Today’s Question: In earlier versions of Lightroom Classic it was possible to turn off an entire section in the Develop module to disable those adjustments, such as to turn off the Effects section to disable vignetting. Now there is only an eye icon that temporarily turns off the adjustment like a “before and after” view. Is there no longer a way to turn off a section like with earlier versions?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, the switch to disable an adjustment section is still available, accessible by holding the Alt/Option key and then clicking the toggle that appears in place of the eye icon.
More Detail: In earlier versions of Lightroom Classic there was a toggle switch to the left of most of the section headings on the right panel in the Develop module. This enabled you to turn off (or on) the entire set of controls within a section with a single click. This was helpful both for getting a “before” and “after” view of the image, as well as disabling controls without having to commit to resetting the adjustments altogether.
More recently, those toggle switches were replaced by eye icons. You can click and hold the mouse point on one of those icons, and the entire adjustment section will be temporarily disabled. However, as soon as you release the mouse the adjustments are enabled again. In other words, this is only an option for reviewing “before” and “after”, not disabling the adjustments.
However, you can access the original toggle switches by holding the Alt key on Windows or the Option key on Macintosh. Continue holding Alt/Option while clicking on the toggle to disable (or enable) the entire section.
I for one never understand why Adobe and other software developers insist on hiding helpful features using a “secret” keyboard shortcut that is not particularly user discoverable. I appreciate a relatively clean interface, but not at the expense of having to test out various keyboard shortcuts in the hope of finding hidden features that should never have been hidden in the first place. But I digress.
