P: Granting OS permission to record my screen?

[mclynn2]

I'm on an iMac 2017, OS Catalina 64GB ram. Recently I upgraded to LR Classic 11.1 and for the last few days, I've been experimenting with all the new stuff.  To record what I was finding out, I was alternating between LR Classic & Pages app to type notes.

Today, a small screen popped up, supposedly from Adobe, asking for permission to record my computer's screen. I denied it, but would like to know why it would do that. It causes me some concern.

Thanks for any answers.

[dj_paige]

Are you sure this was from Adobe? Why do you think it was from Adobe?

[mclynn2]

I don't remember the exact words, but it looked like an Adobe dialog box and somewhere in the title it said Adobe. I have my prefs (Firewall is on) set to not accept incoming connections except for authorized apps, so I assume that it was from Adobe since I assume they're authorized.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

The Color Pickers use a screen recording method to select a color via Eyedropper. It pops a warning when you attempt to pick a color on the screen the first time.  Any screen sampling tool, Color, WB, Transform Guides loupe etc can invoke the warning on a one-time basis. 

[dj_paige]

Do you mean color pickers like in the Brush tool? I just tried it, dragged the cursor (eyedropper) from the color palette all the way around the screen, even to non-Lightroom Classic parts of the screen, and I don't see pop-up warning message happening.

[mclynn2]

I was not using any kind of color sampling tools. I was messing around with the new masking tools and after I'd undone a few things, the message popped up. I wish I had done a screenshot, but I was upset about it and just clicked Deny.

[Conrad C · Accepted solution]

This is most definitely a consequence of Apple tightening privacy requirements for things like the camera and microphone, in macOS 10.15 and later. Apple did this for good reasons, but Apple has been criticized by many developers and users for making the alert message so vague that users think they are being spied on, when applications are simply just trying to do what they have always done, like sample the screen for a color picker.

I wrote an explanation with examples in another post on this forum.

This is something you have to get used to as a Mac user even if you do not use Adobe software, because it’s an Apple alert. In addition to the examples in the link above, Google returns plenty of other examples where many Mac developers have had to explain to users the legitimate reasons why their applications display a permissions request for the camera (or microphone) in macOS 10.15 and later:

DisplayLink

Bartender (popular menu bar manager utility)

TechSmith

Duet

Framer

@mclynn2 wrote:

I was messing around with the new masking tools and after I'd undone a few things, the message popped up. I wish I had done a screenshot, but I was upset about it and just clicked Deny.

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That’s exactly the kind of confusion that Apple’s vague alert wording has caused.

In the new masking features, when setting a color or luminance range mask, clicking or dragging an eyedropper is one way to set the range. Eyedropper tools sample the screen, and sampling is frequently interpreted by macOS 10.15 and later as a “screen recording” activity, so that might have set off the alert.

Be aware that by denying permission, the feature you were trying to use at the time may not work properly in the future. If that happens, you may have to reset the Camera permissions for the application in the macOS Security and Privacy panel in System Preferences.

[mclynn2]

Thanks for that explanation. I had been using Mojave & avoided upgrading to newer MacOS because some of my apps would no longer work. Locally, I teach how to use LR, so have to use the latest version. When I couldn't upgrade to vs 11.1, I figured I'd bite the bullet and upgrade at least to Catalina.

Again, thanks.