-to-use settings that you can really have fun with your pictures and make them look so much better in no time. In fact, I chose this image because I wanted to show how minor tweaks are often needed to make your images really “pop”.

You can also choose from all the amazing presets that are available for free download and start using them to achieve the desired “look” for your pictures. Observe closely what changes each preset makes to your image and it won’t be long before you will start creating and saving presets of your own!

You can download a 30-day free trial of Lightroom here: http://www.adobe.com/go/trylightroom and the Learning Center has a lot of resources to help you get started: http://www.photoshopuser.com/lightroom2/

Hope you enjoyed this post!

Thanks Ashu

A huge thank you to Ashu for this great post.

You can see more of Ashu’s photographs at Flickr.

Ashu is also on Twitter.

Tomorrow, Simon Rudd.

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