P: Ability to export to PNG file format

A few corrections:

No, PNG does not support layers or effects, and I don't know what you mean by "formatting".

Yes, PNG will require a set of options when saving (compression effort, interlacing, bit depth, etc.).

PNG and JPEG can both show smooth lines, depending on the compression options chosen for JPEG. With a high quality option when saving JPEG, it is lossy, but visually lossless (you can't see the changes) and generally ends up being smaller than PNG on all but synthetic test images.

TIFF is more widely supported than PNG, and can compress comparably. PNG is just more limited than TIFF, and easier to parse.

PNG is seeing use primarily on the web - it's more comparable to the usage of GIF.

I think the previous feature-request/idea was more about supporting png for import.

I see the two as somewhat distinct. i.e. what one wants in can sometimes be different than what one needs out...

My experience is that pngs are not much smaller than tifs (of like bit-depth) - both being lossless..., so filesize is not a significant advantage (am I missing something?).

Anyway, if you need png for destinations that don't accept tiff, that would be a good enough reason for a png export format, in my opinion.

Made this topic an Idea/Feature Request

@334571 sorry to correct you, but the fact that PNG is a lossless format means that you can keep saving the exact PNG file and you don’t have to worry about losing image quality every time unlike a JPG which makes it an appropriate file format.

Your statements resident more of an opinion than an unbiased fact, especially when it is directed to Adobe's support. Adobe Photoshop has this as an export feature, so this isn't a new file format with a ground zero engineering.

Also other benefits over jpg:

Supports 100% transparency. No need to save to a PSD (Photoshop Document) to preserve transparency.

Supports layers with basic effects and formatting.

Lossless format. Your images will be kept at its highest quality.

Smooth lines on web pages when rendered (as compared to rendering a JPG image).

Thanks Rob for the work around I will definitely give that a try.

As far as having Tiff as a lossless file format, is an unrealistic format to manage. It is such a huge file which is not accepted by local print shops, web based networking, and creates more time and costs for storage, This is why PNG is the middle ground between JPG and Tiff and why I would like it as an option when exporting from Lightroom. Its about diversity and options for future use. Lightroom is a costly, high end application and should be flexible to meeting these goals.

PNGs will never be as good as tightly storing and representing bits based on photographic images as JPEG. This is not an opinion, but the result of an unbiased and hard look at the trade-offs one has to make when storing image data in a file format. You just get better results at better sizes with JPEG. PNG never even comes close.

The only reason to have PNG as an export option is if we also have PNG as an import option (unless we make some export formats an exception to this rule, which complicates things even more), which is a bit of overkill.

Not to mention all the PNG options the export dialogue would have to support. Because when people say they want "PNG" what they really mean to say is "PNG with the following constraints and features".

So, this is not a no-brainer that gives some users a nice feature the rest of us can ignore. It changes a fundamental part of the workflow.

Since the only reason, really, to use PNG is for creative pixel work and/or transparency, then you really want a pixel editor for this.

I'd actually like to see Adobe concentrate more on the emerging file formats like WebP, but I recognize this is just a pet project of mine.

This all being said, I know there is an existing feature request for this around here somewhere.

Not natively, although you could request the feature.

In the mean time, you can use the lr/mogrify export filter (post-process action) to "mogrify" the exported file to png upon export.

Also, if you are using preview-exporter, it can mogrify jpeg previews to png.

Still, I'm not sure why you would ever want photographs exported as png. I mean jpeg is great for lossily compressed files, and tiff is ok when you need lossless, no?

I think you may have to make a case here. I dont think Adobe has seen the need yet...

Rob