What professionals know that you DON’T.
If someone was having a conversation about editing photos in lightroom there is a good chance that they would not mention the “previous button” tool or what it does.
But let’s just pretend that they did mention the “previous” button and that you didn’t know what it was or what it does. You may know it’s location but not what it is capable of doing. The “Previous” button is a very powerful and practical button for copying all of the settings from one image and applying them to another image.
This doesn’t sound all that interesting as you can do that through the “sync all” function or “copy and paste” function in lightroom but this button is different as it does all of those changes in ONE click.
One “SECRET” every professional lives by
As a professional photographer and photo editor I spend countless hours sitting on my very comfortable computer chair scanning through thousands of photos.
Editing is absolutely part of my life in the photography world. One of the things I am continuously doing is looking for ways that I can speed up my workflow, one second at a time. After all, time is money.
The “previous” button is a time saving short cut that has saved me a lot more than a second here or there. The reason why is because of how simple and how quick you can use it. I can simply process one image and then if I want to copy those same settings to another image all I have to do is select the new image and hit “previous”. Voila! Magic!! All of those settings are pasted to the new image in one click.
It is important to note that the previous button is a one-click aka one-photo at a time wonder. If you are looking to sync up more then one photo at a time the sync all function is your best friend.
Final but important thoughts
As you progress in your abilities as a photo editor speeding up the editing process is going to become a very real and important thing. The “previous” button is a very powerful tool for applying edits from one image to the next in one simple click. It’s not going to make you a better editor but it will make your photo editing process a little bit quicker.
For those of you who love videos: Here is a quick but powerful video from http://KelbyOne.com and Matt Kloskowski on the previous button.
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Hey everyone, I hope you like the article and see the potential and power of the “previous button”. There are so many ways to use lightroom in your editing process and the previous button should be part of it.
I would love to hear what you think of this topic as well. 🙂 Please comment below.
Love this! Thanks for sharing. This is somethign I will use daily now!
Hannes your welcome and I’m glad you enjoyed the tip. 🙂
Why don’t professionals want me to know this?
Joe, thanks for your comment. That concept was more of a catch phrase to make the article interesting but the concept of the previous button is very useful regardless and inline with the article. 🙂 Thanks again.
I believe You can jump several photos along and hit previous button. As it applies to the last photo you worked on not just the one beside. 🙃
Pony girl, thanks for your comments. I do agree about the previous button working on any photo, once you his the previous button. 🙂