What’s That Spray Can in Lightroom For?

If you’ve ever noticed a little spray can icon while using Lightroom but have no idea what it’s for, this 8.5-minute video by photographer Anthony Morganti was made for you.

The spray can is the Painter tool. It allows you to pick an attribute (e.g. keyword, label, flag, ratings, settings, etc…) and apply it to photos by clicking on them in Grid view. It’s a fast way to make changes to a large number of photos — simply click or click+drag the Painter tool across your grid of photos to apply the desired attribute to any photo you “spray” them onto.

Useful applications including applying stars/labels/flags, adding photos to collections, and applying presets to photos.

Julieanne Kost of Adobe made a 3-minute Quick Tip video about the tool as well:

Here are the keyboard shortcuts you can use with the Painter tool:

Command+Option (Mac) / Control+Alt+K (Win): Enable painting tool in Library module.

Option+click (Mac) / Alt-click (Win): Remove attributes with the Painter tool.

Escape: Put the Painter tool away.

Shift + K: Assign the keyword loaded into the Painter tool to the selected photos.

So there you have it: another handy tool you can use when editing and organizing your photos.