Today’s Question: I assume the very purpose of the Quick Develop section on the right panel in the Library module is to apply basic adjustments quickly. But is there any reason to avoid Quick Develop and instead switch to the Develop module?
Tim’s Quick Answer: The Quick Develop section is indeed something of a “shortcut” to certain adjustments in the Develop module. It can be helpful, and there isn’t any significant reason to avoid it.
More Detail: The adjustments in the Quick Develop section on the right panel in the Library module are literally shortcuts to the applicable adjustments in the Develop module. For example, if you adjust the Exposure in Quick Develop the Exposure slider in the Develop module will move accordingly.
The Quick Develop adjustments are obviously convenient in terms of being available in the Library module. They can also be used to quickly apply adjustments to more than one image selected in the grid view display. In addition, Quick Develop provides relative rather than absolute adjustments when multiple images are selected. For example, if you had one image adjusted with an Exposure value of 0.5 and another with a value of 1.0, increasing by 0.5 will cause the first image to have a value of 1.0 and the second image to have a value of 1.5.
The only real drawback to using the Quick Develop adjustments is that you’re basing those adjustments on a JPEG preview in the Library module, rather than a full rendering of the source image in the Develop module. In most cases this shouldn’t result in any significant issues. Furthermore, the Quick Develop adjustments don’t offer the fine control of the Develop module, so to really refine the results you will generally visit the Develop module at some point. Still, the Quick Develop adjustments are convenient, and in my view there’s no reason to avoid using them.
