July 25, 2012
Almost all of the editing panels in Lightroom’s Develop module display a small “light switch” icon on the left side of the panel’s header. Click the “light switch” to toggle the visibility of changes made in that panel.
The Graduated Filter and Adjustment Brush also have the “lights switch” icon to toggle the visibility of the changes made with the respective tool. Note however that the icon is displayed at the bottom left of the tool’s options (as there is no Panel header for these tools).
Tapping the “\” (Backslash) key toggles changes made in all of the panels.
July 24, 2012
In order to reset any slider in Lightroom, double click on the name of the slider.
Holding down the Option (Mac) | Alt (Win) key modifies the names of groups of sliders. For example, in the Basic Panel, holding the Option (Mac) | Alt (Win) toggles “Presence” to “Reset Presence”. In order to quickly reset the entire group of sliders, click the modified name (“Reset Presence”).
In addition, Option (Mac) | Alt (Win) -dragging many of the sliders in Lightroom evokes various different behaviors. For example, in the Split Toning panel, Option (Mac) | Alt (Win) -dragging the Hue slider will temporarily preview the Hue (color) at 100% Saturation (making it easier to select your desired hue). In the Detail panel, under Sharpening, Option (Mac) | Alt (Win) -dragging the Detail and Masking sliders displays a black and white preview of the mask used to suppress sharpening in lower contrast edge areas in the image). In the Basic panel, Option (Mac) | Alt (Win) -dragging the Exposure, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, and/or Blacks slider displays any areas of the image that are being clipped to pure black or white (on a per channel basis).
July 17, 2012
Command + H (Mac) | Control + H (Win) can be used to quickly toggle between viewing and hiding a variety of items in Photoshop. For example, when working with shape layers it might be difficult to see exactly how a Drop Shadow layer style might appear if the shape layer’s path is visible. Instead of clicking on another layer to hide the path, use the shortcut above to hide the path. In order to control what is shown/hidden, choose View > Show > Show Extras Options. Here is the list of what items can be shown/hidden:
Note, the first time you use this shortcut on the Macintosh, Photoshop will display a dialog asking “Would you like to use Cmd-H to hide Photoshop (Mac standard), or to hide/show selections, guides, etc. (Photoshop traditional)? Click “Hide Extras” unless you want to “Hide Photoshop” every time you use the shortcut. If you do choose to “Hide Photoshop”, you can change this behavior later by choosing Edit >Keyboard Shortcuts. Set the “Shortcuts For” to Application Menus and toggle the disclosure triangle for the View menu. Scroll down to Extras, change the Shortcut to Command + H and click Accept and then OK.
June 20, 2012
There are a variety of different tools that enable you to see precise transformation values in Photoshop CS6 including Free Transform and the Crop tool. To change the location of the display, choose Preferences > Interface and, under Show Transformation Values, choose from Never, Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left, or Bottom Right.
June 19, 2012
Shift + F1 will darken the appearance of Photoshop CS6’s interface by one step. Shift + F2 will brighten the interface by one step. Note: on a laptop, you might need to add the function key. Note: you can also change the appearance of the interface under Preferences > Interface > Color Theme.
In addition, you can Control -click (Mac) / Right Mouse -click (Win) in the grey area surrounding an image to change the color. This changes the interface behind your image, not the background color of your image.
June 13, 2012
Did you know that you can create your own custom end panel icon to use with Lightroom? Simply create your graphic (using Photoshop or Illustrator), and save it as a .png. Then, in Lightroom, choose Preferences > Interface > Panels. Under the End Marks area, select Go To Panel End Marks Folder. Using the operating system, place your graphic file in the Panel End Marks Folder. Then, close the preferences and return to them – you will see your graphic at the bottom of the list. Select the graphic to display it at the end of each set of panels.
Note: you can also save the file as a PSD file or JPEG however the JPEG file will not support transparency.
April 25, 2012
You no longer have to wait for the progress bar to creep across your screen when saving large files because Photoshop CS6’s Background Save feature can save files in the background while you keep working on other projects.
Auto Save, another new feature of Photoshop Cs6, can help recover your file if your computer crashes before you’ve had a chance to save. To select the time interval for automatically saving your files, select Preferences > File Handling and choose from every 5, 10, 15, 30, or 60 minutes.
Both of these features are on by default. To disable either of these options choose Preferences > File Handling and uncheck Save in Background and/or Automatically Save Recovery Information.
April 24, 2012
As you have probably already noticed, Photoshop CS6 had a major interface overhaul. The entire application was re-skinned and, as a fun fact, that means that over 1800 icons and 250 cursors got a makeover!
There are 4 “Color Themes” or levels of brightness that you can choose from. By default, the second-to-most dark theme is selected. You can change the theme by clicking on the color swatches in Preferences > Interface > Appearance, or use the shortcut Shift + F2 to move to a lighter Theme or Shift + F1 to cycle to a darker theme. Note, on the Mac, you might have to ad the function (fn) key).
Previous versions of Photoshop used the lightest theme. It took me a few days to get use to the change but I now prefer the darker, default interface as I feel that the Photoshop interface now takes a back seat to the image that I’m editing.
February 3, 2012
Recently several customers have inquired about creating custom keyboard shortcuts in Lightroom. Unfortunately we don’t have a keyboard shortcut editor like Photoshop but there is a plug in called Keyboard Tamer that might let you accomplish what you need:
Or, for a more extended (and a bit more expensive) option you can try RPG Keys for Lightroom and Photoshop.
I hope these might be helpful.
February 1, 2012
The Module Picker is now customizable. Control -click (Mac) / Right Mouse -click (Win) on the Module picker (the list across the top) and choose to show or hide modules.
December 13, 2011
If you prefer to show a small, square color label in Grid view (instead of tinting the image thumbnail’s frame), uncheck the option to “Tint grid cells with label colors” and check to “Include color label” in the Expanded Cell Extras under View > View Options (Command + J (Mac) | Control + J (Win)).
December 12, 2011
• Command + Shift + H (Mac) | Control + Shift + H in the Grid view (in the Library module) will toggle the Cell Extras on and off.
• Command + J (Mac) | Control + J (Win) displays the View Options (where you can select what “extras” you want to have displayed).
December 6, 2011
Quickly navigate through the Basic Panel by tapping the “.” (period) key . Then use the + and – keys to increase/decrease individual slider settings. Add the Shift key to move the sliders in larger increments.
November 10, 2011
Command (Mac) / Control (Win) + , (comma) will display the Lightroom Preferences.
Command + Option (Mac) / Control + Alt (Win) + , (comma) will display the Lightroom Catalog Settings.
November 1, 2011
I’m constantly reminded that different people use different shortcuts to accomplish the same tasks. For example, I typically tap “G” to go to the Grid view and “D” to move to the Develop module, However, each module also has its own shortcut:
• Command + Option (Mac) / Control + Alt (Win) + 1 moves to the Library module.
• Command + Option (Mac) / Control + Alt (Win) + 2 moves to the Develop module.
• Command + Option (Mac) / Control + Alt (Win) + 3 moves to the Slideshow module.
• Command + Option (Mac) / Control + Alt (Win) + 4 moves to the Print module.
• Command + Option (Mac) / Control + Alt (Win) + 5 moves to the Web module.
• Command + Option (Mac) / Control + Alt (Win) + Up arrow moves to the previous module.
• Command + Option (Mac) / Control + Alt (Win) + left/right arrow moves back/forward through the recently viewed modules.
