Is there a keyboard shortcut for 4x6 crop in Lightroom 4, or way to set a default aspect ratio?

Question

I spend a lot of time cropping photos into the 4x6 aspect ratio in order for friends and family to get prints.

When I switch to the crop tool, Lightroom always starts with an unlocked, "Original" aspect ratio, and I have to manually switch it to 4x6.

Is there a way to get LR4 to assume I want 4x6 every time I crop? Failing that, is there a keyboard shortcut (or a series of them) that I can use to quickly get into 4x6 crop mode?

Asked by Eric B

Answer

The Lightroom 4 Missing FAQ says that you can't change the default crop ratio but you can crop multiple images at the same time by either selecting them in grid view and cropping via the quick develop panel (which centres the crop on the centre of the original image) or by cropping one image and then synchronising the others (which places the crop in the same location for all images). If you need each image to be cropped differently you still need to adjust every image manually.

The are unfortunately no keyboard shortcuts to choose a specific crop ratio other than the original.

Answered by Steven Cunningham

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How to create two layers in “Gimp” and merge them back into one?

Question

How do you create two layers in "Gimp" and merge them?

For example, I would like to load an image, create two identical layers, edit each layer in different ways, then merge them into one final version.

Specific instructions for gimp are preferred.

Answer

This is easy. First, if you don't have the Layers window open go to the Windows menu and choose it. You don't actually need that, but it's handy. It's a small "utility" window which typically floats near the right side of your screen. And open your file, if you haven't yet. With that window open, you can click on the existing layer in the image (probably Background), and then click on the Duplicate Layer button below — or press Shift-Ctrl-D. Then, to merge that layer back down again, go to the Image menu and pick Merge Visible Layers (Ctrl-M). You can also use Flatten Image. Alternately, if you have more than two layers, there's Merge Down in the Layers menu, which does what it says.

Gimp has completely customizable keyboard shortcuts, by the way. Look at the bottom of the Edit menu for Keyboard Shortcuts (may be mixed in with the Preferences in some older versions of Gimp). That way, if something doesn't have a shortcut, or you don't like the default, you can fix it.

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Localized keyboard shortcuts in Lightroom

Question

I'm just beginning to familiarize myself with Adobe Lightroom 3.3.

I've noticed that the keyboard shortcuts in Lightroom change substantially when you change the user interface language.

I am German but prefer all my applications with an English UI - because, frankly, most of the German localizations suck and documentation/tutorials on the Internet are generally in English, too.

However, when it comes to keyboard shortcuts, I prefer the German variant. That's because my German keyboard layout makes it something between awkward and impossible to type certain shortcuts that would be easy on an English keyboard.

Switching to English UI greatly diminishes the usability of Lightroom for me. Working with a German UI is usable but sucks.

So my question is - is there any way to convince Lightroom to use one Locale for the UI and a different one for keyboard shortcuts?

Answer

Unfortunately there is not a way to get Lightroom to recognize one locale for the UI, and another for the keyboard shortcuts by default. However... all is not lost!

Because you're using Lightroom 3, you may find the Keyboard Tamer Lightroom plugin to be the next best thing to the functionality you want. It is 'donationware' so it isn't completely free, but since you get to decide how much you want to pay for it, it shouldn't cost a fortune...

Essentially the plugin will allow you to remap all your keyboard shortcuts to different (potentially more convenient) keyboard combinations. So the downside is that you'll have to spend a bit of time essentially recreating the shortcuts that would already be done for you if you were using the German locale, but the upside is that you can reassign all your keyboard shortcuts to be whatever you would like them to be while holding onto the English UI...

_{NOTE: I'm not affiliated with the Keyboard Tamer product or developer(s) in any way, and I don't get anything for mentioning it (except the warm fuzzy feeling that comes from knowing that I may have helped a fellow photo-SE user)...}

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