Month: July 2025

Today’s Question: The choice to not require the Command key [Ctrl key on Windows] when assigning star ratings has disappeared in Preferences [in Adobe Bridge]. Is there a way to not have to press Command/Ctrl when assigning star ratings?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can indeed assign star ratings in Adobe Bridge using only the number keys (without Ctrl or Command). You just need to make the change in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog now rather than the Preferences dialog.

More Detail: For a number of years there was a checkbox in the Preferences dialog for Adobe Bridge that enabled you to disable the need to hold the Ctrl key (Windows) or Command key (Macintosh) while pressing a number key to assign a star rating. With a recent update, however, that option has been removed but the same change can be made in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog.

To get started, choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts dialog. In the search field at the bottom-left of the keyboard schematic enter “star” to filter the list of keyboard shortcuts to include those for star rating assignments, which will be listed as “1 Star”, “2 Star”, and so on.

In the Shortcut column of the keyboard shortcuts listing you can click on an existing keyboard shortcut and then click the “X” associated with it to remove it if you want. Regardless of whether or not you remove the existing keyboard shortcuts, you can then click in the empty area of the Shortcuts column (or to the right of the existing keyboard shortcuts if you’re keeping them) to add a new shortcut. You can then type the text (such as the number “1” for the one-star rating) to add the new keyboard shortcut.

After modifying the keyboard shortcuts for all five of the star ratings, go back to the search results and type “rating” to locate the “No Rating” command. You can then update the keyboard shortcut so you can use the “0” (zero) key to remove the star rating.

Once you’ve updated the keyboard shortcuts for star ratings (and made any other changes you might find helpful) you can click the OK button to close the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog. Note that there is also a “Save As” button toward the top-left of the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog you can use if you want to save a preset to preserve your keyboard shortcut configuration for Adobe Bridge.

Today’s Question: Is there a way to see the size of an image in Lightroom Classic? The metadata panel shows image dimensions, but I haven’t found a way to see file size.

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can view the file size for an image in Lightroom Classic by selecting the “EXIF and IPTC” view for Metadata, or by customizing the Default view to include the File Size field.

More Detail: Most of the view options for the Metadata section of the right panel in the Library module in Lightroom Classic don’t display the file size for the currently selected image. However, there are a couple of ways you can include the file size in the Metadata section.

One option is to select “EXIF and IPTC” from the popup to the left of the Metadata heading, which will switch the view to include a wide range of metadata fields. This includes many of the details of EXIF metadata that were recorded by the camera, as well as some of the more photojournalism focused fields included in the IPTC standard. The File Size field is also displayed with this view option.

Another way to display the file size is to customize the Default metadata view to include the File Size field, or any other fields you’d like to include (or exclude). The first step is to choose Default from the popup to the left of the Metadata heading. Then click the Customize button at the bottom of the Metadata section to bring up the “Customize Metadata Default Panel” dialog.

You can then turn on the checkbox for any fields you would like to display, including the “File Size” checkbox in this case. You can also turn off the checkbox for any of the fields you don’t want to include in this view. If you want to change the order of the fields in the Metadata section, click the Arrange button. This will bring up the “Arrange Metadata Default Panel” dialog, where you can drag the metadata fields into your preferred order. Click the Save button when you’re finished arranging the metadata fields, or if you didn’t use the arrange feature you can click the Done button to close the “Customize Metadata Default Panel” dialog.

Once you’ve customized the settings for the Default view option for the Metadata section, simply select Default from the popup whenever you want to view only the metadata fields you chose to enable.