Can I Change the Keyboard Shorcuts in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom?

There are tons of keyboard shortcuts that you can use in Adobe Lightroom. Remember a handful of them, and it can really increase the efficiency of your editing. But what if you want to change one of these shortcuts to be easier for you to remember?

There's no menu that gives you the option to change these shortcuts, but you can get around that. Lightroom uses a localization file, TranslatedStrings.txt, and it can customize certain elements of Lightroom. With TranslatedStrings.txt, you can customize the directory structure used to organize imports. You can change font settings. And, you can customize keyboard shortcuts.

Ok. How?

First, you need to create the file. In your Lightroom program directory, go to the "Resources" directory. Create a subdirectory called "en." Then, create a simple text file called "TranslatedStrings.txt."

Now all you need to do is enter a line for each keyboard shortcut that you want to redefine. For example, if you want to change the shortcut that jumps to the crop overlay tool, enter the line "$$$/AgDevelop/Menu/View/Crop/Key=r" (including the quotes). Every shortcut is defined by a variable like this, and you simply need to change the value at the end (the "r").

Check out this guide for more detailed instructions.

What Shortcuts Can I Change?

When you look through the menus (i.e. File, Photo, Develop, Window), pretty much each line can be turned into a keyboard shortcut. Some of the options don't have shortcuts defined by default, but you can add them.

To find a specific shortcut, consult this complete list of Lightroom keyboard shortcuts. There are slightly over 300 shortcuts that you can edit to personalize your Lightroom experience.