Lightroom Slider Sensitivity

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Today’s Question: As a longtime user of Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop, I’m only now trying to learn to use Lightroom [Classic CC]. I realize it has some real advantages, but there is one thing about it that really irritates me. Compared to Camera Raw, the sliders in the Develop module are quite small and, in my opinion, overly sensitive. They don’t permit fine adjustments nearly as easily as Camera Raw does. Or have I overlooked some way of changing that in Lightroom?

Tim’s Quick Answer: There are two recommendations I can offer. First, you can enlarge the right panel in the Develop module to make the adjustment sliders larger and therefore less sensitive to small mouse movements. In addition, you can use keyboard shortcuts to increase or decrease the value for individual adjustments.

More Detail: The panels in Lightroom Classic can all be resized to make them larger or smaller. You can simply point your mouse at the inner edge of any panel, and then drag to enlarge the panel. So, for example, you could drag the left edge of the right panel in the Develop module toward the left in order to enlarge the panel. This will make it easier to apply adjustments with the mouse, since a larger slider range will create an adjustment that is less sensitive.

In addition, in Lightroom (or Camera Raw) you can use keyboard shortcuts to increase or decrease the value for most of the adjustments. As you may have noticed, most of the adjustments include a numeric value that changes as you drag the applicable slider left or right. If you click on a numeric value for a slider you wish to adjust, that value will be highlighted.

You can then use the up and down arrow keys on the keyboard to increase or decrease the highlighted value, respectively. If you hold the Shift key while pressing the up or down arrow key on the keyboard, the value will be increased or decreased to a greater degree. In most cases holding the Shift key will cause the arrow key shortcut to adjust the value by a factor of ten, but this will vary with different adjustments.

With both of these options I think you’ll find that you are able to alter the various adjustment values in Lightroom with the same degree of control that is available in Adobe Camera Raw.