P: Edit In External Editor does not work/function

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I can not send images from LR4 to any external editor via Photo>Edit In. My system is Mac OS 10.7.3. Using the Edit In command fails to open the external editor and no error message results. This occurs whether the images have the 2012 Process Version applied or not. My external editors are primarily PSE10 and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.0. This is an important part of my workflow.

I have reinstalled PSE10 and updated to the newest version of Silver Efex Pro.

[mjg320]

Wish I would have known about this issue before I upgraded!!!

Add me to the list. Mac OS 10.7.2 running LR4 and cannot open external editors (SEP2 specifically). Hit the launch command and no response.

Also tried the "remove PSE.plist file" work-around...no luck.

...got work to do Adobe!!! Please fix soon!!! I'll be checking for updates hourly...

p.s. I'll skip the "install CS5 trial" work-around. I already own CS5 and don't need any more problems, now, or when the official fix is released!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Please, count me in. MacOS X 10.7.3.

LR4 with plugins from Nik. Option "Edit In" does nothing. LR3 is back on my computer and will stay until Adobe fixes problem.

[bdshort550]

Just an update, I installed the CS5 trial as suggested by someone, and now it works, but only the "Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments" option is available.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I also cannot Edit in PSE9 with LR4, Bata worked fine. Export to photomatix works

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Add me to list of those with this problem. I get the same error message attempting to use all of my add-ins. The temporary fix was to add a Photoshop key to the registry as described here:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have just reinstaled LR4 beta. This way I can use NIK plugins.

I am waitign adobe fix this problem.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

No surprises here, Mac OS Lion, LR4, no response to the edit-command regarding Silver Efex. PSE9 on my machine, even installed demo-version of PSE10, but no go. Don't want to try and download CS5, rather wait for Adobe to come up with a reasonable solution.
Luckily I have LR3 still installed, so I am able to use Silver Efex.
Hope this will be fixed soon.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Add one more: Mac OS X 10.6.8; LR 4 and no external editor with Nik-Software. Installation of PSE 10-trial brings no solution!

Make your job adobe!!!

[justme06]

I dont have a Mac to try on but, if the Mac Lr4 is affected by the same "bug" as the Windows version it appears it NEEDS a photoshop "plist" file much like the Windows version needs a photoshop registry key (even a fake one). Removing probably would be a bad idea. Try reinstalling CS5 if you own it.

I have a bit more time today so I will rewrite whats been happening over on the Lr forum I linked to earlier.

According to http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/401/kb401629...
On startup Lr looks for an install of Photoshop or Elements to link to. If either are present or not it affects how the "Edit-In" function calls things probably by giving a value of 0 or 1 to a small block of memory to let Lr know how to act. This is probable because to do this "check" every time the "edit-In" menu is called to open would be highly inefficient and create a very large delay.

However it appears (at least with Windows version Lr) if during the check to see if Photoshop or Elements is present, the little piece of code in the program that assignes the value to that memory block works PROPERLY IF the check indicates Elements or CS5 IS installed. However if the check shows Lr that CS5 or Elements IS NOT installed then the code "forgets" to set any value at all to the little block of memory. In windows it shows up as a "string [the memory format of that little block of memory] null [meaning that bit of memory has no value]"

****WINDOWS****
To get around this in WINDOWS create a "fake" registry key to force the Lr check to give a valid value by doing the following:

1) Open Notepad
2) Copy and paste everything between the ### marks NOT including the ### marks into Notepad (this does every thing that is said in the Kb article)

##############################################
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\Photoshop.exe]

"Path"="C:\\Program Files\\Adobe\\Adobe Photoshop CS5\\"

@="C:\\Program Files\\Adobe\\Adobe Photoshop CS5\\Photoshop.exe"

################################################

3) Go File --> Save As

4) In "File Type" Select "All files"

5) Name it "LightroomPatch.reg" or something like that as long as it has ".reg" at the end. Just remember where you saved it

6) Close notepad and double-click the file you just made.

7) When it asks if you trust the source, because you made it on your own computer and it only contains what is between the ###'s click "yes"

The fake key will be added and Lr4 Edit-In should now work while we wait for the official fix. No just because it says "CS5" does not mean you magically can edit with CS5 as it in not installed. You can click that option in the Edit-In and prep the Tiff file for editing but nothing will happen because CS5 simply is not truly on the computer.

Later this Key can be removed automaticly by runnning a registy cleaner like cclean, manually removing it yourself, or simply installing CS5 (will write overtop of it). Because it is not linked to anything it cannot affect any future patches or updates.

******On MAC*****

============================================================
|
| Note the following instructions (both sets):
| DO NOT SEEM TO MAKE A DIFFERANCE
| THEY DO NOT SEEM TO PACH THE PROBLEM
|
| I am keeping them here incase anyone wants to build off of them.
|
| Thanks to those who tried it for me as I dont have access to a Mac
| so only could |guess.
|
===========================================================

I dont have one but if somone wishes to try according to the KB article I am thinking the following has a fairly reasonable chance of working for you. If the user above (Michael Greenley) did find a PSE.plist file it appears this is not what Lr is looking for (accoring to the KB article). Mac system looks quite safe and much less intimidating that windows to try it on anyway. It is very easily removable.

---If you have Elements installed---
It does not appear that Lr4 check is looking for the PSE.plist file so you need to make it think there is CS5 installed aswell

1) Copy PSE.plist [actually named "com.adobe.PhotoshopElements.plist"] and rename it "com.adobe.Photoshop.plist" and place it back in the same place keeping the original PSE.plist aswell

That may or may not get elements working in Lr4 (defult will try and use CS5) but other "edit-ins" should work and you could easily make another preset (instead of the defult) point to PSE much like you would make for any other "Edit-In" program.

---If you do NOT have CS5 or Elements installed---

See if it will accept a fake plist file
But instead of trying to get the computer to remake the Plist file

1) Close Photoshop Lightroom
2) Start a text or document program and save a bank document as "com.adobe.Photoshop"
3) manully set or remane the file type as ".plist" (perhaps use the "save as all files option if you have one)
4) Navigate to the Users/[user name]/LIbrary/Preferences folder.
5) Move the file you just created to the Users/[user name]/LIbrary/Preferences folder.
6) Start Lr4 and hopefully it should all work.

That fake Plist file is easily removable if you ever need to.

Hope this works 🙂

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Same issue as the entire community... a big frustration to discover that the official release of LR4 does not launch external editors (Nik..) after several weeks of beta testing....
A very short term fix is mandatory !
Thanks

[pderooij]

Option 1 on Mac Lion had no effect for me. (My PSE10 plist file is called com.adobe.PhotoshopElements.plist.)

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

@justme06 I would like to be able to test the theory about the fake plist for Mac however I've already installed the CS5 trial and am reluctant to mess with what is working for me now. But, I did want to point out the the plist for Photoshop Elements is called com.Adobe.PhotoshopElements.plist. At least that's what mine is called for PSE10. It would be terrific if someone else on Mac can try this because it really does seem quite simple.

I appreciate all the effort you've put into communicating this information and I hope that the Adobe engineers are as smart as you. 😉

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Ditto

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have tried on MAC but no success for me... Thanks

[justme06]

Rats, I was hoping it would work. It must be looking for somthing else. I will keep thinking about it, but hard to work through in my head how a OS works that honestly the last time I used was about 10 years ago a lot changed since then... lol.

@ Peter de Rooij & JullieM - thanks for the correct plist file name

@ everyone else - Thank-you for giving it a try.

I will edit the post to reflect that it is not working. But i'll keep info up incase somone else can build off of it.

[AnnCourtney]

And another disappointed Mac user - I'm going back to LR3 until I hear that there is a proper fix.
I don't expect to have to buy yet another piece of Software or crib a "fix" from a member of the public - no disrespect meant to those who have worked hard to find their own fix but I don't have that skill.
These are 2 big Companies involved, who take a lot of money from us - get your acts together please!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

@justme06 Thanks for trying!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Same issue here. Nothing works – PS Elements, NIK products, Snapseed, zilch.

[mjg320]

So, I tried to manually add the "com.adobe.Photoshop.plist" file and it did not work.

Something interesting though...as stated in my previous post, I deleted the "com.adobe.PSE.plist" file, but, when I went to add the new "...Photoshop.plist" file, the original PSE.plist is not there either. The file never regenerated itself after starting LR4. I tried opening LR3 as well...still no file regeneration. Tried to add it manually...no luck.

But, thanks for the suggestion...was a glimmer of hope 😉

[mjg320]

Can someone running Mac who has installed the CS5 trial and got it to work please post a screen shot of their user/library/preferences folder, com.adobe section, contents...maybe there is a "com.adobe.**something**.plist" file being added that is making it work.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Installing the CS5 trial version worked for me. (Prior to installing LR4, I had PSE10 installed. Uninstalling and reinstalling it did not correct the problem with LR4 so I resorted to the CS5 trial install). Here is my prefs list as it relates to Adobe (in 2 parts):

[url=https://skitch.com/juliem2011/8jb9g/p...]

[url=https://skitch.com/juliem2011/8jb9c/p...]

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Sorry, I thought those URLs would generate thumbnails but I guess not. You'll have to click through, I'm afraid, but they will be nice and legible.

[Tron777]

karls-mac-pro:Preferences Karl$ ls -lt *adobe*plist
-rw------- 1 Karl staff 56936 11 Mär 21:35 com.adobe.Lightroom4.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl staff 152 9 Mär 11:12 com.adobe.Photoshop.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 Karl staff 235 9 Mär 11:10 com.adobe.CSXSPreferences.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl staff 512 9 Mär 11:09 com.adobe.mediabrowser.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl staff 57 9 Mär 11:03 com.adobe.CSXS.2.5.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 Karl staff 334 9 Mär 11:01 com.adobe.crashreporter.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl staff 157 7 Mär 07:39 com.adobe.downloadassistant.AdobeDownloadAssistant.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl staff 118 6 Mär 19:35 com.adobe.Lightroom4.LSSharedFileList.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl staff 49929 6 Mär 19:31 com.adobe.Lightroom3.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl staff 30193 17 Jul 2011 com.adobe.Reader.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl staff 124 14 Jul 2011 com.adobe.ARM.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl staff 118 14 Jun 2010 com.adobe.Lightroom3.LSSharedFileList.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl staff 36865 9 Jun 2010 com.adobe.Lightroom2.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl staff 29737 26 Mai 2010 com.adobe.Lightroom3Beta.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl staff 31401 8 Nov 2009 com.adobe.Reader_x86_9.0.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl wheel 118 7 Nov 2009 com.adobe.Lightroom3Beta.LSSharedFileList.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl wheel 118 15 Sep 2009 com.adobe.Lightroom2.LSSharedFileList.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl staff 514 12 Jul 2009 com.adobe.air.ApplicationInstaller.plist
-rw------- 1 Karl staff 126 1 Jul 2009 com.adobe.acrobat.90.sh.plist
karls-mac-pro:Preferences Karl$

[mjg320]

Thanks JullieM & Karl...doesn't look like there is anything extra...bummer. Thanks for the quick response though. It's much appreciated

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I'm also having this issue.

LR 4 and the newest versions of the Nik Software suite. Using the "Edit in" command does nothing, Lightroom doesn't even try to launch them.

(I'm running Mac OSX Lion)