Tip - Get to Before/After View Quick
You’re going to love me for this one. I just figured this out today and it’s already one of my new favorite shortcuts (at least for a day - until I either a) forget it or, b) find a new one). Anyway, if you’re in the Develop module and you want to see a quick Before/After view of your photo, just press the Y key. Then press Y again to get back to your regular Loupe view. Yep, that’s it. Short and sweet today, but it’s a really cool shortcut. If you ever forget the shortcut just look at the before/after icon. It’s got a little Y on it (I know, I never noticed it before!). Oh, and thanks so much for all the great comments since I turned commenting on yesterday. I really appreciate the kind words. And I’ll have you know that “Mr. Angry Pants” hasn’t shown up once. What a bonus! Take care everyone.
Get your weekly dose of the coolest Adobe® Lightroom tutorials, tips, time-saving shortcuts, photographic inspiration, and undocumented tricks with Matt Kloskowski from 
on November 9th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Nice, but still prefer the \ (backslash) one
on November 9th, 2007 at 11:38 am
The difference is that with the Y key you can compare before & after side by side in several ways, with the “\” key you can see before OR after image fullsize.
on November 9th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Great tip,
but did you try alt/option-Y en shift-Y?
on November 9th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Hallo “Killer Matt”
Is there a way to show the first and the last step from the history list.
If you have, for example, import, crop retangle, dark tones, sharpen
in the history list. Is it possible to switch between import (the first step), and sharpen (the last step).
on November 9th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Hello Matt,
Is there a way to remove “custom Crop Ratio” settings. My list is getting rather long, confusing and not very helpful any more! Appreciate any help you could provide.
on November 9th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Hey Matt — really enjoying your Killer Tips — learning a lot! Keep up the good work.
on November 9th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Hey Matt,
Your LR tips are great! I look forward to them every week.
There is one tip on changing the crop aspect ratio that you had done before(http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/2007/lightroom-qa-3/) that I can never seem to consistently get to work. Based on your tip, I should be able to just rotate the crop around, but it only seems to go so far. Could you possible do a video on this?
Thanks for all your work!
on November 9th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
this site is definately my fave sute now
thank you …
on November 9th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Hi Matt,
I am an avid follower of your tips. Keep ‘em coming, please!
I do have a question (unrelated to today’s tip, but I couldn’t figure out how to send something to you through another channel). After I process a photo in Lightroom and I take it into PS CS3, is there an easy way to have that Photoshop-modified photo show up in Lightroom, preferably right next to the original photo? I’m sure this would be helpful to other folks as well.
Thanks very much,
Jim
on November 9th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Those are the best tips! Short and sweet… Love it!
on November 10th, 2007 at 3:16 am
Hi Matt,
I enjoy watching your podcasts. Also great website with tips and thanks for opening the comments. This way people can also learn from eachother.
Jorge Amorim gave a great tip about the backslash key. I have to agree with him, I prefer that one above the Y-key.
Keep up the good work.
Best regards,
Jeroen Akershoek
The Netherlands
on November 10th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Matt,
Great tips! Quick & to the point.
Will there be a “Killer Tips” publication on the market soon?
Thanks again. Appreciate all the hard work being done for the users benefit!
on November 10th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Hi Matt,
Great tip and great site/podcast!
I have an off-topic question. A while ago you were in Belgium and used a photo of a château is one of your podcasts. I am in Belgium and would love to visit it. Can you tell me the name?
Cheers - Ken
on November 10th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Hey Matt,
Great to see you’ve now added the ‘comments’ section.
I’ve just checked out the shortcut for the before/after preview … can’t believe I didn’t realise this before :o) Great tip though mate, so thanks a bunch for that one.
Keep up the great work,
Glyn :o)
on November 10th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Hey Matt (great name by the way ;-P)
Terrific blog ! Almost all the tips have been useful for me ! Keep it on !
on November 10th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Simple and cool tip, tanks!
on November 10th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
I really liked the video on creating a watermark. However, I am having an issue, when I goto open the watermark in LR, .pds files are not supported. Can you help?
on November 11th, 2007 at 3:28 am
Also very valuable - for every keystroke or combo cited in this thread, you can press and hold, to see the desired view, and then release to return to starting state. Many keystrokes throughout the app respond differently to short and long presses in this way…
on November 11th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Hi,
These comments are great! I hope you don’t mind me answering Jim’s question about stacking edited photos, but I will if it’s OK. When you have the photo highlighted in Lightroom and select Photo/Edit in Photoshop (or press Ctrl/E if your a keener) there is a check box at the bottom of the pop-up window that says “Stack with Original”. Check that box and your free-sailing. Once you’re finished in Photoshop, save the file (my preferance is as a PSD) and it will show up right beside your original file in Lightroom. Lightroom then can handle the file the same as it does any other.
Ed
on November 12th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I have a lightroom question:
When I import my RAF (Raw) images into Lightroom as an example the images are very vibrant in color. When I double click the image - still in the library module, the colors get muted. What is going on? and HOW DO I TURN THIS OFF?
Many thanks to whoever can help answer this question
on November 17th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
When you import your RAF files, you are just seeing the JPG thumbnail preview inside the RAW file. Not the actual RAW. Colors and some other adjustments in that preview are not seen in LR (as any other RAW processor except the camera brand one).
When LR finishes its own preview those adjustments are not seen.
(sorry for my english, I’m portuguese)
on December 17th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Hey Matt, loving ur tips, really helpful. Not sure where to post this comment, but this seems like a good place.
Just randomly discovered a cool shortcut, one i reckon you may already know as it is rather obvious, but i find it helpful. When your in the Library view with your photos spread before you, you double click to view the selected photo larger, don’t worry that ain’t the tip. If you double click again on your enlarged photo, it takes you back to your previous view, with all your photos spread before you.
Anyway, if this you already know, ignore this post. Keep up the great work.