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

Hi, Simon. Of course, none of us want to add features that will make Lightroom run sluggishly.

But as John replied, other applications handle numerous file formats without undue problems. With proper engineering, Lightroom would seem capable of supporting some additional file formats, too.

Not agin Video features here;)
I'm definitely not against any features in LR, just saying , hope it doesn't screw anything up;)

One could just as well point to many other image cataloguing apps of the same era - iView, Extensis ACDeeSee etc - that performed well while supporting many different file types. It's just an obvious line in the sand, and perhaps those who draw it are the same as those who were once against video features?

Thanks for the correction John, it was just what I was told at the time (that Bridge suffered from trying to support so many formats)

No, it wasn't. Bridge and Lightroom are completely different programs.

*aside*
wasn't that the reason Bridge had so many problems - it was supporting just about every format known to man?

(I know it might be fixed now but I gave up on bridge a few version back as it was completely unusable , I was told at the time, for this reason - (whethertrue or not ) it was the version (CS3?) that just had a mind of its own

Anyway point is: if it risks making LR run badly or slowly then forget it, not worth the hassle

Thank you, Peter, for your support of this needed feature request.

Although Adobe Bridge supports more file formats, it is a nuisance to use alongside of Lightroom. If you're already in the correct folder in Lightroom when you realize a file you are looking for isn't there, it can take minutes to launch Bridge and navigate to exactly the same folder to look again. That is a major productivity waster - it takes you entirely off task.

It would be much better if Lightroom itself could catalog and display these other common file formats that many of us every day.

Thanks again. ...pt

@PhilipTobias
I do FULLY support your feature-request for a extended, in the world outside Adobe, STANDARD and daily used fileformats! I'm going over to vote now on your request.

FYI:
I have, like you, made this request in many Adobe- & Apple-related forums since even before 2009. Also Apples Aperture does support all formats already, but it's way to slow to work with when you have like 80' or so mediafiels to keep track of. In our case, we're 4 people using a mix of CS5 (mostly Photoshop), Lightroom, iPhoto, Final Cut Pro, Xcode etc and a central Lightroom media archive on a NAS that we all could share and maintain (metadata etc) would be just fine - IF it just supported all common filestypes. Don't know now yet if Bridge CS5 will work for us (looking at it now...).

So I think Adobe is actually shooting themself in the foot here, since I'm actually just started to look around for a DAM solution (again), taking another look at other competitors etc. I'm definitly not alone doing this. Just how patient do you have to be with Adobe?

Keep the request-fire going, we all need this common file-support. God job Phillip 🙂

Thank you, Jay, for your vote for adding to Lightroom "broader file support."

No, Lee. Lightroom needs the ability to actually *display* these other common image types, just as Bridge can do.

I noticed that Bridge provides Open and/or Open With context menu choices to open files. For consistency, that approach would probably be best for Lightroom.

Thank you for your ideas towards a solution. ...pt