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May 5, 2011
Open for Voting

P: Allow for keyboard shortcut customization

  • May 5, 2011
  • 272 replies
  • 15727 views

Customizable keyboard shortcuts in Lightroom would be great. I just find it so confusing that crop and brush tools and things like that have such odd keyboard shortcuts in Lightroom. I understand that changing that all now would be awful for many existing users, but being able to override them like I can in Photoshop would be helpful. Doesn't anyone else out there find they use to wrong keyboard shortcuts in the wrong program?

272 replies

john beardsworth
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 9, 2018
And I too have many thousands of photos at a time. Sure, I would love C to mean crop in LR as it does in PS and Shift I too invert the current selection too, but that's about all. One can hack the translation file to alter some shortcuts (certainly the latter) and I'd be happy if such a hack method became official, but I see a customisable shortcut feature like some other apps as a waste of development time.
Inspiring
October 9, 2018
I'm glad this keeps coming up again. Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Bridge have all ignored our requests to customize shortcuts. I don't understand why. When the main programs all added customization, they were pushing for people to become aware that they could do this instead of complaining about a missing shortcut, or one that ran counter to the typical shortcuts other apps had adopted, but not these apps.

I realize it's not a JDI. It's a major feature, but it's not a trivial one to the users, either. Maybe first has to be performance, tethered shooting, and integrating better with its kissing cousins, but I'd hope that it's rather high on their priority list. I, anyway, could enjoy using LR more if the shortcuts made any sense to me.
October 9, 2018
Well, unfortunately Adobe not. Yesterday I did contact Adobe for “problems” because I didn’t know about the shortcuts issue (they exist, just no relationship between keys and for the love of God, I can’t remember them) to find out how to change them, in a try to see if Adobe has improved his program(Lr). What do you think the guy told me? To write here about the shortcuts so the I don’t know what Adobe team would read the comments. Hmm. ADOBE?????????
At least would be nice to let us know they read and know the what some of us users like to have.
(I guess Adobe also knows that Capture Pro is faster, not only develops better the raw files).
Like everyone else, I have friends who are photographers and some have switched to Capture and some didn’t just because they didn’t want to “learn” a new program. Wonder how long that lasts when I keep posting print screens like the ones above.
Casey Martin
Participant
October 9, 2018
I’ve been following this thread for years and I still want it. There are so many inconsistencies when it comes to shortcuts between programs it drives me nuts. Sure the interface to manage the changes would be a rare visit but the shortcuts themselves would get all the time usage.
Known Participant
October 9, 2018
Very well said, and behalf of a very large number of sufferers (certainly not a few "me too" users).  I too can have a 1000+ photos a time to deal with, and have found Loupedeck+ an extreme advantage. Lightroom customisable keyboard shortcuts would help me immensely to be more efficient in my work and therefore assist greatly my workflow, as it would for many thousands of other photographers 
October 9, 2018
John, I would have not learned the shortcuts if Lightroom wouldn’t messed up my highlights. I tested Capture “just to see”. More than a year later I still use it. The point is, since lr and ps are integrated programs, at least to have to only one set of shortcuts. And please, don’t feed this thread with “one use me too” because it’s simply not the case. I process every single photo in Capture, and if needed I continue in Photoshop. The exact same workflow I had when using Lightroom also.
Its adobes fault I write here, if they wouldn’t mess my highlights I wouldn’t have discovered CP, nor the shortcuts, which, btw, when you have to edit 1500-2000 photos, don’t tell me you wouldn’t like to access the brush, crop, etc by keyboard shortcuts. You just fancy moving around your screen to click it. In my case, I’m too stupid to learn 2 sets of shortcuts, that make no sense to me.
And please, Adobe would pay nothing the make the possibility to actually let me the stupid user change the shortcuts as I damn please.
October 9, 2018
John....
john beardsworth
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 9, 2018
Resources are always limited. Maybe it's at the forefront because Adobe have focussed on the right things, things one uses every day, and not given priority to use-once "me too" features?
Known Participant
October 9, 2018
Not beyond the resources of Adobe to do both and keep their product at the forefront, and keep loyal users happy - loyalty can only last so long if it is not appreciated
john beardsworth
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 9, 2018
There's always been a few people drifting off to C1 (which I have too) and many like to make a grand exit. I wouldn't mind customising a few shortcuts, and I'd probably do that once, but I would rather see Adobe fine tune existing features which I use every day.