Today’s Question: When I updated Lightroom Classic the switches to the left of each heading were replaced with eye icons. I know that these are there to disable or enable sections of adjustments, but why are some of the eye icons bright and some dim?
Tim’s Quick Answer: The eye icons to the left of each heading on the right panel in the Develop module in Lightroom Classic are brighter if adjustments in that section have been applied, and dimmer if adjustments have not been applied. There are also indications for each of the tools on the toolbar below the histogram to indicate if they have been used for an image.
More Detail: With a recent update to Lightroom Classic the toggle switches that enabled you to turn off sections of adjustments have been replaced by eye icons. You can click and hold on an eye icon to turn off the adjustments in that section temporarily to enable a “before” versus “after” view.
If you want to turn off all adjustments more permanently in a section, you can hold the Alt key on Windows or the Option key on Macintosh to change the eye icons into toggle switches, which you can then click to toggle the section on or off.
These options are only available for sections that you have actually applied adjustments in, though the permanent toggle option is never available for the Basic section. If you haven’t applied any adjustments in a section, you can’t toggle the visibility of that section, which is why the eye icon will appear dimmer in that case.
In addition to this indication of whether adjustments have been applied in a given section on the right panel in the Develop module, the icons representing individual adjustment tools on the toolbar below the histogram (such as the Crop tool) will have a dot appear below the icon if that tool has been used to adjust the image. So, for example, if you’ve applied any adjustments the Edit button will have a dot below it, and if you have cropped the image the Crop button will have a dot.
These indications can be helpful in terms of enabling you to know what general adjustments have been applied to an image, as well as to know which adjustments you haven’t used yet but that you might want to apply to an image.
