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P: Ability to assign a second monitor with more than 3 monitors

Community Beginner ,
Dec 13, 2011 Dec 13, 2011

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If you have more than 3 monitors, there is no way to assign the "second monitor" in Lightroom 3.5.

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Adobe Employee , Feb 11, 2020 Feb 11, 2020

Updates to Lightroom Classic,  were released yesterday and now offer support for this request.  Please install the appropriate update and let us know how it works. You can read more about the updates here.

Thank you for your patience. 

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LEGEND ,
Feb 24, 2015 Feb 24, 2015

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the second monitor screen - which for me is a really important feature - is just not stable. Please fix this Adobe, or tell us how to keep it stable. My second display needs to be positioned manually, and then pops back on top of my editing screen, all the time. v v annoying, since it seems like such a little thing to solve, given all the awesome features already built into lightroom

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LEGEND ,
Mar 12, 2015 Mar 12, 2015

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It should be possible to choose a specific screen for the secondary screen (in German Sekundäranzeige) function in fullscreen mode.
Actualy Lightroom choose the output screen by itself.
This is useful with more than two screens on one computer.

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Community Beginner ,
May 24, 2015 May 24, 2015

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Signed up just to say this has been years of irritation for me. Please just let us pick the monitor we want to use as a the secondary display, or at least stop resetting the position of the secondary display window when LR loses focus- absolutely ridiculous a pro app like this is still plagued with such a major issue.

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Community Beginner ,
May 24, 2015 May 24, 2015

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Still not fixed in Lightroom 6

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Community Beginner ,
May 24, 2015 May 24, 2015

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You can't get the secondary monitor window stay where you want it to stay. Why don't you try it yourself instead of talking to an engineer? These solutions of yours are nonsense. It seems nobody over there have even tried this with three or more monitors.

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New Here ,
Jun 11, 2015 Jun 11, 2015

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Hardware setup: 27" iMac running OSX 10.9.2 [Mavericks] and Lightroom 5.6, 2x NEC 27" outboard Thunderbolt monitors connected, one in landscape orientation (leftmost monitor, referred to as L in photos), and one in portrait orientation (rightmost monitor, R, with the iMac in the center, C).

I need to display the Secondary Display in the portrait-oriented monitor [see image 1R]

In order to accomplish this I have to drag and resize the window each time I launch Lightroom or wake the computer from sleep, because every time I run LR or wake the computer up, the Secondary Display reverts to sitting on top of the primary LR window, in the iMac display [see image 2C]

Selecting Window/Secondary Display/Full Screen puts the Secondary Display full screen on the {landscape} monitor [see image 3L] unless I unplug the landscape monitor from my system entirely at which point Full Screen places it where I need it to be. This is not the most reasonable solution for me for obvious reasons.

Please advise if there is a workaround for this, or if there is a solution in the works.

Thank you.

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New Here ,
Jun 11, 2015 Jun 11, 2015

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Lightroom: Over 3 years and 3 major releases since problem was first reported, problem persists. Adobe continues to ignore new postings to user forums detailing that the problem hasn't been fixed.

Last response from Adobe was 3+ years ago with a "workaround" that fixes nothing. Does anyone from Adobe actually pay attention to these boards?

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New Here ,
Jun 11, 2015 Jun 11, 2015

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Well I tried to get results by posting this directly to the "Report a problem" section. Tranberry merged my postings in here without any direct reply.

So the answer to my second question would be "yes, people from Adobe pay attention to postings to the boards."

But they still don't seem to care about the bug in their product.

Pathetic

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Adobe Employee ,
Jun 11, 2015 Jun 11, 2015

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You're describing the same feature here. Wanted to add your vote.

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New Here ,
Jun 11, 2015 Jun 11, 2015

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Can this be fixed? Will this be fixed? First report of issue was in LR 3.5, 3+ years ago. Latest post to thread indicated same issue in LR 6.x as of 2+ weeks ago. I can't speak for the others who have posted here, but I don't regard the application's behavior in this fashion as a feature. Some update of some kind would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

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Adobe Employee ,
Jun 11, 2015 Jun 11, 2015

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It's possible. It hasn't risen to the top of the list to implement support for more than 2 monitors.

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 11, 2015 Jun 11, 2015

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This isn't a bug. It's just basic functionality that is missing. That has been missing for years despite being brought to their attention.

You cannot full screen the secondary display on a display of your choosing.

It's the same reason why Adobe has extremely poor performance converting Fuji RAWs and despite having been brought to their attention- refuses to address the issue.

And that reason boils down to: Marketshare.

Honestly how many LR users are using 3 monitors?

Not enough for them to care.

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Engaged ,
Jun 13, 2015 Jun 13, 2015

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Please Adobe, fix this! I want to use the secondary display where I want, not where LR wants!

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New Here ,
Sep 27, 2015 Sep 27, 2015

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Yup, +1 for this please! Mind you, only 17 people like this idea, so I'd guess that not everyone has upvoted it? If everyone who has contributed to this thread votes, and everyone on the other threads I've seen come here and do the same, then maybe.... 😉

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LEGEND ,
Oct 11, 2015 Oct 11, 2015

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Being able to control where the 2nd monitor is ok, but I would prefer to be able to put windows wherever I want on any number of screens I have (kind of like Visual Studio). I understand that Lightroom is different than say something like Visual Studio in that it connotes workflow, but some solution ought to be able to be worked out. As for priority, I think it's an expectation thing for a certain class of user. Those who have multiple monitors are generally used to being able to get apps to work in that environment without having to resort to help. In my experience, experimentation resulted in failure. Then I couldn't find a quick fix so I ignored it for a while. Finally, I got annoyed to the point of "I will find a fix for this", and I found this topic after some searching. I was surprised to find that multi-monitor support is a technical deficiency in Lightroom rather than me not getting the zen of the product. I generally I have a high opinion of Adobe as a company and as an implementer of software. I feel this is an area where you could raise your game; no one likes those "oh that's weak" moments when using their beloved software. By the way, should title read: "Lightroom: Ability to assign a second monitor with more than 2 monitors" instead of "3"?

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Explorer ,
Oct 17, 2015 Oct 17, 2015

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Almost ALL graphics cards worth a darn these days have outputs for 4 monitors, (my system supports 8 monitors, two GPU cards with 4 monitors each.. and I currently use 6 Monitors) So why are we all STILL having these issues?? You simply can't push Shift-F11 then drag the secondary monitor to whatever you want then push shift-F11 again to make it full screen on THAT monitor... Trying to resize the secondary preview is just not the same as having it full screen on that monitor, and you all KNOW it. When you are working on your photos, you don't want that border around it, you want your photograph surrounded by BLACK. Also if you move the main program to another monitor, the 'secondary' display moves somewhere else, there is NO control. This is ridiculous that this has been an issue for SO long when it's SO easy to fix from a programming standpoint. Dual monitors are nothing new, the original IBM PC supported dual monitors, once color, one monochrome, and there has NEVER been a time when there weren't dual monitors. Dual monitors have been out since the 80's that's DECADES of dual monitors.

I MUST point out one thing...
If you are working on a portrait view photograph, You MUST use a monitor that is also in Portrait mode, otherwise you are just NOT able to get a proper full screen view of the photograph. this is ESPECIALLY true on all the modern wide screen format monitors.. Almost ALL monitors are now 16:9 or 16:10 and all professional cameras take 4:3 photos, so looking at a 3:4 portrait mode photograph on a 16:9 monitor is just ridiculous. If you are on a 16:9 monitor, looking at a 3:4 portrait mode photo, you are only using 42% of your screen and on a 1080p monitor you are only looking at 810 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high, where as if you have a portriat view monitor, you get the full 1080 pixels wide by 1440 pixels high.. thus using 75% of the screen... quite a major difference!! if you have a 10:16 vertical monitor, then you could get the full 1200 pixels wide by 1600 pixels high, utilizing 83% of the monitor... the same as looking at a 4:3 photo on a 16x10 horizontal screen. If you have 4K monitors, the percentages are the same, and so why would ANYONE look at a portrait photograph on a landscape screen, why not have the maximum resolution possible for the task?
Those of us who are Professional photographers ALWAYS have at least one portrait oriented monitor for this purpose. Changing your Loupe Veiw monitor or Full screen edit mode monitor back and forth between the portrait mode monitors and landscape mode monitors is ESSENTIAL for REAL photo development and editing, by not allowing this simple feature you can putting lightroom in a lower class of product than it should be.

While we're on the subject, why is lightroom limited to TWO monitors, why not use 3 or all 4? Personally I would like one monitor showing the 'Full Screen with Menubar, a second showing a grid view, and a third showing Loupe View.. and as mentioned, I would like to easily change what is displayed on my portrait monitors and what is displayed on my landscape monitors, and swich which is which quickly and easily. Why not allow this??? Everything needed is already programmed, and Adobe needs to do is TURN IT ON.

The BEST way to implement which monitor is which is to just ASK which monitor you want to use for each display the same way virtualbox does for full screen windows, just select View and select which screen you want that to display on.. SIMPLE . Just put 8 little screens at the bottom instead of only two and let the user display what they want or weather to show displays or not. Allow Duplicate displays, because many times in a studio, 2 displays are facing the client, one portrait and one landscape, by allowing duplicate displays you could prepare a portrait slideshow and then when you are ready, turn on client view portrait display and start the slide show, then later, you can turn that monitor off, prepare a landscape slideshow, and turn on client landscape monitor and show that.

Now if you Adobe guys want to do some REAL programming, make it intelligent, and always alllow an option to select which monitors show portrait views and which show landscape views, and which show both.. then while working the portrait view photographs would just show on the portrait monitors and the landscape views would show on landscape monitors, and slideshows with mixed landscape / portrait photos would switch to the appropriate monitors as needed. Being a programmer for the last 35 years, I can tell you there is NOTHING complicated about this kind of functionality... heck even video games do it... Certainly a professional level photography product like Lightroom should do it.

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Explorer ,
Oct 18, 2015 Oct 18, 2015

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This is a very good point.

I don't see how any serious photographer can work on portrait photographs without at least one portrait oriented monitor. In fact, I can't see how anyone can work a computer at all without at least one portrait oriented monitor... The Portrait / Landscape issue alone is MORE than enough justification to implement a better way to select what is displayed on each monitor... especially considering that almost all modern monitors are 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratios... working on a 9:16 photograph on a 16:9 screen is just ridiculous.. we NEED to switch monitors MANY times during an edit and freely change from portrait to landscape monitors so we can see what we're doing work efficiently without a lot of doodling around with monitors... Heck I move my web browser between my portrait and landscape monitor 40 times a day... actually MOST websites look better on a portrait monitor, but some need a landscape monitor.

Also since Adobe now supports GPU processing, and any serious graphics card supports 4 monitors, I don't see why we can't use lightroom on 3 or 4.. or 8 monitors at the same time.. let us decide what is on each screen.. even duplicate things on screens.. just put a little icon like the 1 or 2 we have now for each monitor available up to 8, since supporting 8 monitors is so easy on modern hardware... and let the user select a function for each... it's so simple to program it to do this, and would make the product much more professional.

By the way, nice photo in your example 🙂

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New Here ,
Oct 19, 2015 Oct 19, 2015

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Adobe has been aware of this problem for more than 4 years now, their "Chief Customer Advocate" has merged any other similar bug reports into this thread, but they have done exactly NOTHING to remedy the situation. See the thread immediately below: 'It hasn't risen to the top of the list to implement support for more than 2 monitors'. So either we are in the distinct minority, or Adobe knows how we need to use their software better than we do, and that is with only 2 monitors in our workstations.

The arrogance and lack of feedback from Adobe is appalling, it would appear they don't care that their product has a persistent problem across multiple major releases (3.x-6.x) since the issue is the same as first reported more than 4 years ago. It's not like we're hacking their software to do something it wasn't originally intended to do, we're just trying to use a feature that is poorly implemented when there are more than 2 monitors present, which as you note is NOT such an exotic setup among working professionals in this day and age. The only "solution" Adobe has offered is a workaround, not a fix: drag the secondary display window around and re-size it each and every time LR goes daffy and forgets where we had it last, which for me at least happens EVERY day. Pretty absurd, and why I personally refuse to buy into this subscription model they keep trying to box us into which would seem to reward them for doing nothing to fix their product month after month.

And thank you for the kind words on my photo, they are much appreciated!

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Explorer ,
Oct 19, 2015 Oct 19, 2015

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Don't get me started on the entire CC concept.. I think it's retarded. It ends up costing way more than just buying it and personally I don't want ANY of my photographs on anyone's Cloud... If I want them on the internet, I'll post them. I don't even want or need my photo processing computer to be on the internet, EVER. Anything they can do over the cloud, could have been done on my own computer with 8 core processor and 32GB of ram... faster... If I want to edit on location, I will do so on a powerful laptop with a good screen and graphics card, not a tablet or phone.. CC has NO usefulness to professionals, it's a gimmick like google Picasa.. good for kids to play around with, but not really professional and just a way to sucker people out of more money on a regular basis.

Ug I REFUSE to download Acrobat Reader DC as well.. sticking to 11... Why in the world would I need or want to send my pdf file to somewhere online just to convert it to a word document? geese, I can just cut and paste most of them.. and the ones I can't I can run through my own OCR software.. wow technology from the 90's why do I need a document cloud for or pay anything for that?

I will NEVER buy any software with a subscription and pay monthly for it, NEVER EVER.. I'll make due with something else.

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Explorer ,
Nov 06, 2015 Nov 06, 2015

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Ditto above by James. I have 4 monitors and why does LR only use 2. Ability to designate where windows, displays open are expected today -- this ain't the 90s.

For me, F11, move window and Shift-F11 doesn't work. Always goes to monitor 4... which is the poorest color rendition meant for my email and non-essentials...

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Explorer ,
Nov 06, 2015 Nov 06, 2015

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BTW I can use panels in all monitors in Premiere Pro CC so... LR is so obsolete in this regard.

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Explorer ,
Nov 20, 2015 Nov 20, 2015

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Lightroom 6.3 Secondary Display (full screen) defaults to Monitor 3 (or 2 or 4) depending on which is the last monitor. Can't it be specified to one particular monitor.

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LEGEND ,
Mar 12, 2016 Mar 12, 2016

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I was considering upgrading from LR5 but I see it's not worth it.

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LEGEND ,
Mar 12, 2016 Mar 12, 2016

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Workaround on Windows using Autohotkey (search and install it)
https://gist.github.com/Geobert/c00859b285e085792c78
You'll need to adjust the coordinates on the line with WinMove instruction

Add a shortcut to this script in
C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\
So it starts with Windows.

Enjoy!

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LEGEND ,
Apr 09, 2016 Apr 09, 2016

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I have three monitors, and of course Lightroom is choosing the wrong monitor as its secondary display. Minimizing the window and moving it to the preferred screen on a Mac induces SERIOUS lag time. I don't know why this is, but it basically makes the secondary display useless if you're doing any sort of editing and want to see realtime updates. Is it really that hard to offer the option to choose the secondary display?

We're talking about 2007 technology in 2016 here. Just write two lines of code and give your users the option to choose!

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