Julieanne Kost's Blog

If you are missing the Tool bar in the Grid view in Lightroom, tap the “T” key. If you are missing the Filter Bar, tap the \.

Note: Don’t forget the Filter bar is only displayed in Grid view, not Loupe view.

Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) will toggle between the Dodge and Burn tools – without changing the brush size ( which is what happens if you actually select the other tool using the Tool panel or the shortcut Shift + O).

Control (Mac) / Right Mouse (Win) -clicking on a panel header will display a list of panels (among other options). To hide/show a panel simply toggle off/on the check next to its name.

Just because Photoshop ships with the tools on the left and the Panels on the right of the display, it doesn’t mean that they have to stay that way! When working at home, I actually prefer to put the tools on the right of my screen so that they are closer to the panels and I don’t have to waste time moving back and fourth to select tools and then change panel options (like selecting layers, adding Adjustment layers etc.). Or, if you want to force yourself to learn the shortcuts for all of the tools, simply hide the tool panel for a week.  Note: to hide the tools select Window > Tools.

After yesterday’s post I was reminded that I had previously created a much longer video that covered not only Tool Presets but also the customization of Workspaces, Menus, Keyboard shortcuts, Preferences, Palette Options, the Preset Manager and more! Although it was recorded with Photoshop CS4, the tips and techniques that I cover are just as useful today as they were then. Click here to enjoy!

In this episode of the Complete Picture (Create and Save Your Own Tool Presets in Photoshop CS5) I will demonstrate how to eliminate repetitive tasks and increase efficiencies in Photoshop by customizing the tools you use the most and saving them as Presets.

In order to put the emphasis on the image and not on the interface in Lightroom tap the “L” key to enter Lights Dim mode. Tap it again to toggle to Lights Out. Tapping it again will toggle back to Normal mode. To toggle in the other direction add the Shift key. Choose to set the “Dim” level in Preferences > Interface to 50, 70, 80 or 90 percent.

I had previously posted:

•  Option (Mac) / Alt (Win)  changes a group of sliders name (such as Presence in the Basic Panel) to “Reset Presence” in order to quickly reset the group of sliders (Clarity, Vibrance and Saturation) with a single click.

However, I just found out that you don’t actually have to hold down the Option (Mac) / Alt (Win)  when double clicking the name of a group of sliders, you can simple double click the group’s name (without a keyboard modifier) to reset them. The Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) key simply makes it more obvious that you’re resetting the group by adding “reset” in front of the name.

Control (Mac) / Right Mouse (Win) -click anywhere in the gray background (surrounding the image preview area) in Lightroom’s Develop module to set it to Light Gray. I have been told this can help avoid underexposing when making modifications. Of course you can change it to any of the other options if you want to preview your image against a lighter or datker shade of gray.

Tap the “D” key to get to the Develop module from any other module. You can also Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) + double-click to move from Grid view to the Develop module (and vice-versa).

In this episode, I will demonstrate how to streamline Lightroom 3’s Develop module by taking advantage of my top 10 favorite shortcuts & time-saving features in order to eliminate many of the repetitive image adjustment tasks when editing large volumes of images. Check it out here…

In the Layers panel, Control (Mac) / Right Mouse (Win) -click the eye icon for any layer  and select a color from the list. This can be very helpful when working with complex, multi-layers documents. Note, the Background layer can not be color coded. To convert the Background into a layer by selecting Layer > New > Layer From Background (or by double clicking on the word Background in the Layers panel).

“T” toggles the visibility of the Tool bar in the Library and Develop Module.

Click the downward facing triangle on the far right of the Tool bar to customize what options are displayed.

“\” (backslash) toggles the visibility of the filter bar while in Grid view (Loupe view automatically hides the Filter bar).

Holding the Shift key or turning on the Caps Locks will auto advance to the next image after applying a label, flag or rating.