Today’s Question: Somewhere I’ve learned to configure Lightroom is such a way that while rating/flagging Photo’s in Lightroom the next Photo in the filmstrip is selected after the present Photo was rated or flagged. After a forced reinstall of Windows and Lightroom, this setting was gone and I don’t know how to get it back. Can you please help me to configure Lightroom again in this way?
Tim’s Quick Answer: You can re-enable the auto-advance feature in Lightroom by choosing Photo > Auto Advance from the menu.
More Detail: When the auto-advance feature is enabled in Lightroom, assigning a rating attribute to a photo will cause the next photo to be selected automatically. This feature works with the pick and reject flags, as well as star ratings and color labels.
So, for example, while reviewing photos if you press the “1” key on the keyboard to assign a one-star rating, the next image will be selected. You could then assign a star rating to that image, including the option of pressing the “0” key to assign zero stars (essentially no star rating) and automatically move on to the next image.
If the auto-advance feature is disabled, then you can instead use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move to the next image.
My personal preference is to keep the auto-advance feature disabled, so that I am always making an explicit decision about when I want to move on to the next photo. But it can obviously also be helpful to have Lightroom automatically advance to the next image whenever you assign an attribute as part of your review process.