Three Things To Use the Option (Alt) Key for In Lightroom

Hey everyone – wanted to offer a little tidbit that can make your use in Lightroom a little better when it comes to correcting images.  Should take you all of two minutes.

Hold the Option Key and Drag Highlights

If you would like a quick way to check out which portions of the image are going to blow out in the highlights area, simply hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key while dragging the highlight slider.  This will show a black overlay of the image – the areas that show up as white are the blown out areas.

Option Drag the Shadow Slider

When you hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key and drag the shadow slider, the screen will now turn white.  The areas that appear as black are the areas that are “blocked” from the shadow side of things.  You may want to asjust the shadow, blacks, or exposure to help with these spots.

Option Drag The Mask Slider In Details

We know what we are going to want to add sharpening to the image when we are working with it.  That said, we want to make sure that its handled selectively.  The Mask slider takes care of that.  However, we don’t really get to see -where- it does this.  Hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key when you drag that mask slider you will see an overlay that looks similar to a mask in Photoshop.  Areas that are white are getting the sharpening in the slider above it.  Areas in black are not gettting the sharpening applied to it.