Proposed LR Viewer for free distribution

[wcstarks]

I wonder why Adobe has not already provided a freely distributed program to provide all the navigational, querying, and viewing functionality of LR, without all the editing features, for viewing images similar to Acrobat Reader for viewing .pdf documents?

1) While one can do similar queries on most of the LR created metadata in Windows Explorer, and view most of the metadata as one can in LR, it is not as convenient as querying and viewing in LR.

2) Windows explorer CANNOT, in any way, view People Tags created in LR, to see which name belongs to which person in the photo.  Without allowing others to view the people tags in a distributed collection, a very important feature, especially for historical photos, tagging people in the photo in LR becomes useless, and a waste of time and effort, when the work is intended to be distributed.

3) It would seem producing such a freely distributed viewer, perhaps called LR Viewer, would be a very simple task for Adobe to do.  They would only need to strip out all the editing functionality of LR, preserving all the navigational, querying and viewing functionality already in LR.

4) The current People Tagging interface in LR, is very awkward when attempting to tag individuals in a group photo.  It also makes viewing images with People Tags awkward and ugly, without forcing one to repeatedly turn the People Tagging mode on and off.  In LR, all the tags are always displayed when the People mode is turned, to the point that the tags cover over adjacent faces in the photo, making it difficult to create tags and difficult to view them.

4a) Windows Photo Gallery, which is no longer supported by Microsoft, on the other hand, has a much better user interface for both tagging and viewing images, which have been people tagged.

4b) Windows Photo Gallery only shows a tag, created in WPG when one hovers the mouse over the face of the person tagged.

4c) When the cursor is moved, that tag disappears.

4d) So, when tagging people in large groups, it is no more difficult than tagging a solo person in a photo.

4e) In Windows Photo Gallery, one can see the full, uncluttered image without changing modes, and can conveniently browse the cursor from face to face to see who that person is.

4f) As a result, I am not using the People tagging feature in LR.  Instead, after I export the photos for distribution, I will go back through all the hundreds, even thousands of photos to add the people tags using Windows Photo Gallery, and distribute the collections with the free, legacy Windows Photo Gallery install, so others can see the People tags created in WPG, and all the metadata created in LR.

Adobe, please consider modifying the People tagging in LR to emulate the Windows Photo gallery interface.

Adobe, please consider creating a freely distributed LR Viewer for conveniently viewing images and ALL the metadata created in LR.

[Ian Lyons]

Free to customer, but comes at cost to Adobe to support. Not going to happen!

[Todd Shaner]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Ian+Lyons  wrote

Free to customer, but comes at cost to Adobe to support. Not going to happen!

LR 2.3 is a step in that direction with addition of "invited guest" private web galleries. It's still lacking some of the OP's requested features, but it can't hurt to ask for those features.

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/whats-new-lightroom-2019-05/

Private Web Galleries (Windows/Mac/iOS/Android/Web)

Until now, shared web galleries could be viewed by anyone with the link. With this release, if you want to share photos privately, you can now set the gallery permissions to only allow invited guests. You choose who to invite, Lightroom sends them an email, they click the link in the email and sign in with their Adobe ID (or Google/Facebook login) to access the gallery. Even safer than password protection!

These invited guests can also upload photos to your album if you set their gallery membership to Can Contribute. For example, if you’re the designated photographer at a family event, you may invite family members to upload their photos to the shared album, so the whole family can enjoy them.

[Todd Shaner]

This forum is rarely monitored by Adobe staff. I suggest posting these as 'Ideas' in the below Photoshop Family forum.

Post a Conversation | Photoshop Family Customer Community

Adobe staff monitor these posts and allows users to add their 'Me To' vote, which helps determine its relative value. I suggest creating two posts 1) LR Viewer suggestion and 2) People Tagging Interface changes. Place a link to each post in this one so others landing here can add their comments and votes.

[dj_paige]

You certainly have the right to express your opinion on this matter.

And I have the right to express a different opinion. I want Adobe to work towards features that benefit current subscribers to their Photography Plan, rather than things which will benefit people who are not subscribers.

[Conrad C]

Another angle to the viewer idea would be to ask a third party developer to write a Lightroom viewer. Lightroom Classic uses an SQLite database, and getting into it with SQL tools is no secret, there was an article about this last week: How to Search Multiple Lightroom Catalogs at Once with SQL Tools.

Historically, a viewer is not a new idea: A free application called LRViewer was already developed years ago, but was abandoned because of the effort required to support it. If another developer decides to try again, they might not be willing to do it for free.

One more thought. If you use Lightroom Classic in an account without a valid subscription, doesn't that turn it into a free viewer? I thought it was supposed to continue to work, but without the Develop or Map modules.

[John Waller]

One more thought. If you use Lightroom Classic in an account without a valid subscription, doesn't that turn it into a free viewer? I thought it was supposed to continue to work, but without the Develop or Map modules.

That's what I thought too. It effectively becomes a viewer.

https://lightroomkillertips.com/happens-cancel-lightroom-classic-subscription/

[wcstarks]

So, if one downloads the Classic as a trial and does not initiate a subscription, will that also effectively make it a viewer?

[Rob_Cullen]

  wrote

So, if one downloads the Classic as a trial and does not initiate a subscription, will that also effectively make it a viewer?

No. It ceases to work entirely.

[Rob_Cullen]

I cannot test this as I have a subscription, but in the past it was reported that Adobe Bridge could be used 'for free' with a user login and password.

https://prodesigntools.com/free-adobe-bridge-cc.html

The article states- "Bridge CC will legally continue to work and be able to manage and view your media and Adobe files even if/when your trial or subscription ends."

There may have been changes since this article. You can but test to see if it works.

I do know that if you "Save" metadata to files with Lightroom, then Bridge, working as a file browser, will show the edited version and keywords.

[DdeGannes]

No further updates for new camera models.?