The Lightroom Toolbar

The Lightroom Toolbar, when active, is located near the bottom of the interface. It will show up below the Main Viewing Window, but above the Filmstrip, if that is active.

The Lightroom Toolbar can be activated or deactivated by pressing the T key.

Let’s start on the far right, at the down arrow. The fact is that you have control over what actually appears on the Lightroom Toolbar. Clicking on this down arrow will allow you to hide or show the following things:

• View Modes - This gives you a group of four icons, allowing you to change the Main Viewing Window, moving between Grid View, Loupe View, Compare View, or Survey View.
• Painter - When you click on the little spray can icon, it allows you to “paint” the same keywords, ratings, or other identifying data on multiple shots, just by clicking on them after you select what you want to paint. It even lets you “paint” presets and rotation settings. Best used when the Main Viewing Window is in Grid View.
• Sort - Allows you to select one of several ways of sorting the photos in your Main Viewing Area. Once again, most effective in Grid View.
• Flagging, Rating, and Color Label - Keeps these handy ways of separating pictures available to you without leaving the mouse. Note that whatever you select, in these three tools, will affect the shots that are active in the Main Viewing Window.
• Rotate - Two icons that allow for the selected shots to be rotated, either clockwise or counter-clockwise, 90 degrees each time you click.
• Navigate - Like the Back and Forward buttons in a web browser, this takes you backwards and forwards through the different states of the Main Viewing Window.
• Slideshow - This will start a slideshow from the point of the selected photo. Note that this is an ad hoc slideshow, for your viewing on your monitor. Do not confuse this with the Slideshow Module, where you can create presentations to send to others.
• Thumbnail Size - A slider bar that adjusts the size of the thumbnails, as viewed in the Main Viewing Window.
• Info - Displays the filename of the selected photo.

The toolbar is best used with the Main Viewing Window in Grid View, just after import when you have dozens, maybe hundreds, of photos to adjust, sort, or rate. After you have done that initial work on your imports, the usefulness of the Lightroom Toolbar is limited, or available too easily in other ways. It is completely up to you, depending on what you actually do with your shots.

None at this time.