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PhilipTobias
Known Participant
January 19, 2012
Open for Voting

P: Support Common Image Formats (EPS, GIF, PDF, BMP etc.)

  • January 19, 2012
  • 275 replies
  • 9772 views

Feature request: Please add Lightroom support for common Adobe publishing and Web image formats, such as EPS, AI, PDF, GIF, and PNG.

Many of us use Lightroom to manage client images in NEF, JPG, PSD and other formats. But the clients' associated images, which are used on their Websites and in their logos and publications, are invisible to Lightroom. If Adobe Bridge can display these other image formats, why can't Lightroom?

Even if Lightroom did not provide direct editing support for these other image formats, it would still be extremely useful if Lightroom could catalog and display them.

It would also elevate Lightroom from being "just" a photo editor into the realm of being a true Digital Asset Manager (DAM). Now that Lightroom includes basic video support - isn't it time to support all the common image formats that our other CS applications use?

Please vote for, as well as reply to, this request if you would also like to see Lightroom support these additional common image formats...

    275 replies

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    Lee Jay
    Inspiring
    April 24, 2013
    Best case for you now is that this would be supported in LR 6 in 12-18 months, as a guess.

    Would you support LR importing any file type, showing a thumb only if the OS could provide it (otherwise you'd get a generic thumb), managing them (move, rename, delete), and making an OS call to open that file, and nothing more whatsoever?
    P
    PhilipTobiasAuthor
    Known Participant
    April 24, 2013
    The more votes, the harder it will be for Adobe to continue ignoring their users.

    So instead of throwing in the towel, as you would like, I would like more votes for this sensible feature request.
    L
    Lee Jay
    Inspiring
    April 24, 2013
    Phil, you can see by the multi-year effort to get just one of these (and not the highest priority one, in my option - that would be PSB), the likelihood of you getting all of them any time soon is near zero. I think it's anyfile or nothing, at least for a while.
    P
    PhilipTobiasAuthor
    Known Participant
    April 24, 2013
    Lightroom users don't want to have to juggle ACDSee, Bridge, or anything else - in addition to Lightroom. That is simply inconvenient.

    In addition, if the Lightroom developers can add all the other new features without unduly affecting performance, you would think they could similarly extend basic file format support in a "fast" way.

    As you noted, the current plugins are not a solution. So, yes, there should be an option for Lightroom to handle more file formats.

    Enough excuses and delays, Adobe ... let's just get this done.
    Raffisys
    Raffisys
    Known Participant
    April 24, 2013
    wow, interesting...Doesn't help me. (need mainly PDF and InDesign support would be welcome). I am waiting for a new beta before I install it 🙂
    Raffisys
    Raffisys
    Known Participant
    April 24, 2013
    or you like using something else for that, and like using multiple apps to manage image files?
    Raffisys
    Raffisys
    Known Participant
    April 24, 2013
    David, you are likely new to creating images on the computer. More likey that you like photography and newly switched from film to digital. This is often a point of view for those that don't want to include other formats. Others have used scanning, and other forms of getting image data on the computer. Also have created images from the computer for DIFFERENT reasons other than a Fine art print out. So your perspective is understood, and can be argued for as LR was designed for "Photography". But even pro, or amateur "photographers" use these images in different formats, such as press printing/magazines (needing PDF, InDesign ), websites (PNG). I think that would satisfy the bulk of the urge for formats.
    Raffisys
    Raffisys
    Known Participant
    April 24, 2013
    I would say to get ACDSEE Photo Manger or Pro (for RAW).
    I think the raw in LR is way beyond AC's, but the browser manager in AC's is nice, among other things. You CAN raw edit in Pro if you want to and sometimes get different welcome effects.
    Raffisys
    Raffisys
    Known Participant
    April 24, 2013
    try using uncompressed JPEG.
    Raffisys
    Raffisys
    Known Participant
    April 24, 2013
    The reason they are keeping it as lean as possible is to keep it as fast, and as true to "photographic"(though this term has been redefined already) as they can. I think they may need to have an option of selecting other file types to support to keep folks happy. You may also want to look at LR plugins that do add support of other formats, although they don't work as seamlessly as I thought(at least at the time I tried a PDF viewer format). I stopped using Bridge a couple or more years ago as it was horrible with attached storage drives and left a couple files in EVERY folder it accessed(Not THAT big a deal, but). It never worked for me and crashed way too often and was limited in a few ways. I use ACDSee to browse my images. It is the most flexible and fastest I found with DAM capabilities.
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