Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is a very powerful digital photo processing and editing software. There are a couple things you can do to customize the interface and personalize the software to your brand. This can be helpful if you’re meeting with clients and showing them your selects from right inside of Lightroom. So let’s get started.
Showing and Hiding Lightroom Panels
The Lightroom window is made up of panels on the top, bottom, left and right side of your screen. On the edge of every panel, you’ll see a grey arrow that turns white when you hover over it. By clicking this, you can hide that panel from view. To get the panel back, you can either click on the same arrow again, or just press the Tab key. By pressing the tab key with both side panels open, you can easily hide them both at the same time. Again, press Tab to unhide them. To hide all four panels, you can press Shift-Tab.
Modules
In the top right corner, you’ll see Library, Develop, Map, Book, Slideshow, Print, and Web. These open the different modules in Lightroom. You can choose what modules are available to you by right-clicking on that area of the screen and selecting which modules are visible. This doesn’t remove them, but rather just hides them so you have less of a chance to choose the wrong module.
Panel End Marks
In some of the earlier versions of Lightroom, Adobe added a small embellishment to the bottom of each panel. These are called end marks. You can design your own end mark to further extend your brand into Lightroom. Open the Lightroom Preferences window. On a Mac, choose the Lightroom Menu and click Preferences. On a PC, choose Edit and click Preferences. Now select the Interface tab. The first section handles Panel settings, and you can change panel end marks and font size. In the Panel End Marks drop-down, you can choose the default Small Flourish or you can Go to Panel End Marks Folder. Here you can copy and paste your own custom end mark. If it doesn’t populate in the list immediately, then you might have to restart Lightroom.
Panel Font Size
Inside of the Lightroom Interface Preference window, you’ll also see Font Size. You can adjust the font size in the panels to small (default) or large. Changes will take effect upon restarting Lightroom.
Lights Out
Continuing down the Lightroom Interface Preference window, you can change the background color and dim level for Lights Out mode. Lights Out mode lets you darken your screen to visualize your image without the distractions of Lightroom and your desktop. By pressing L on the keyboard, you’ll dim the screen to 80% (default setting). If you press L again, you’ll black out your screen. Press L once again to exit Lights Out mode. You can also change the background color when Lights Out mode is activated.
Background Color
Also in the Lightroom Interface Preference window is an option to change the background and add texture to Lightroom’s image window. You can choose from varying shades of grey, including black and white. This color change only effects the window around the image, and doesn’t effect the panels on the sides of the screen. There is also an option to add a pinstripe texture.
Identity Plate
Lastly, the most commonly-changed piece in Lightroom is the Identity Plate. Your Identity Plate is located in the top-left corner where you normally see Adobe Lightroom and the Lightroom LR logo. You can type in a new identity plate or add in a custom logo as a PNG file, and you can change the font and color of the text along the top panel.
On a Mac, choose the Lightroom Menu and click Identity Plate Setup. On a PC, choose Edit and click Identity Plate Setup. Click on the Identity Plate Type drop-down menu and you can choose between Lightroom Mobile, Lightroom, and Personalized. Choose Personalized. On the left side of the window, you can choose to use styled text or a custom image. If you choose styled text, then you can click in the black area to start typing. Choose your font, boldness, size, and color. On the bottom, you can click Show Details, enabling the same options for font, boldness, size, and color for the Lightroom’s module names.
It’s a nice feature that Adobe allows you to personalize the Lightroom interface. These options give you great flexibility to change your version of Lightroom to fit you and your personal brand, especially when showing clients their images.
Thank you so much for the handy tips. One in particular. I’ve been using Lightroom for a year or so and never had the time to go through a lesson on it. Basically self taught.
So the tip that stood out for me what showing and hiding panels. I don’t know how many times I’ve done that, but never knew what I was doing really and didn’t know how to get them back until I hit the arrow again by accident. Thanks for the clarity
I’m so glad the article helped you, Mary Ann! Lightroom has so many little tips and shortcuts to help speed up your editing.
Thank you so much for the handy tips. One in particular. I’ve been using Lightroom for a year or so and never had the time to go through a lesson on it. Basically self taught.
So the tip that stood out for me what showing and hiding panels. I don’t know how many times I’ve done that, but never knew what I was doing really and didn’t know how to get them back until I hit the arrow again by accident. Thanks for the clarity
I’m so glad the article helped you, Mary Ann! Lightroom has so many little tips and shortcuts to help speed up your editing.