Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2

Lightroom’s Secondary Display option allows you to make the most efficient use of your screen real estate when you are working with your photos. Ordinarily, when you open Lightroom you are greeted with Lightroom’s primary window. This is where you do all your work on and with your photos and navigate between modules. This is the window every Lightroom user is familiar with.

What’s new is the ability to open a second Lightroom window that is geared toward extending your ability to access and view your photos. You can enable the secondary window by going to the Window > Secondary Display > Show menu or by clicking the secondary window icon in the Filmstrip.

Technically you can open the secondary window if you only have a single monitor, but while interesting to explore it is not as practical to use with a single monitor system. On a dual monitor system you will be able to place this secondary window on your other monitor, which essentially increases your ability to view, select and work with your photos by taking advantage of that extra screen real estate. Here is an example of the primary and secondary window side by side.

Here is what multiple monitor support does not mean (because this is what some people assume), you can not separate panels or toolbars from the interface nor can you separate the photo you are working with from the interface. This is not like the multiple monitor support that you might be used to in Photoshop.

What it does mean is that you now have a second window on your other monitor that offers the following viewing options:

• Grid view
• Loupe view
• Compare view
• Survey view
• Slideshow

You need to think of this secondary window as an extension of the Library module that you can have open and use while you are working in any of the other modules on your primary display. One of the most significant things it does is allow you to collapse the Filmstrip (and the Module picker while you are at it) and thereby devote more of your primary monitor real estate to your photo and tools. This is a real asset when working in the Develop module!

So, thinking of it as an extension of the Library module you probably recognize that the Grid, Loupe, Compare and Survey views function just the same as they do in the Library module, but with a few minor differences.

When working in Loupe view you can choose between three different modes—Normal, Live and Locked.

• Normal mode allows you to see the selected photo in either fit or zoom view, just like in the Library module.
• Live mode means that the photo you see is determined by what photo is under your cursor at the time. This makes for a quick way to scan photos with Grid view enabled on the primary window just by moving your cursor over the thumbnails.
• Locked mode means that the selected photo at the time the lock is enabled will remain there while you select other photos. This is useful for making comparisons.

One thing to keep in mind is that you can’t have Grid view enabled on both the primary and secondary windows at the same time. Lightroom just won’t let you.

The Slideshow option is only available when the secondary window is in full screen mode. It is a nice addition and allows you to display your slideshows within that secondary window. This is particularly useful if your secondary monitor is facing your client while you are working on your primary monitor. To that end Adobe also added the option of having a second monitor preview window, which is a tiny third window that displays on the primary monitor and gives you a peek at what is being displayed in the secondary window. Note: this preview window works with all secondary window view modes. You can access it view the Window > Secondary Display > Show Second Monitor Preview menu.

While you are in the Window menu be sure to make note of the keyboard shortcuts, which will further increase your efficiency when using these options.