Discovering One of the Most Useful Buttons in Lightroom

It’s one of those small things that is actually more powerful than you think. It’s not a particularly’sexy name’, but it’s what it does that makes it a superhero for workflow. The ‘Previous button’ is what it’s called. This is how it works:

STEP 1: This is our original image. It’s a bit washed-out and “meh”.

STEP 2: We tweak the settings to make the image less “meh”. Lots of contrast, Dehaze for cutting the haze and Texture to bring details out, a graduated filters to darken the skies — all the usual stuff.

STEP 3: Now comes the fun. Once you have the image you want, you can browse through the entire shoot and apply the same edits to any image you like. Clicking the Previous button will do this. Look at the photo above. You’re thinking, “meh”? Next step.

STEP THREE: Click the Previous button to apply the same edits. After hitting the Previous button in this case, I felt it was a bit too dark so I dragged the Exposure slide a tiny amount to the right. Boom. Done. Saves a lot of time.

Click the Previous button to apply the edits you made to the image you are currently viewing (including the exposure boost that I gave it).

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