Awhile back I wrote about the most common things Lightroom Classic hides on you, but based on recent questions to the KelbyOne Help Desk I’ve noted a number of common things that aren’t very obvious and tend to trip people up.

One: Show Photos in Subfolders

By default, Classic displays the total file count in each subfolder, and the parent folders show the total of all files stored in its root plus the total in all subfolders. However, that is controlled by a simple check of a menu item under the Library menu, and if that is unchecked Classic only shows the total for what is in the root of every folder. Here’s how my Folders panel looks by default:

Here’s how it looks when Library > Show Photos in Subfolders is unchecked:

Super easy to fix when you know what controls that, but it is a total mystery to anyone who has never stumbled upon that menu item before. Hopefully, this will help anyone reading this from wasting time solving that in the future.

Two: Manual sort order not working

This is an old one that still trips up new Classic users. You can arrange your photos into a custom sort order by dragging and dropping in the Grid view of Library (or the Filmstrip). However, there are a couple of conditions that have to be met for this to work. First, you have to be viewing your photos in a regular collection or subfolder, or to put it another way you can’t do a custom sort order in a parent folder, collection set, or smart collection. If you are not paying attention to the selected source this is an easy mistake to make. The second condition is that when you click on a photo to move it, you must click on the actual photo, not the border! You can’t get fingerprints on these, so click right on them and drag until you see the line highlight at the location where you want the photo to go, and drop.

Three: Batch applying in Loupe view

This is a common gotcha where you select a bunch of photos in Library with the intention of applying the same keyword (or Quick Develop adjustment, or rating, etc.) to them all, but it only gets applied to one photo, the most selected photo (or active photo). You look in the Filmstrip and see all the selected photos, but it turns out you are in Loupe view. Batch application of those things just doesn’t work in Loupe view. All you need to do is press G to jump to Grid view and you can batch apply things all day long.

Four: Auto Dismiss White Balance

If you’ve ever used the White Balance Selector tool you’ve experienced Auto Dismiss the moment you click the first time on your photo. Unfortunately, your first choice may not be the right choice, but because the tool was dismissed you need to reactivate the tool again. Pressing W will quickly activate the tool, but you could just disable Auto Dismiss and click and click and click until you get the desired WB correction. However, it seems that either a lot of people don’t see that option in the Toolbar, or the Toolbar is hidden.

If the Toolbar is hidden, press the T key to bring it back (or hide it). Now, just go ahead and uncheck Auto Dismiss. When you are done with the WB tool, you can press Esc, or W, or click the WB tool back into the place where you found it, to exit the tool on your terms.

Five: Local Adjustment Sliders missing

This is actually a cool hidden feature, but if it catches you unaware it can throw you for a loop. There is a tiny low contrast disclosure triangle to the right of the Effect preset drop-down menu that should be pointing down by default, which exposes all the sliders contained

However, if that triangle gets clicked, it collapses all the sliders into a single Amount slider which may not be what you are expecting if you didn’t know.

The cool part is that you can use this to dial back all your local adjustment settings at once. So, apply your local adjustment, dial in settings in desired sliders, click the triangle and season to taste by reducing or increasing the Amount slider.

Hey, be sure to say hello if you are at Photoshop World this week. I’m teaching two Lightroom classes and hanging out at the Lightroom table in the Partner Pavilion. Can’t wait!

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