Lightroom: Selecting Photos In the Grid View

category: Lightroom • 1 min read

Lightroom has so many ways of selecting photos that it becomes confusing. But selecting the right way will reduce your workload and avoid a lot of frustrations.

To select in the grid view of Lightroom:

For just one photo: click on the photo.
To select non-contiguous photos: click on each photo with Ctrl-click (Windows) / Command-click (Mac).
To select all photos between the photo under the mouse pointer and the active photo: Shift-click.
To select all photos displayed: Edit → Select All or Ctrl+A (Windows) / Command+A (Mac).

To deselect in the grid view of Lightroom:

All photos: Edit > Select None or press Ctrl+D (Windows) / Command+D (Mac).
All photos except the active one: Edit > Select Only Active Photo or press Shift+Ctrl+D (Windows) / Shift+Command+D (Mac).
To change the active photo in a group of selected photos: click a different photo.
To select a new active photo and deselect all other photos: click a photo’s grid cell border.
To deselect the selected photos and select all the photos that were not selected: Edit > Invert Selection

When you select multiple photos in Lightroom, the first photo you select is the active photo. It has a brighter highlighted frame.
After selecting your photos, you can add them to the Quick Collection and you can print, export or…