Lightroom Tips

I Have Two Lightroom Words For You – "Solo Mode"

I was in New York last week at Photo Plus East and I realized something. So many people don’t use one of my absolute favorite features for getting around in Lightroom. First… story time. See, I was walking through the expo and some one stopped me to say hi. He also had a Lightroom question. Well, the question got pretty involved so I asked him if he had his laptop there to show me (I figured it would save both of us time). So he opened his laptop and we were able to figure out his issue pretty fast.

In the process though, he was scrolling up and down the right side of the Develop module to get to the panel he wanted. So I asked if he knew what Solo Mode was. You’d think I gave him a million dollars when he saw what it did 🙂

What’s really interesting is that I saw the same guy the next day. He told me that he’d gone back to his studio (that he shares with several other photographers) and told them about it and none of them knew what Solo Mode was either. To add icing on the cake, I answered another LR question that day and showed the person Solo Mode and they almost kissed me (it was a guy so I stopped him 😉 ). At this point I realized two things: 1) I need to start charging for advice (totally just kidding!) and, 2) I needed to write a tip about Solo Mode.

What is Solo Mode?
Solo Mode automatically keeps only one panel open at a time. As you open another panel, the other automatically collapses. It’s great to keep you from having 7 panels open and scrolling up and down to switch panels. To turn it on, right-click on any dark gray area in your left or right side panels.

(click to see this larger)

You’ll see a pop-up menu show and Solo Mode will be one of those options. Just click it to turn it on. Don’t forget that turning it on in the right side of the Develop module only turns it on for those panels. You need to turn it on for the left side too. And it’s module specific so turning it on in Develop, doesn’t automatically turn it on for, say, the Library module.

Do you use Solo Mode? Weigh in and let us know if you agree? If not, give it a try. Once you turn it on, you’ll never go back. See ya!

Share:

143 comments

  1. m 7 December, 2019 at 02:59 Reply

    This is a workaround because Adobe hasn’t figured out they need to 1 make the scroll bar wider and 2 put the close button on the opposite side of the menu.

  2. StR 2 October, 2014 at 16:07 Reply

    I am glad this mode is optional.
    The Solo mode makes it very inefficient if you have a scroll-wheel mouse or scroll-rocker on the touchpad. Click-and-click is annoying.
    I see that several other people have the same opinion (Miro, and a few people after him).

    (I know this thread is old, but what the heck!)

  3. Leila 21 February, 2011 at 05:07 Reply

    I followed your tips and turned Solo Mode on in both the left and right panels in Develop mode however I don’t know how to get it to do anything.

    Apart from the option now being ticked when I right-click on the grey area, nothing has changed – I still see all panels…..what am I missing???

    • Judy Hall Jacobson 19 April, 2017 at 20:15 Reply

      What it does is whenever you open a panel, the one you had open closes, so you don’t need to scroll all the way down past open panels to the panel you want. I love it almost as much as back button focus!

  4. Jeni 13 December, 2010 at 21:04 Reply

    I could not get this to work. When I right click the only options I have are for the background color (grey, black, ect.) What am I doing wrong?

  5. Koen 30 November, 2010 at 06:44 Reply

    I had never heard of solo mode before. I gave it a try and I don’t like it.
    The fact that you have to open a panel to do something slows me down. I don’t understand that people like it and say it saves them time because for me it definitely doesn’t. I regularly move up and down through the panels and having only one panel open at a time is frustrating. It doesn’t give me any overview.
    I guess everyone is different.

  6. Alan Playford 24 November, 2010 at 05:40 Reply

    Yup, make Solo Mode a default, saves cluttering up the screen deffo!
    But the best thing since sliced bread? Oh, per-leese! It’s useful, nothing more, although I have to admit I’ll be leaving Solo mode on from this point forward!

  7. Gilles 19 November, 2010 at 02:28 Reply

    There are two other useful tricks with Solo Mode :
    – Shift key allows you to bypass temporarly the Solo mode : keep it pressed and click on 2, 3, 4 (whatever) panel headers to open them.
    – Ctrl/Cmd key let you open all the panels.

    Rgds, Gilles.

  8. Bill Bergmans 18 November, 2010 at 18:49 Reply

    I was in Solo mode from the beginning, but since I started using “PADDY”, I have to say that Solo makes no difference.

  9. G. Hoffman 18 November, 2010 at 12:42 Reply

    I have a question about ratings and flags. I used to be able to see the flags and stars on the borders of the photos in Lightroom. Recently, they have disappeared and I cannot get them back! I can rate them using the number keys and they drop down menu but they do not appear anywhere. Please Help!
    Thanks,
    Gayna

  10. Abu Abdullah 18 November, 2010 at 05:22 Reply

    I just have Lr3.2 trial version installed on my laptop. Myself as a web developer, I know what solo mode is and I have read that this feature exists in Lr3, but I couldnÂ’t figure it out how to activate it till I read your article. No kisses but thanks : )

  11. Alejandro Peralta 18 November, 2010 at 04:39 Reply

    Not for me. I think it is useful, maybe in the Library mode but not in Developer’s mode. While developing I like having both my presets and my Adjustments panel opened. Real Estate is not a problem since I work with two monitors, and it would distract me a bit if panels are opening and closing all the time. A bit chaotic for me.
    Nice as an add-on, maybe, but not as the default mode.

  12. Joe Aragon 17 November, 2010 at 23:27 Reply

    Yes, I use “Solo” mode exclusively. I agree that setting it as a deafult is better, but please leave-in the option to turn off Solo mode.

    Also, I find that I have to keep the Histogram turned “off,” or the detail zoom window minimized so that the adjust panels stay somewhat centered when I switch between them. Is there some way that the selected panel (Basic, Detail, Effects, etc) can be fixed to center itself within the panels window, when it is selected? …Even if the Histogram is enabled? This would eliminate having to scroll for the adjustment slider that’s just out of view. Thanks. – Joe

  13. Sheri 17 November, 2010 at 18:34 Reply

    LOVE IT~ Thanks for this great tip. I donÂ’t care if itÂ’s default but I love that itÂ’s an option! Perhaps the option should be more obvious somehow.

  14. ryusen 17 November, 2010 at 13:43 Reply

    Solo Mode is great. I’m not sure if it should be the default mode or not. I use it sometimes and other times i prefer to leave a few panels open at once.

  15. Bill Adams 17 November, 2010 at 13:02 Reply

    I won’t kiss him ’cause he’s a guy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

    Great tip. Wasn’t aware of the Solo Mode. Comes in handy on this 13″ MacBook Air, which obviously has limited screen real estate.

  16. Jim Reed 17 November, 2010 at 12:44 Reply

    Wasn’t aware of Solo Mode, but have definitely been frustrated with scrolling up and down the panel bar. You can bet I’ll be turning Solo Mode on and leaving it on from now on! Thanks for the tip!

  17. Ivan 11 November, 2010 at 03:37 Reply

    I used it on LR2 for a long time after I saw it either here on your site or on Scott Kelby’s blog. After upgrading to LR3 I forgot where to set it up and it kept frustrating me. Thank God you mentioned it once more!!!!

  18. Marc Wiegelmann 9 November, 2010 at 15:17 Reply

    Hey there,

    i didnt use the Solomode before – just recently now trying to use it! Even when its much easier somehow i really need to get used to it 🙂 best thing is that it works on both sides and in every mode 😀

    Thx a lot for the great hint!
    Greets from Germany
    Marc

  19. Alton Marsh 8 November, 2010 at 17:47 Reply

    It ain’t easy finding a dark gray area that does what you said it would but I eventually found a spot that worked. That’s the “non-intuitive” problem with all software. Solo mode means it is flying by itself, but it should be Develop Module Declutter. At least then I would have tried it.

  20. Tim L 8 November, 2010 at 17:39 Reply

    I’m another one of those who thought they knew enough to get through, but this simple tip has opened up a whole new world for me. Simple things like this can greatly improve the way we work…

    Sincere thanks, Matt!

  21. Nicole Raine 8 November, 2010 at 14:33 Reply

    Wow – that’s extremely helpful! I had not heard of this before and I’ve been a user since the BETA!

    Thanks, Matt! and thank you everyone else for the other handy quick keys!

  22. Sean Molin 8 November, 2010 at 13:45 Reply

    But seriously, why is this not on by default? Why is this not more widely discussed.

    Not a SINGLE of my photographer friends (and that includes some heavy hitters in my region) knew of this.

  23. Scott Bean 8 November, 2010 at 08:20 Reply

    Ok, I’ll add another “wow” to the list. Thanks that will eliminate a lot of frustration I had with scrolling through the development module panels while I was editing photographs.

    Thanks!

  24. Emad Khoury 5 November, 2010 at 13:32 Reply

    heyy Matt, thanks for the “Solo Mode” Tip, very nice and effective. This site is helping me alot, Thanks for your effort. Cheers

  25. Bob 5 November, 2010 at 07:44 Reply

    Never heard of it, but agree with Miro. Solo mode seems much less efficient than just using the two-finger scroll on my macbook pro to get to the panel I want. Clicking all over the place is really annoying. To each their own I guess.

  26. Juergen 5 November, 2010 at 05:34 Reply

    Hi Matt,

    you saved my day! Really, that’s one of the greatest things about Lightroom I’ve learned in the past. Saves so much of clicking work 😉

    Cheers,
    Juergen

  27. Miro 4 November, 2010 at 15:23 Reply

    Hi Matt,

    I accidentally got into solo mode and couldn’t figure out how to get out of it for ages. I hate it. With flick scrolling on the magic mouse I can get to any module with a single action. With Solo mode I am constantly clicking just to open modules.

    You know whats missing from the modules? The ability to customize their order. That would make solo mode even less relevant.

    All the best,
    Miro

  28. Dave Noland 3 November, 2010 at 13:26 Reply

    Matt,
    Solo-Mode is one of your great tips I’ve never forgot.
    Been using Lightroom since Beta 1.0

    Sometimes I will back and review your past tips and videos.
    Lightroom is such a large program, it’s easy to forget, “how did Matt
    do that?”

    HOPE YOU NEVER RETIRE, Matt

  29. John Wart, jr 3 November, 2010 at 09:42 Reply

    I learned that tip when I did all 13+ hours of LR3 training at lynda.com – gave it a try as it was free for a month with my CS5 purchase.

    So much good stuff in LR3!

  30. Brad 2 November, 2010 at 23:46 Reply

    This is such a great tip. I heard about the automatically collapsing panel areas, but I didn’t know how to turn it on. Thanks for sharing!

  31. Thomas 2 November, 2010 at 22:51 Reply

    Hi Matt,

    I’ve been using Solo Mode for a long time (after all one can find out about it by reading the PDF help file) but noticed that one panel is not enough. When doing tonal changes to an image, I like to have both the “basic” panel (for Blacks, etc) open and the “tone curve” panel open at the same time.

    I know you can do the “duo panel” trick but I just changed my approach to not worry which panels are open and just jump straight to them with Ctrl-1-8. This is faster than Solo mode for me and allows me to work on multiple panels at the same time.

    BTW, most of the time I have the histogram closed (Ctrl-0). Just takes away space. I do my adjustment visually and only very rarely want to check where things are in the histogram.

    P.S.: If this is a double post, please delete it. Tried to post before but it didn’t seem to work.

  32. Thomas 2 November, 2010 at 22:49 Reply

    Hi Matt,

    I’ve been using Solo Mode for a long time (after all one can find out about it by reading the PDF help file) but noticed that one panel is not enough. When doing tonal changes to an image, I like to have both the “basic” panel (for Blacks, etc) open and the “tone curve” panel open at the same time.

    I know you can do the “duo panel” trick but I just changed my approach to not worry which panels are open and just jump straight to them with Ctrl-1-8. This is faster than Solo mode for me and allows me to work on multiple panels at the same time.

    BTW, most of the time I have the histogram closed (Ctrl-0). Just takes away space. I do my adjustment visually and only very rarely want to check where things are in the histogram.

  33. Marianne 2 November, 2010 at 22:17 Reply

    Thanks, Matt. I actually did have the “Solo Mode” going a while ago, not by choice though. It was an accident and I managed to lose the “accident”. Now I know why and how.

  34. Susan 2 November, 2010 at 22:06 Reply

    Have used Solo Mode ever since reading Scott’s LR2 book (great resource). Think I saw a tip for it long ago from you as well. Can’t imagine not having it!

    Used to run it on both sides of all modules, but lately have turned it off in a couple of situations. The above suggestions for future enhancement are interesting.

    Thanks for all you do, Matt!

  35. Rob 2 November, 2010 at 21:54 Reply

    Great tip and time saver. Didn’t realize it was specific to modules, thought I kept turning it off somehow 🙂 Be nice to have a ‘master switch’ for it on a configuration panel.

  36. Eric Lam 2 November, 2010 at 19:28 Reply

    Sweet info! Love this. Saw this link over in Flickr Lightroom forum.

    The effect is most notable however in larger screens eg large panel monitors eg 17inch and above, or larger paneled laptops eg 15inch and above.

    I use a 14inch laptop screen which is ok with mouse scroll wheel but definitely more work if using the mouse pad (have to click scroll, click again to access, then click to move sliders)

    If screen estate is not enough, then using “F”, and “Shift+Tab” on top of this helps tremendously. (both f and shift tab learnt over at Dtown/lr killer tips vids)

  37. Narno06 2 November, 2010 at 18:33 Reply

    Scott Kelby is the one that introduced this tip to me on one of his post several months ago.
    since, I actually made the change not only on my computer, but on few of my friends’ as well without telling them, they probably are still wondering how they got to improve their workflow like that :0)

  38. Wil 2 November, 2010 at 17:19 Reply

    Yes, solo mode is the only way to function. I’m sure your aware that this tip appears on page 106 of Scott Kelbys book. Not a plug for his book, but it is worth buying and reading for these small treasures.

  39. John H Butler 2 November, 2010 at 17:14 Reply

    Right on and learning the keyboard shorts like Javier above gave really make things speedy (crl + 1 =basic and so on) I’ve been using the solo mode since you talked about it a few years ago but I just started using the short cuts for the panels in the last few months, DUH!! they are so easy and you can get to or go back to a specific panel in the blink an eye. Thanks for reminding us about this, Matt. Cheers

  40. John Judge 2 November, 2010 at 17:06 Reply

    Wow, not using Solo Mode on a laptop would slow down the workflow tremendously! Solo Mode….Don’t leave home without it!

    Hope to see you in Seattle in a couple of weeks.

  41. bruno049 2 November, 2010 at 16:51 Reply

    Why not go “Duo” instead of “Solo”?

    Want to keep two panels open (e.g. if you like to jump from the Basic panel right away to the Tone Curve panel)?

    Choose Solo Mode, then enable a second panel to stay open by Alt + Clicking (Option + Click on the Mac) on the second panel name (not the disclosure triangle).

  42. Glyn Dewis 2 November, 2010 at 16:31 Reply

    Ok so it’s admission time…”I never knew about Solo Mode…until now”

    No worry about a kiss coming your way mate but I’d certainly shake your hand 🙂

    Cheers for the tip Matt…exactly what the doctor ordered!!

    Cheers,
    Glyn

  43. Monty 2 November, 2010 at 11:32 Reply

    Ah, I think I learned it from one of your training bideos on Kelby training awhile back. Saves a lot of grief. The only place I hadn’t had it set was library mode – guess I liked a little bit of grief after all. Thanks for the reminder Matt.

  44. Brad Balfour 2 November, 2010 at 10:33 Reply

    I use it all the time.

    In fact, I spent last night working on my son’s football photos in “duo mode”. If you have the basic panel open and the Shift-Click on the disclosure triangle for the Details panel, you can have just the two of them stay open.

    Those were all the controls I needed for 90% of my corrections for their game from last Friday night.

    Thanks Matt!

  45. Rich Hollingsworth 2 November, 2010 at 10:25 Reply

    Matt:

    This question is not related to the topic, but I could not find a topic that wasÂ…..

    I have a LR3 question pleaseÂ…..

    I have several external USB drives that I use interchangeably. Problem is, when you unplug one drive, and plug in another and do this a few times, windows does not always name the drive the same as it did before, therefore LR can no longer find the files it expects on the new drive Â’cause the drive letter is not the sameÂ….and now you have a bunch of missing photos in your catalog.

    Is there a way around this problem?

    I would like your permission to share the answer on the Nikonians website.

    Thanks,
    Rich

    • Rob Sylvan 2 November, 2010 at 10:41 Reply

      Rich, depending on which version of Win you are using the steps vary, but you can assign a drive letter to a drive manually. Google assign drive letter for your Win version to find the steps.

  46. Rob Sylvan 2 November, 2010 at 10:22 Reply

    Couple related tips:

    – Enable/disable Solo mode by Alt/Option-clicking panel header

    – Collapse/Expand all panels (even in Solo Mode) by Ctrl/CMD-clicking panel header

  47. John Swarce 2 November, 2010 at 10:20 Reply

    Matt: You showed me the “light” on Solo Mode at your Lightroom seminar earlier this year. I’ve mentioned it to a couple of my friends as well. Great tip! Two things, though….this should be on by default and the top panels should not be hidden by the histogram while they are collapsed. I find myself having to close the histogram when I am using the lower panels and I need to go back to one of the top panels (I know, I know, I should be working from top to bottom!). Maybe it’s because of the screen size of my laptop (15.4″). I never noticed this issue on my 24″ monitor on my desktop.

    –John

  48. John 2 November, 2010 at 10:12 Reply

    Unbelievable. First time reading the site and I discover a tremendously helpful tip. What else do you have around here??!

    Thank you!

  49. Dennis 2 November, 2010 at 09:40 Reply

    I’ve used Lightroom since it first came out and never knew about Solo Mode. Wow, what a great feature and a great tip. What a time saver. Thanks Matt.

  50. Dennis Zito 2 November, 2010 at 09:19 Reply

    Hey Matt,

    I’ve use solo mode since Lightroom first came out. Before I found your web-site, I was using Michael Tapes web-site (rawworkflow.com), and he had some tutorials on the first beta and version 1. One of his tutorials was on the panel settings and that’s when I got hooked on Solo Mode!! No turning back for me. Saves a lot of scrolling time.

    Thanks for the tip anyway!

    Dennis

  51. Michael Preston 2 November, 2010 at 08:57 Reply

    Matt, I think you mentioned solo mode on an episode of PSUTV a few weeks/months ago — I’ll never go back to the default mode again, solo is an absolute time-saver.

  52. Martyn Baker 2 November, 2010 at 08:55 Reply

    Well well well, I never knew That!! and I thought I knew Lightroom well….

    As a wedding “Tog” this will save me so much time, Its even got me thinking of a new way to process my weddings.

    Have you got anymore obvious in your face tips that we might miss??

    Thanks Matt, I appreciate the help.

  53. Alan Kesselhaut 2 November, 2010 at 08:49 Reply

    Great talking to you in NYC last week. You talked about Solo Mode a while back on D-Town I believe and I started using it right away. No I won’t kiss you but I will thank you.
    Best
    Alan

  54. Janine Smith 2 November, 2010 at 08:41 Reply

    I love solo mode so much, I think I wouldn’t use Lightroom without it. I agree it should be a default setting. I’m pretty sure you’ve mentioned it here or on PSUTV.

  55. JayM 2 November, 2010 at 08:39 Reply

    Used Solo mode since Day 1 with the original LR. It rules. Would prefer if there was a master solo mode setting for all the panels; as far as I can tell I need to do each one individually which is kind of a pain. But it’s one of the first things I do when I install Lightroom.

  56. Shane 2 November, 2010 at 07:38 Reply

    Matt,

    Yep. Sure do use Solo Mode! I actually picked up on this from your LR3 course at Kelby Training.

    I can’t stand working in LR without it now. It would be like working in a kitchen with a weeks worth of used dishes strewn around…messy and disorganized 😉

  57. Libby 2 November, 2010 at 06:42 Reply

    Absolutely DO use Solo Mode! I can’t remember whether it was something you wrote or one of Kelby’s books – but I’ve been using it since at least v. 2. Glad you’ve highlighted this useful little nugget of information.

  58. Tom Peterson 2 November, 2010 at 06:02 Reply

    Saw it somewhere a few months back. Turned it on and haven’t looked back. Just showed it to my wife yesterday. She’d open a panel and then go back and close it by hand before selecting another one. She thought it was a great time saver. Thanks for keeping us all up on the latest tricks.

  59. John Reid 2 November, 2010 at 05:06 Reply

    Hey Matt

    I read your blog all the time and I always think I have lightroom figured out until you mention a tip like this one – brilliant!

    Here is another question – is there any way to fade a history item. In other words, if I apply a preset, can I go to the history and fade the effect, rather then going through all the adjustments and reducing them?

  60. Scott O. 2 November, 2010 at 04:25 Reply

    Man, Solo Mode changed my life! Without it I was cluttered and dis-organized. Now I’m a meal, lean, Lightroom editing machine!

    Pretty cool Matt!

    Scott
    Bald Is Beautiful Photography

  61. Vanessa Dwyer 2 November, 2010 at 04:20 Reply

    Great timing for this tip, I had it turned on in Lightroom 2 on my PC, but have just switched to mac and Lightroom 3 and had forgotten how to do this!!
    Cheers for the reminder!

  62. Michael Houlden 2 November, 2010 at 04:15 Reply

    Thanks for the excellent tip, Matt. Now, to make it perfect, I think it would be a great feature update to have the collapsed panels not scroll up off the screen when a particularly long panel opens. Then you don’t have to scroll to the top of the list to change panels. Thinking of which if there was a panel below it could lock to the bottom of the screen and then you could have just the open panel scroll within the open space. Would this be workable on a small laptop screen, or am I too used to working on a large desktop monitor?

  63. Steve Crane 2 November, 2010 at 02:38 Reply

    I have Solo mode turned on most of the time. I’m always amazed how few people seem to take the time to explore the features offered by the (often) expensive pieces of software they’ve bought; sticking to just the few that they initially learn.

    • Jorn Kremers 2 November, 2010 at 04:55 Reply

      Well, maybe that’s because most expensive software have so many options, it’s impossible to figure them all out by yourself.

      I didn’t know about this feature either, but it seems very helpful. Like most people, I use a specific order in doin things. After I’m done, the basic panel is all I need to look at. Gives the brain some peace of not having to look at too many visual stimuli 🙂

    • Oystein 2 November, 2010 at 08:01 Reply

      Well, I’ve used hotkeys forever and haven’t really had the need for solo mode. As soon as I get home I’ll try it and see what I’ve missed out on. I’m fairly sure using hotkeys is about as fast as clicking the panes. I do agree however, that when you put quite a few dollars in software you should also take the time to learn it properly.

  64. Lloyd Barnes 2 November, 2010 at 02:11 Reply

    I discovered Solo Mode a few months ago and use it all the time now. It is so much easier and faster to navigate when all the panels, except the one I’m working in, are collapsed.

    • Javier 2 November, 2010 at 04:10 Reply

      HEY THERE ARE !!!!! cmd key + 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, etc
      VERY EASY try to use them so you can do it by heart…. the lens correction for ex. by cmd+6 or curves by cmd+2 and the rest always closes automatically!!! ITS A GREAT thing .. Hope i could help “””

      • Alan 2 November, 2010 at 14:35 Reply

        Actually, you can use both! My laptop screen is quite small and some of the develop subpanels will hide their header, so I use cmd/ctrl + n to get to the next subpanel. The old one still closes.

    • Niels 2 November, 2010 at 07:00 Reply

      For the panels in the right side of the Develop module there are hot keys!
      CTRL+1 for Basic CTRL+2 for Tone Curve and so on.

  65. Hez 2 November, 2010 at 01:38 Reply

    I’ve been using this for a while in Library mode but couldn’t figure out what I had done to turn it on, I wanted to turn it on in Develop mode as well! Thanks!

    • Ken Z 2 November, 2010 at 09:51 Reply

      I agree!!!

      I almost forgot what it was like before solo mode, changed it back —arrrgghhhhh!

      Thanks Matt…I think you posted this as a tip awhile ago and I grabbed onto it then…great time saver!

  66. Aaron Hockley 2 November, 2010 at 01:17 Reply

    I’ve been using Lightroom for a couple years now and hadn’t heard of solo mode until about a week ago. I got a copy of Scott Kelby’s Lightroom 3 book as a thanks for leading one of his World Wide Photowalks, and I learned about it and have been using it ever since.

    It’s a huge timesaver and screen cleaner-upper!

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *