Lightroom Exposure Shortcuts: Two Quick Ways to Speed Up Your Editing

Image exposure is probably the setting you adjust the most when editing your photos, right? Me too! It’s probably one of the first things I fix when photo editing.

(And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, it’s still the thing AI hasn’t quite mastered. In fact, that’s usually my biggest pet peeve with AI editing software.)

Here’s the good news: Lightroom Classic has a couple of shortcuts that make tweaking exposure way faster. Whether you’re fine-tuning a single image or balancing exposure across an entire set, these two shortcuts will save you time and keep your editing workflow moving so you can close that laptop sooner.

If you’re constantly reaching for the Exposure slider, this one’s for you. Lightroom lets you nudge exposure up or down using just your keyboard. It’s so much faster than the slider!

Step 1:

Select an image in the Develop module.

Step 2:

Press the - key to decrease exposure or + to increase it.

Each tap increases or decreases the exposure in .10 increments, so you can make quick, precise tweaks without touching the mouse or slider!

If you change your exposure settings in a set of images with the same background and lighting, there’s a way to get Lightroom to automatically match the exposure of multiple images to one image in the batch.

It’s called Match Total Exposure.

Step 1:

Find a batch of images in a similar setting where you adjusted your camera's exposure settings. Some photos might be dark and some might be bright.

If you have one that’s got the best exposure, that will be your highlighted image to match the rest to. If you need to adjust the exposure to one to make it the one to match to, you can do that too.

Step 2:

In the Develop module, select the image that has the correct exposure, then use shift or command to highlight the other images you want to match to the first image. Make sure the first image stays highlighted.

Step 3:

In the top toolbar in Lightroom, click on Settings, then Match Total Exposure. (If you don't see "Settings" it's because you aren't in the Develop module.)

Voila! Now all the images will be set to the exposure as the first one. How cool is that?!

This ONLY works if you changed your exposure settings in-camera while the lighting itself stayed the same. If the LIGHTING itself changed and your camera settings were the same, this will NOT work.

This editing tip is a bit hit-and-miss in my work as a private photo editor. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. When it does work, it’s a HUGE time-saver and makes me so happy. 😊

Keyboard shortcut -/+

Quick exposure tweaks on individual images.

Match Total Exposure

Balancing exposure across multiple images for consistency in a batch edit.

The best way to speed up your editing isn’t just with shortcuts like these—it actually starts with how you shoot. Want to edit less without sacrificing quality?

Check out my free mini-workshop, Shoot To Edit Less, where I teach seven simple shooting strategies that make editing easier and faster. Sign up for the free mini-workshop here!

Happy editing,

Erika