Today’s Question: Is there a way to only view one section of adjustments at a time in the Develop module in Lightroom?
Tim’s Quick Answer: You can have all sections of a panel in Lightroom hidden except one by enabling Solo Mode. You can also hide panels altogether if there are any that you don’t use.
More Detail: You can enable Solo Mode for one or more panels in Lightroom by right-clicking on an empty area of the panel (such as the blank space next to the section titles) and choosing Solo Mode from the popup menu. The setting affects the specific panel (left or right) in the current module, so you can pick and choose which panels you actually want to enable Solo Mode for.
When Solo Mode is enabled, only one panel at a time will be expanded. When you click on the header of a panel to expand it, all other panels will be collapsed. This enables you to focus your attention on the controls within only a single section at a time, which many photographers prefer.
In addition, if you find any sections on a given panel that you don’t use (or rarely use) you can hide that section. To do so, right-click on an empty area of the panel that contains the section you want to hide. Then click the name of the section you want to hide on the popup menu.
The popup menu will show a checkmark next to all of the panel sections that are enabled, so you see at a glance which sections (if any) have been hidden from view. And of course you can use this same menu to reveal a panel section that had previously been hidden.