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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?

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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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  • Wow, thanks! I'll give that a try, but it sounds like a way to go. – Tomalak May 30 '11 at 4:08
  • Yes, this is looking good. All I needed to do is configuring the path to my Lightroom installation in the plugin manager. Thanks again! :-) - It's also worth noting that under Windows you must temporarily start Lightroom as an administrator to actually be allowed to change keyboard shortcuts. – Tomalak May 30 '11 at 6:06
  • @Tomalak: Glad it worked out for you! I use the plugin myself and have found it quite handy. If my answer... well... answered your question, don't forget to select it as the correct one. Thanks! – Jay Lance Photography May 30 '11 at 6:32
  • I did! Maybe I inadvertently clicked the check-mark twice. Now, what would be an adequate donation amount? I truly have no idea what the market value of such a plugin would be. – Tomalak May 30 '11 at 7:48
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    @Tomalak: No idea. I think I donated $5USD, but it seems like they'd take anything... – Jay Lance Photography May 30 '11 at 16:22

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