I often work with Lightroom in Full screen mode and also have either the right or left panel hidden to maximize the view of the image and one of the annoying things with the panels is that they inadvertently pop open when I move the cursor too far to the left or right. While attending a Julieanne Kost seminar here in Santa Fe recently, presented by the fine folks at ASMP New Mexico, she offered up a nugget that I never knew existed.

Within Lightroom, if you right click on the far edge of Lightroom - where you would click to open or close a panel there is a little dialog that appears that allows you to customize what happens when you mouse over these far edges of Lightroom. The dialog (at right) gives you the option to have Lightroom Auto Hide and Show (default), Auto Hide or Manual.

Selecting Auto Hide will automatically hide the panel once your mouse leaves the panel space but you have to manually click the edge to open the panel in this mode. Manual will hide it or open it only if you click on the edge (or the little triangle icon). So the good news is that with this set to Auto Hide or Manual your side panels will only open when you actually click on them and want them to open.

And by the way, this is a "sticky" feature that only applies to the panel you right click on and it is an individual setting for each different panel and module. So if you right click and change your setting for the right and left hand panels in the Library module it will not affect your panel settings in the Develop module. Hence it is is not a one-click-fix-all thing. You'll have to go in and change it for each right and left panel in each module.

For me this is one of those eureka moments that will help alleviate one of the most frustrating elements of the Lightroom interface (there aren't that many). I am amazed I haven't heard of this option before but here it is. Enjoy your day and good hunting in Lightroom.

That's it for this session. See you next week.

Adios, Michael