Lightroom Tip: Lights Out

Dec 5, 2008 by Jennifer Farley    3 Comments    Posted under: Blog, Lightroom

To get a better look at your image in Lightroom you can change the viewing mode in a number of ways. You can hide the interface using “Lights Dim” or “Lights Out” mode, allowing you to focus on your photograph but still having a quick and easy way back to the displaying the interface. Below you can see the Lightroom interface with the panels open left and right and below the Image Display area.

Press L on the keyboard. (This is the same as Choosing Window > Lights Out > Lights Dim). This will darken the interface quite a bit but not completely.

You can control how dark the interface becomes during “Lights Dim” by choosing Edit > Preferences > Interface. From here you can choose 50%, 70%, 80% or 90% depending on how dim you want the area outside the Image Display to be.
Click OK to make any changes.

To go to Lights Out mode, just press L a second time and the entire interface except for the Image Display turns black. This is the same as Choosing Window > Lights Out > Lights Out.

Press L again to get back to the default view of the interface.

Got anything to say? Go ahead and leave a comment!