I've looked, but cannot find a way to change flag and delete keys. I mean seriously....with my left pinky on the x key, and my right thumb on the p key...I mean dang my hand cant stretch that far! Why couldnt they have made the flag and delete keys like....2 keys right next to each other?

Anybody know of a way to change this setup?

If you turn on Caps Lock, after you press P or X (or U) it will automatically advance to the next image, so then you can use two hands for P and X.

I've known that for a while, but I keep my right hand on the mouse for quick fixes and continue on with my left hand.

yeah, sorry, I didn't think that was big secret, just trying to helpful. I can't do the pinky/thumb thing, it puts my wrist at a weird angle. I have big hands though, so if I'm keeping one hand on the mouse then I do pinky on X and index finger on P. that's probably not much help for you either

Thanks though Dan, I appreciate it. Lots of folks probably don't know that so you posting that will be here forever and someday somebody will read it and it will make their lives easier. So, in a way, your a hero

I'm trying the pinky index finger thing, but dang....its brutal after culling through 1000+ images.

If you're on Windows, you could use a program like AutoHotkey to remap a pair of unused F keys to "P" and "X". Apparently it can work to remap on an application level, so you could have the changes only work for Lightroom and not hose up your other apps.

Oh and if people haven't already found these Lightroom shortcut PDF's, I highly suggest you check it out!

http://www.lightroomqueen.com/lrqshortcuts.php

Holy schnikes!!!

CTL+ALt+S = sync and bipass dialog box!!!! Frikking yesss!!!! Thanks for posting that yo!

CTRL+[up arrow] and CTRL+[down arrow] lets you raise and lower flag status. Sounds like you found something that works for you though. :-)

Auto hotkey is a good solution. However, workflow-wise, don't edit while you cull. Cull with two index fingers. Ford doesn't build a car by setting up a mishmash of stuff at each stop. The faster you get through the cull, the faster you start editing. It is actually quicker to bypass mousing ANYTHING while culling.

+1

I don't use P and X. I simply give the keepers 5 stars (with the auto-advance feature turned on too). So, if I like it I hit 5. If I hate it I hit 0.

Using the numeric keypad, I have my thumb on the 0 and index finger on the 5 and toggle back and forth as needed. Super fast, super comfy, super easy!

Then I just show the 5-star images when I'm done rating (I never liked the work cull), and can always show ALL the images if I need to go back and look at something.

P and X never made sense to me anyway.

I do similar to matt above, except I use 0 for rejects and 4 for keepers, then when I go back through 5s are for blog/portfolio, etc...fast and easy.

kate

This is something I should know - but can you set it up so you ONLY are viewing unrated images? Not everything 0-5 but actual unrated images?

Using ratings, this is what I'd do - rate everything a 5. Set it to only view 5's. Then push 1 and 2 for yes or no. As soon as you rate it, it disappears. That's the only trick to it - the image has to go away. No right arrow, no caps lock. Just gone. Once they're all gone, view your 1s. Same as P/X but comfy.

Kate, lately I have been using Quick Collections to keep blog images separate. When I do my second pass of rating images, I downgrade some 5's to 4's so they disappear from the 5-star filter. But I like your method too!


Matt, I'm not in front of that computer right now, but off the top of my head one solution could be to view all images, but then SORT by rating. That would be a quick way to bunch all of the unrated images together. I can take a peek for the real answer later, or maybe someone else can chime in.

You can definitely view only unrated images in Bridge, but that doesn't help us here since we're talking about Lightroom.


I don't like the images to go away when I'm rating because very often I do quickly scoot back to see if something earlier is better/worse. I see the value of what you're saying though. You're an all-or-nothin' kind of guy!

Yeah it really depends what people are in it for. I am in for speed. An extra second over 2400 images is 40 minutes per wedding or 15 HOURS per year. Can you imagine?

As long as people have a method that works for them, it's great. I like them to go away, some people don't. Those who edit in LR usually can smoke those who don't, as far as hours spent in LR.

I picked up the two finger peck method, and it works for now I reckon.

I'm all about speed, and taking THE least amount of steps as humanly possible. I have only 5 steps in my LR workflow.

- Import all images
- 5 star my favs - quick edit/export for blog
- cull the rest using p and x - quick edit/export for upload

Done.

Once I have all of the rejects flagged, I click to view only the flagged and 5 star photos. Makes organizing easy without taking additional steps, and without having to worry about collections (which I've never used) Once I'm done editing the 5 starred favs, I use those as "keyframes" to shift-click-edit the rest of the photos. I can usually edit out 1000 photos in roughly 21 minutes. I'm the kind of person that likes to know EXACTLY how much production time goes into each process, so we can charge accordingly. For me, this is THE fastest way to get in and out of LR in the least amount of time possible.

Exactly how I do it. I've never used P and X... I use  Up Arrow and  Down Arrow as the increase/decrease flag status buttons and it's super easy - never had hand cramps - and that's also partially due to my wacom tablet

Santa may have my back on that one man...loooooong time coming.

Dude....interested in the CTRL Arrow way of picking and flagging.....do you start them all out as picks, then go from there? Say you CTRL Arrow a photo, does it automatically jump to the next photo with CAPS on like P and X? It sounds like that way is quicker, but if it doesnt automatically advance to the next photo with CAPS on, then theoretically p and x is faster because your tapping less keys.....

BTW....what wacom tab do you recc?

You can view only unrated photos by using the filter of = and no star, then when you give it a rating it disappears and you're on to the next photo.

I do this but rank 1-5 on every image. 1s are black frames or pictures of the floor or sky that will get deleted. 2s are out of focus or some other error. 3s are technically good but uninteresting. 4s are good and interesting. 5s are awesome and get blogged. I do this very quickly based on my first reaction to the image. I later give much more editing attention to 5s than 4s and 4s than 3s, and sometimes at this stage I decide to change the ranking. 3-5 gets delivered.