Luminar Shortcuts: 11 Quick Shortcuts to Speed Up Your Luminar Processing

Do you want to know how you can speed up your post-processing in Luminar?

You’ve come to the right place.

Because in this article, you’re going to discover 11 easy Luminar shortcuts–which will guarantee a faster and more efficient Luminar workflow.

Sound good?

Let’s dive right in!

Now, if you want to follow a simple video, check out the one below. It covers everything in this article in an easy-to-follow tutorial!

1. Open the Library Mode By Tapping ‘L,’ and Open the Info Panel by Tapping ‘I’

When you’re working in Luminar, you’ll often find yourself in Edit mode, but wanting to quickly move back to the Luminar Library.

So, why not use a single keystroke?

If you tap ‘L’ on your keyboard, Luminar will immediately head into Library mode:

Cool, right? It’s great for situations when you need to go back to the Library mode so you can search for photos to edit.

Note that you can also hit the ‘I’ key to open the Info panel, which will display all the info about your photo, including the filename, the date and time, the pixel count, the f-number, the shutter speed, and more.

2. Use ‘Ctrl’+'[‘ to Rotate Left, and ‘Ctrl’+’]’ to Rotate Right

This is a shortcut that I use all the time.

It’s perfect for situations where you want to experiment with different rotations on your photos, but you don’t want to keep clicking to access the Transform tool.

You can hit ‘Ctrl’+'[‘ and ‘Ctrl’+’]’ whether you’re in Library mode or Edit mode, and the selected image will still rotate.

Note that you can also use this shortcut to do batch rotating.

Make sure you’re in Gallery View:

Then select all the photos you want to adjust, and use the keyboard shortcut!

3. Hit ‘Tab’ to Clear the Luminar Window of Everything but the Image

Do you ever find yourself editing photos in Luminar, and just wish that things were a little less cluttered?

You’re not alone.

That’s what makes the ‘Tab’ key such a useful shortcut.

With a single keystroke, you can take the Luminar window from this:

To this:

And things immediately feel simplified.

Cool, right?

4. Hit ” to Preview the Original Image

With a powerful photo editor like Luminar, you’re often going to run into situations where you’re worried about overediting.

For instance, you might worry you’ve added a bit too much saturation. Or that you’ve used too much contrast. Or that you’ve done too much split toning, etc.

One of the ways you can check for over-editing is by simply previewing the original image. This will often give you the perspective you need to determine whether your editing has to be dialed back a touch.

And you can do this by tapping the ” key.

5. Hit ‘Shift’+’Ctrl’+’E’ to Open the Export Dialog

Once you’ve finished editing a photo, you may want to quickly export it elsewhere.

Now, you can hit the Export icon at the top of the Luminar window:

By why do that when you can save yourself a bit of mouse work?

Instead, just hit ‘Shift’+’Ctrl’+’E’, and the Export dialog will open, giving you the option to select a size, a file type, and more.

Useful, right?

6. Hit ‘C’ to Open the Crop Window

If you’re like me, then you crop your images a lot.

I’m always trying out different crops because even if I don’t end up using any of them, I like to see if there are any hidden compositions in the original shot.

And while it’s possible to keep clicking on the Crop tool over and over again…

…I like to just hit ‘C’.

Then the crop window will open, allowing me to work on the composition to my heart’s content.

7. Hit ‘0,’ ‘1,’ ‘2,’ ‘3,’ ‘4,’ or ‘5’ to Assign a Corresponding Star Rating to the Selected Image

Star ratings are one of the easiest ways to rank your images in Luminar–plus, they’re extremely intuitive.

In fact, I recommend that you sort your images by albums, but then follow that up with star ratings.

Now, it can be frustrating to keep clicking on the different star options, especially because it’s annoyingly easy to make mistakes.

But there’s an easy shortcut:

Just hit the number key that corresponds to the star rating.

And Luminar will do the rest.

8. Hit ‘P’ to Flag Images and ‘X’ to Reject Them

I mentioned the value of ranking above, but there’s also a lot to be said for flagging (and rejecting) images.

I like to use this as an editing ‘first pass,’ one that lets me reject the photos that just don’t work, and flag any image that seems to have potential.

Now, going through every image while clicking the Flag icon is doable, but inconvenient.

Instead, I like to quickly scroll through my photos, hitting the Flag shortcut: ‘P.’

And if I want to unflag a photo, I just hit ‘U.’

(Oh, and you can hit ‘X’ to reject photos, too!)

9. Hit ‘Ctrl’ and ‘+’ to Zoom In, and ‘Ctrl’ and ‘-‘ to Zoom Out

One of the most common moves you’ll make as an editor:

Zooming.

You should constantly be zooming in to check detail, zooming out to get an overall picture, then zooming back in, then out again…

It takes a lot of time, unless you know a zoom shortcut.

Fortunately, Luminar offers a simple one:

Tap ‘Ctrl’ and ‘+’ to zoom in, and ‘Ctrl’ and ‘-‘ to zoom out.

That way, you can have control of the image magnification at your fingertips, and you can make sure your photo looks good in every way.

10. Hit ‘J’ to Toggle On and Off the Clipping Warnings

Pretty much all photographers struggle with clipping shadows and highlights, at least occasionally.

I’m talking about overexposed whites (highlight clipping) and underexposed blacks (shadow clipping). And clipping is pretty much always best avoided because it looks, well, terrible.

Now, if you shoot RAW, then you can recover some clipped detail in Luminar.

But how do you know if you’ve clipped in the first place? It’s not always immediately obvious, especially if you’re not looking for it.

Fortunately, Luminar has a built-in clipping warning, which will highlight clipped whites in red:

And clipped blacks in blue:

To activate this, you can simply hit ‘J.’

(And to toggle it off, just hit ‘J’ once more!)

11. Hit ‘[‘ to Decrease the Brush Size and ‘]’ to Increase the Brush Size

When you’re working with a masking brush in Luminar, you’ll often want to increase and decrease the brush size.

And while you can do this by clicking on the brush dropdown menu and adjusting the brush size, or by right-clicking and adjusting the brush size…

…it’s much easier just to tap the [ and ] keys.

One tap to the left bracket will decrease the brush size slightly. Several taps to the left bracket will decrease the brush size substantially. And the same is true for the right bracket, just reversed!

Luminar Shortcuts: Next Steps

You should hopefully find these Luminar shortcuts helpful–so that you can speed up your workflow and get on with the business of making your pictures look spectacular.

So next time you’re editing in Luminar, be sure to remember these shortcuts!