The Hidden Keyboard Shortcut For Applying A Preset

OK, my Holiday Break is officially over, and I’m back at it full time with a keyboard shortcut that you probably already know doesn’t exist, right? But wouldn’t it be great to be able to apply a preset as a shortcut — not just for speed, but so you can close the Left Side panels and see much more of your image. Well, here’s a workaround that pretty much lets you use a keyboard shortcut to apply a Develop Module preset. Hope you find it helpful:

STEP ONE: In the Develop Module, go to the Presets panel and click on the Preset you want to be able to apply with a keyboard shortcut (as seen here). In this case, I’m going to use a Finishing Move preset that applies a little bit of a clarity and a lot of sharpening.

STEP TWO: Click on the Copy button at the bottom of the Left Side panels to bring up the Copy Settings dialog you see above. Click the “Check None” button then only turn on the checkboxes beside the things that were applied in your preset. In my case, it was just two settings: Clarity and Sharpening (I always leave Process Version on as well). Now click the Copy button to save those settings to memory.

STEP THREE: Now when you find an image where you want to apply that preset quickly, you can just press the keyboard shortcut Command-V (PC: Ctrl-V) and it applies the settings of that preset.

OK, that’s just a quickie to get things rolling again after the holiday break. Tomorrow I have some news that I think you’re totally going to dig, so make sure you check back here then.

Happy New Year!

-Scott