The Quick Develop panel, inside of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic, is a great way to enhance your photographs without switching back and forth between the Library and the Develop modules. Quick Develop can save you a lot of time but this panel is full of secrets.
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Here are some of the User Interface secrets of the Quick Develop panel:
- Clicking the double arrow buttons will increase or decrease the Exposure slider in the Develop module by a full stop.
- Clicking the single arrow buttons will increase or decrease the Exposure slider in the Develop module by one-third of a stop.
- Clicking the double arrow buttons will increase or decrease the Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Blacks, Whites, Saturation, and Vibrance slider values in the Develop module by 20.
- Clicking the single arrow buttons will increase or decrease the Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Blacks, Whites, Saturation, and Vibrance slider values in the Develop module by 5.
- Shift + click on one of the single arrow buttons will increase or decrease that slider in smaller increments (1/2 of the values stated above).
- Hold down the Alt / Option (Mac) or the Alt (Win) to reveal the hidden Clarity and Vibrance options.
Making Relative Adjustments
One of Quick Develop’s big secrets is that it makes relative, or cumulative, adjustments to your images. Changes that you make using the tools inside of this panel are added to, or subtracted from, whatever develop settings your image already contains.
Let’s say you have five images that are all slightly underexposed. If you tried to change the exposure on each of these images using Classic’s Synchronize Settings command then you would end up forcing the same exposure value onto each of these images.
Copying and pasting Develop settings from one image to another in Lightroom Classic produces uniform results. Ordinarily, copying and pasting forces all of your images to take on the same settings as the active (most selected) image.
But with the Quick Develop panel, you can add one-third of a stop, or more, of additional exposure onto each image without forcing all of them to use the exact same level of brightness.
Applying Develop Presets
The Quick Develop panel also makes it easy to apply Develop Presets onto your images. This can be a huge time saver since you can apply a Develop Presets to a group of selected images without leaving the Library Module. This trick really shines when you use it to apply sophisticated Develop Presets that activate Lightroom Classic’s amazing AI-powered Select Subject and Portrait Masking tools.
Editing Video
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic has very limited video editing capabilities. You cannot edit any of your video files using Classic’s Develop Module but you can apply some basic edits to any video clip using the Quick Develop panel.
Using Quick Develop, you can change the color, tone, and vibrance of a short video. In addition, you can even apply some types of Develop Presets onto your videos to give your movies a completely different look. Click here for a full-length tutorial on video editing with Lightroom Classic.
