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FeedbackCommunityMember
Inspiring
August 18, 2018
Not Prioritized

P: Ability to export files in the HEIC/HEIF formats

  • August 18, 2018
  • 90 replies
  • 28978 views

Now that HEIC is starting to get some reasonable adoption after iOS 11, it’s great that Lightroom Classic CC can import those files. But it would be even better if it could export them too. For various reasons, I end up exporting from Lightroom to Apple Photos.app, and it seems like a no-brainer for me to use HEIC if Lightroom supported them. (Why not save the extra disk space?)

I know I can export to TIFF or some other lossless format and then use a third-party utility to convert them to HEIC, but that’s too much of a pain. Having native support in the Export workflow would be ideal.

    90 replies

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    FeedbackCommunityMemberAuthor
    Inspiring
    February 21, 2021

    I'd love to have Lightroom support for exporting in HEIF, this means beter quality and less required storage space.

      trevor98712893
      Known Participant
      December 12, 2020

      While Lightroom (regular and Classic) can read and import HEIF images, they cannot export in the format. HEIF has many advantages over JPEG, support for more colors/bit depth and more optimized sizes. It would really be nice to export edited 12 or 14-bit RAW images into a 10-bit format (HEIF) while still maintaining manageable file sizes. 8-bit JPEG is not as efficient nowadays for all instances. While TIF can handle higher bit depths, its large size makes it unmanageable. In anyone can achieve this, Adobe should be able too.

        SteffenB1970
        Participating Frequently
        October 22, 2020

        Version 10 is out but still no support for HEIC export. This means 50% more energy per image exported from Lightroom. I wasn't aware that Adobe actively committed to not contribute to fight climate change...

          Geoff the kiwi
          Community Expert
          Geoff the kiwiCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          October 12, 2020

          I have seen this too and thought it may be a hardware glitch with my MacBook and the external drive but like you it is always HEIC files. 
          My current work around is to restart Lightroom and they will export then.....

          I haven’t any ideas on the cause yet.

          I have had on 10.13.6 and Lr9.4

          FeedbackCommunityMemberAuthor
          Inspiring
          October 12, 2020

          whenever I try to export the HEIC photos shot on my iPhone I get the following error:

          "some export operations were not performed. The file appears to be unsupported or damaged"

           

          I usually import them in Lightroom on my phone, but when I open/edit and then try to export on my desktop, I get this message.

           

          All software is up-to-date (MAC OS Catalina, iOS 14.0.1)

           

            michaelk5102444
            Known Participant
            September 28, 2020

            Canon now has multiple cameras (1DXM3, R5 and R6) with the ability to take photos in HEIF format.  Lightroom is able to import them but when will we have the ability to export those photos after editing back to HEIF?

              FeedbackCommunityMemberAuthor
              Inspiring
              August 11, 2020
              Please please give us an option to export to HEIF! Sure, it’s still a pain to widely use it as a sharing format, but it’s excellent for storing all my edited photos. At least let us know you’re working on it.
                FeedbackCommunityMemberAuthor
                Inspiring
                July 11, 2020
                Adobe, please please please add support for HEIF export. It's long overdue. This will save precious space on our disks and thus contribute (a little bit) to a better environmental footprint of our photographic activities (if Adobe cares about those things?).
                  michaelk5102444
                  Known Participant
                  July 9, 2020


                  Canon's announcement of the R5 and R6 mirrorless cameras today made a big splash.  Now Canon's Flagship DSLR 1D-X Mark III, Flagship Mirrorless R5 and the R6 all support HEIF file type.  It is possible to import these photos into Lightroom Classic, but not possible to export them as HEIF.  Adobe please add HEIF export ability.  Forcing us to use jpg negates the advantages of shooting using HEIF.
                    Jerry Syder
                    Jerry Syder
                    Inspiring
                    May 5, 2020
                    That documents opening or importing, not exporting. Found a tweet from Affinity back in November 2019 but maybe things have changed since then? https://twitter.com/affinitybyserif/status/1198893324817580032?s=20
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