Are you utilising Lightroom’s keyboard shortcuts when editing your photos in Adobe Lightroom? It’s ok if you’re not. I am going to show you the ones you need to know to speed up your editing.

What Is A keyboard Shortcut?

An example would be CTRL + / This shortcut will bring up the shortcut menu within the current module.

So you can see in this case we saved time, rather than moving the mouse to the top menu bar then finding the menu, then waiting for the menu to expand and finally clicking on the menu item.

Generally you’re going to have combinations of 1 to 3 keys.

You might already be using shortcuts like G key for switching to the grid module and the D key for the develop module. Just by using this two keys you can save a considerable amount when editing for long periods, And reducing RSI.

Now that you know what a keyboard shortcut is. Let me show you some shortcuts that I use when I edit my photos that help me to speed up my editing time.

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Lightroom Keyboard Shortcuts

1. Display Shortucts Menu

Shortcut: Win – CTRL + / Mac – Cmd + / Will display on screen the available shortcuts for the current module

2. Alt or Opt

Shortcut: Win – Alt key Mac – Opt Key Is one of those versatile keys. Press it by it’s self and a REST option will appear for your sliders.

Press the key while using a slider and it allows you to visually see what the slider is doing. For instance when using the highlight slider your photo will black out and and only the highlights will be shown.

3. Create a Virtual Copy

Shortcut: Win – Ctrl + ‘ Mac – Cmd + ‘ Create a virtual copy of the selected photo. I use this alot with the next two shortcuts.

4. Copy Development Settings

Shortcut: Win – Ctrl + Shift + C Mac – Cmd + shift + C This would Without a Doubt would have to be My most used shortcut when I edit. Copy development settings a dialogue will show up and you can select the setting you wish to include or exclude.

5. Paste Development Settings

Shortcut: Win – Ctrl + Shift + V Mac – Cmd + Shift + V Paste the currently copied development settings to the selected photo.

6. Auto Tone

Shortcut: Win – Ctrl + U Mac – Cmd + U Sometimes auto tone can be a good starting point. It does well with the blacks on the white. But the exposure is usually off a little and so can be the highlights. Which is an easy fix.

7. Auto White Balance

Shortcut: Win Ctrl + Shift +U Mac – Cmd + Shift +U Like the auto tone setting the auto white balance can sometimes be a bit hit and miss you just have to try see for yourself.

8. White Balance Selector

Shortcut: W – This key brings up white balance dropper which you use to click on anywhere on your screen to make a white balance selection.

9. Auto Black & White

Shortcut: V key A good starting point for back & white photos. I use this shortcut to help determain if i want to keep the current photo in colour or Black & white.

10. Survey Mode

Shortcut: N key I find this extremely useful when I have a group of similar photos that I want to compare

11. Compare Two Photos

Shortcut: C – Compared two photos side by side. Use Shift + C if you are working with photos in landscape orientation.

12. Before and After

Shortcut: Y – Useful to see what you what your editing looks like compared to the original photo.

13. Edit In Photoshop

Shortcut: Ctrl – E Lightroom can sometimes only take you so far, use this shortcut to take your current photo to photoshop.

14. Show clipping

Shortcut: J Show the histogram clipping within an image. Blue for under exposed, Red for over exposed

15. Zoom in / Zoom out

Shortcut: Z A quick way to zoom in or out. I find the space bar does a similar job.

16. Crop Tool

Shortcut: R Activate the crop tool to the last used setting.

17. Spot Removal Tool

Shortcut: Q Useful for removing blemishes on skin. If you have to remove a lot, It’s best to use photoshop as lightroom can become sluggish.

18. Adjustment Brush

Shortcut: K – This activates the last used brush, perfect for painting on adjustments.

19. Gradient Filter

Shortcut: M this will bring up the last used filter, pick a side of the screen and pull towards the centre.

20. Radial Filter

Shortcut: Shift + M This will activate the radial filter which can be used to just like the gradient filter vrm key will bring up the radio radio filter this allows you to.

21. Full Screen Mode

Shortcut: F Makes your photo display in full screen.

22. Lights Out Mode

Shortcut: L Lights out mode blackens the screen and displays your photo at the current size.

23. Flag Photo

Shortcut: P Allows you to assign a flag to the selected image(s)

24. Number Rating

Pressing the numerical keys 1 to 5 will tag your photos with a star rating. 0 will remove any rate for the selected photos.

25. Colour labels

Pressing the 6 to 9 will assign a colour label to your photos. E.g. All red coloured photos could be for exporting for an album or blue labelled photos will be for the blog.

26. Undo

Shortcut: Crtl – z Just like in your word processor this key combo allows you to undo the current edit.

So that’s the keyboard shortcuts I generally use when I edit in Lightroom. Once you get the get the hang of them , editing becomes a lot faster.

How many of the above Lightroom keyboard shortcut do you use when you edit? Let me know if you I have missed any.