Improving Editing Workflow With Auto Advance

The Auto Advance feature is only accessable and used in the Library module. It. is used to help automate the editing or selection process where you apply flags star or color ratings to an image.

Auto Advance is a checkable menu option under the found under the Photo menu in the Library module. To enable it simply select it in the menu. Auto Advance works with any of the image rating methods listed above it. There is no right or wrong way to rate images, it is really a personal preference. The trick is to find one you are comfortable with and learn the quick key strokes below. Rating images makes it easier to later sort and filter your selections based on the rating or flags you’ve assigned to the images.

I prefer the star ratings since it is really easy to remember the keystroke equavalents 0-5.

The keystroke equavalent for flags are P for Flagged, U for Unflagged and X for rejected.

The keystroke equavalents for star ratings are the same as the number of stars you want to assign and image from 1-5 with 0 being none.

Colors are a little more tricky, but if you are in to color ratings, you can probably memorize this quick list.

The slow way to rate images is to turn on the Tool Bar (T), step through each image manually, and click on a star rating, color or flag to tag the image. Then either click on the next thumbnail in the film strip or use the arrow buttons to advance to the next one.

The fast way is to enable Auto Advance and get rid of the tool bar (hit the T key to turin it off) since it is only taking up valuable screen real estate any way. Select the image you want to begin with and simply press the one shortcut key mentioned above to rate the image. As soon as you’ve pressed the button the image is tagged with the rating and the next image in the film strip is displayed. This way you can view the images at full size on the screen and only have to press one key per image to rate it. If you are going through a several hundred image shoot this 1-key express mode really adds up to a significant time savings.

So that’s it. Let us know if this information was helpful and any other Lightroom topics you’d like to have covered in this tips section.