The Lightroom Library Module

The Library Module contains all the tools you need to import, sort, rate and identify your shots. It also contains some ability to adjust or “develop” a shot.

The tools in the Left Panel of the Library Module in Lightroom allow you to select your photos on the file level, or segregate your shots into collections based on practically any criteria you want. From the top of this panel, down:

The Navigator - allows you to see which photo is selected, which can be valuable in Grid View, where Lightroom looks most like a light table on which your shots are “slides”. In addition, at the top-right of this tool, you can choose how the selected photo is viewed in the Main Viewing Area, either fitting it to the Main Viewing Area or filling the viewing area with the shot. You can also select to view the shot on a 1:1 ratio (full-size), or a number of commonly used aspect ratios.

Catalog - This tool performs three very solid functions, represented by the three lines you can highlight. If you highlight the All Photographs line item, you activate all the photos that are currently in your catalog. Note that this will only become apparent when the Main Viewing Area is in Grid View, or when you look at the Filmstrip Panel. Highlighting the Quick Collection line displays only those shots that you have added to a Quick Collection. The third and final option allows you to view the Previous Import. These photos are included in the All Photographs selection, but are only the last group you imported into the Catalog.

Folders - Here, you can see the actual folder structure where your files are being kept. You can also view data about your hard drives and create and delete folders on your hard drive(s) from this tool.

Collections - The most versatile part of this Left Panel, by far, the Collections Tool allows you to view collections of photos you have created. Sounds simple and unimpressive. What is really impressive is how it allows you to create Collection Sets (collections within collections), normal Collections, and the newly introduced Smart Collections.

Finally, don’t ignore the Import and Export buttons at the bottom of this panel, which save you a menu search or hotkey press when it is time to do either of these acts.

The Right Panel of the Lightroom Library Module allows for some development changes to exposure, white balance, etc., but it really comes into its own as a place to affect the metadata of each shot, or groups of shots.

Histogram - This is here to give you a guide to the brightness and color values of the selected shot while you make changes in the Quick Develop Tool, below it. It is also valuable to use when paging through a group of shots, one at a time, to see whether there are any common shooting “errors” or tendencies in the way you shot a particular import group.

Quick Develop - This is a place to make global changes to the White Balance, Exposure, and other basic development settings of the photo. While you could ...continue here

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