- Getting started
- Lightroom is your digital notebook
- The import process
- Importing photos from a digital camera
- Importing images from a hard disk
- Importing via drag and drop
- Evaluating photos before importing
- Images that are already imported
- Importing to a specific folder
- Importing from a watched folder
- Tethered shooting
- Viewing imported photos in the work area
- Review questions
- Review answers
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Viewing imported photos in the work area
In the Library module, the main display area—the work area—in the center of the application window is where you select, sort, search, review, and compare images. The Library module work area offers a choice of view modes to suit a range of tasks, from organizing your photos to choosing between similar shots.
If you’re not already in the Library module, switch to it now. Select All Photographs in the Catalog panel to see all of the images you have imported.
Depending on your workspace setup in the Library module, you may see the Filter bar across the top of the work area. You can use filters to limit the images that are displayed in the Grid view and the Filmstrip so that you’ll see only those photos with a specified rating or flag status, or with particular metadata content.
The Toolbar, located at the bottom of the work area, is common to all of the workspace modules, but contains different tools and controls for each.
If the Filter bar is not already visible, show it by pressing the backslash key (\) on your keyboard or by choosing View > Show Filter Bar. Press the backslash key again or choose View > Show Filter Bar to hide it again.
If the Toolbar is not already visible, press T to show it. Press T again to hide it. Switch to the Develop module. If the Toolbar is not already visible, press T to show it. Switch back to the Library module. In the Library module, the Toolbar is still hidden; Lightroom remembers your Toolbar setting for each module independently. Press T to show the Toolbar in the Library module.
Double-click an image in Grid view to switch to Loupe view. The Loupe view is available in both the Library and Develop modules, but the controls available in the Loupe view Toolbar differ for each of these modules.
To hide or show individual tools, click the white arrow at the right end of the Toolbar and choose their names from the menu. Tools that are currently visible in the Toolbar have a checkmark in front of their names.
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Setting Grid and Loupe view options
You can choose from many options in the Library View Options dialog box to customize the information Lightroom Classic displays for each image in the Grid and Loupe views. For the Loupe view overlay and thumbnail tool tips, you can activate two sets of options and then use a keyboard shortcut to switch between them.
Press G to switch to Grid view in the Library module. Press Shift+Tab to hide all of the panels and focus on your grid of images.
Choose View > View Options. The Library View Options dialog box appears with the Grid View tab already selected. Position the Library View Options dialog box so you can see some of the images in the Grid view.
At the top of the Grid View tab, deselect Show Grid Extras. This disables most of the other options.
The only options still available are Tint Grid Cells With Label Colors and Show Image Info Tooltips. If they’re not already activated, select both of these options. As this lesson’s images have not yet been assigned color labels, activating the first option has no visible effect in the Grid view. Right-click any image—you can do this while the Library View Options dialog box is open—and choose a color from the Set Color Label menu.
In the Grid view and the Filmstrip, a color-labeled image that is currently selected will show a thin colored frame around the thumbnail; a color-labeled image that is not selected has a tinted cell background.
Position the pointer over a thumbnail in the Grid view or the Filmstrip; a tool tip appears. In macOS you’ll need to click anywhere in the Lightroom Classic workspace window to bring it to the front before you can see the tool tips.
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By default, the tool tip will display the filename, the capture date and time, and the cropped dimensions. You can specify the information to be displayed in the tool tip by choosing from the Loupe View options.
On macOS, if the Library View Options dialog box is now hidden behind the main application window, press Command+J to bring it back to the front.
On the Grid View tab, select the Show Grid Extras option and choose Compact Cells from the menu beside it. Experiment with each setting to see its effect in the Grid view display. Select and deselect the settings for Options, Cell Icons, and Compact Cell Extras. Position the pointer over the various icons in the image cells to see tool tips with additional information.
Under Compact Cell Extras, click the Top Label menu to see the long list of choices available. For some choices, such as Title or Caption, nothing will be displayed until you add the relevant information to the image’s metadata.
Now choose Expanded Cells from the Show Grid Extras menu. Experiment with the Expanded Cell Extras options to see the effects in the Grid view. Click any of the Show Header With Labels menus to see the many choices available to customize the information that is displayed in the cell headers.
Click the Loupe View tab. The work area switches to Loupe view so you can preview the changes you’ll make in the Library View Options dialog box.
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For the Loupe view, you can select the Show Info Overlay option to display image information in the upper-left corner of the view. Choose items from the menus in Loupe Info 1 and Loupe Info 2 to create two different sets of information, and then choose either set from the Show Info Overlay menu.
You can reset either group to its default state by clicking its Use Defaults button. Select Show Briefly When Photo Changes instead of Show Info Overlay to show the info overlay for only a few seconds when a new image is displayed in the Loupe view. Select the Show Message When Loading Or Rendering Photos option to display a notification in the lower part of the view while the image preview is updated.
Click the Close button to close the Library View Options dialog box.
Choose which of the two information sets will be displayed by choosing an option from the View > Loupe Info menu or by pressing the I key to cycle the info overlay through Loupe Info 1, Loupe Info 2, and its disabled state.
Switch to Grid view. From the View > Grid View Style menu, you can choose whether to display additional information using either the Compact Cells layout or the Expanded Cells layout. Press the J key to cycle through the cell layouts.