Cycle through Healing Tools with this Shortcut in Lightroom Classic

Welp, it’s that time of year that I’m doing all the things for the dreaded and tedious TAXES. 😩 Ugh, I welcome ANY distraction from that.

Seriously, I vacuumed, cleaned out my emails, and even organized the photos in my Canva library.

Desperate times and all that...😉

I plan on being finished with all the 2024 tax stuff hopefully tonight so I can get that out of my hair ASAP. Gah!

Anyway, let’s talk about something more fun—like keyboard shortcuts in Lightroom! It’s like knowing a magic spell, right?

Let’s learn some magic! 🪄🐇

Last week, I shared the hidden shortcut menu for the healing tool—did you read it? (If not, go check it out!) This week, I’m highlighting one of my favorite shortcuts from that menu.

You know how when you open the healing tool, it defaults to the last tool you used? But what if you need a different one? Instead of moving your mouse to click on it, there's a quick keyboard shortcut! Here it is:

Hit SHIFT + T on your keyboard.

This shortcut cycles through the three healing tools: the remove tool, the healing tool and the clone tool.

And the best part? If you’ve already used the healing tool, this shortcut lets you start a new spot without messing up the one you just fixed.

That was a much-needed improvement from the previous version of Lightroom! Anyone else constantly exiting and reopening the healing tool just to keep a previous fix before switching tools? Super frustrating! 😠

Anyway, here’s how I’m using this shortcut now: I’ve mapped it to my Shuttle Pro—aka my weird-looking, button-filled editing device. (You may have seen it in my Instagram posts.) It lets me turn shortcuts into one-click buttons, and honestly, it’s one of my favorite tools for editing.

Do you like this shortcut? Are you using it? Will you use it in the future?

Happy editing,

Erika