Lightroom Tips for the

Develop Module – the

Magic Alt Key

Lightroom tips for the Develop module – one feature in

Lightroom that isn’t obvious or easy to discover is the
visualization feedback which you can get in the Develop
module. In many cases when you hold the Alt key, (Option on a
Mac) and click (and hold it) on a slider, the screen will change
to give you feedback on the adjustment you are making.
This feedback (visualization) take some of the guess work out of
how the adjustment you are making is affecting the image. Here
are some of the useful visualizations available in the Lightroom
Develop module:

Alt and the Exposure, Highlights,

Whites, Shadows and Blacks
Sliders
When you hold Alt (Option) and drag any of these sliders you
will see any areas where whites or blacks are clipped as a result
of the adjustment – the color shows which channel is being
clipped. When you adjust Shadows and Blacks the white areas
of the image aren’t clipped.

Showing where the blacks are being clipped

When adjusting Exposure, Highlights and Whites – the black
areas are not clipped.
Showing where the highlights are being clipped

Sharpening
When adjusting Sharpening you can preview the result of the
sharpening on the image by holding the Alt (Option) key and
drag on any slider. Alt (Option) and the Amount slider shows
you the sharpening applied to a black and white version of the
image – as Lightroom sharpens only the luminance and not
color this gives you a better view of the sharpening result.
Alt (Option) with the Radius slider shows the halos being
applied to the edges in the image to sharpen it.
Showing the radius or amount of sharpening being applied
Alt (Option) and the Detail slider shows the suppression of the
halos occurring as you drag on this slider.
Alt (Option) and the Masking slider shows a black and white
mask over the image – the areas which are black are not
sharpened and those which are white will be sharpened.
Showing the mask when sharpening – makes it easy to control which areas are
sharpened and which are not, very useful for people photos.

Split toning
Alt (Option) and either of the two Hue sliders shows the
currently selected hue in place on the image even if the
Saturation slider is set to zero. This lets you see the color you
are selecting, at 100% saturation, before you apply it.
Noise Reduction
Alt (Option) and the Luminance, Detail and Contrast sliders for
removing noise converts the image into a black and white
image so you can see the effect of the adjustments more clearly.
Lens Correction – Color tab
Alt (Option) and the appropriate Amount slider shows the areas
in the image affected by fringing. White is not affected and you
will see any areas affected by purple or green fringing.
Alt (Option) and the appropriate Hue slider lets you view the
range of hues being fixed. Black areas are already being targeted
and any remaining purple or green color indicates residual color
fringing.
Recognizing the times you can use the Alt (Option) key in the
Develop module will help you make adjustments to your images
more easily and effectively. I hope you enjoyed these Lightroom
tips for the Develop module.