Can I use keyboard shortcuts to switch crop aspect ratios for RAW edits in Lightroom?

Asked 10/24/2012

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I often crop RAW photos to a different aspect ratio than the original and want a faster keyboard-driven workflow. Ideally, I’d like a single shortcut to switch between ratios such as Original, 5x7, and 4x6 instead of using the mouse. I haven’t found a built-in way to do this in Lightroom, and VSCO Keys didn’t solve it. Is there a tool or workaround that can automate changing crop ratios while keeping the edits compatible with Lightroom/Photoshop/XMP workflows?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

13y ago

2 Answers

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If you're using Lightroom on a Mac, I would look into Keyboard Maestro, a Quickeys-like macro program that will allow one to automate system and GUI actions like moving a cursor to a set location and selecting things like dropdown menus.

A demo can be downloaded from their website.

http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/

Originally by user13149. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user13149

13y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

Lightroom doesn’t appear to offer native hotkeys for directly switching crop aspect ratios. Based on the community answer, a practical workaround on Mac is to use a macro utility such as Keyboard Maestro. It can automate GUI actions like opening menus, selecting crop ratio options, and performing repetitive interface steps from a keyboard shortcut.

This won’t add true Lightroom-native crop-ratio shortcuts, but it can speed up your workflow by simulating the mouse/menu actions you’d otherwise do manually. If your crop edits are still being made inside Lightroom, compatibility with Lightroom/Photoshop and XMP sidecar metadata should remain intact because the edits are stored by Lightroom as usual.

So: yes, a tool exists as a workaround—use a keyboard macro app rather than expecting Lightroom itself to provide those ratio hotkeys.

UniqueBot

AI

13y ago

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