P: Support cataloging PNG files in Lightroom

Report · Jul 10, 2011

Lightroom should support png and psd files - Adobe's own file type creations - I find this inexcusable. Many of us serious photographers that have lived through all the permutations and advancement of Photoshop with tens of thousands of files only to find that they are not supported by the latest otherwise beautiful Catalog program: Lightshop

Report · Jan 19, 2012

See also:
http://feedback.photoshop.com/photosh...

Report · Feb 07, 2012

Glad to know that there are experts out there when it comes to various file formats. Thanks for the information, but, for me, here is the bottom line. I shoot with a 5D and capture my images exclusively in the RAW file format. I catalog that work in Lightroom (and love the program for that purpose). Though I do some manipulation in Lightroom, I still do the majority of my "development" work in Photoshop (as I love the great variety of tools available to me there). For me, this is where the png format comes in and shines. In Photoshop I save "parts" of images (with transparent backgrounds) as png files and then re-introduce those png elements or parts files back into the final composite image as needed or desired. If I were able to access those png "parts" in Lightroom it would certainly streamline my workflow a great deal. Due to the large size of many of my pieces I often use the psb format for my layered work files, files from which I both extract and introduce png files. My final output is typically TIFF.

Report · Mar 06, 2012

I just want to chime in and point out that when Victoria Bampton claims that PNG is "not a format suited to photographs", she is dead wrong. One might as well claim that JPG is "not a format suited to photographs". Or TIFF. Or JPEG 2000.

As to the TIFF-vs-PNG "debate", the two formats are different with the key issue, to photographers or artists, being that TIFF doesn't intrinsically support a single unified lossless compression method. Several have been added, over the years, but picking one with legs that will supported in the future requires a lot of care, and frankly it's not an area in which most people want to have to become an expert in!

So why use PNG? Simple: it's one of three raster image formats natively supported by web browsers (the other two being JPG and GIF), it's always been unencumbered by licensing issues (unlike GIF), and it supports alpha layers (unlike JPG).

So if you want an image format that can be displayed on any computer or tablet or smartphone, that supports lossless compression and alpha layers and is fully open, you have only one choice.

Unless you want to use Lightroom... and then you have no choice! 8-(

Adobe, just add the format. It won't hurt you, and it will let us photographers that also do illustration use LR as our overall image management/indexing system.

Report · May 25, 2012

Not supporting PNG is a deal-breaker for me. Cameras are not the only things that produce images, and I would love to catalog my digital visualizations with Lightroom - I usually produce PNG because it is loss-free yet untainted by compression license issues like tiff.

It is one of those silly religious things at Adobe, methinks, and they should just jump over their own shadow and implement this widely accepted and popular format. None of their reasons I have come across are "real" reasons. Just Do It.

Report · May 25, 2012

I think there is a *lot* of interest in loading PNG into Lightroom. I think people don't salute the flag you've raised here because:

* They aren't comfortable with plugins and/or
* They don't understand what you are offering, or
* They didn't read your post(s)...

I think you should do it, Jim! 🙂

Report · May 25, 2012

If there is a straightforward way to handle pngs in a Lightroom plugin, some of us would love to use it. There is an "any file" plugin for Lightroom which I was excited by, because it should allow one to catalog the _images_ that one has, and not just the _photos_. Unfortunately (due to the limitations of Lightroom, not the plug-in author's ingenuity), it required creating little jpg files all across my disk, and I found that so annoying that I abandoned it.

If you can create something usable, some of us would purchase it, and collectively we might send you enough money for you and your significant other to have a nice night out!

Report · Jun 23, 2012

I use Lightroom to manage photos from my iPhone. Screenshots made on the iPhone are png. (Great for taking a screenshot of google maps etc.) These are not imported and then can't be managed.

Report · Jun 25, 2012

Ironically Chris Cox brought up the best point in support of PNG inclusion for Lightroom. PNG is simple in comparison to TIFF. That is the whole point of the need for full size PNG file support. One description I read of TIFF is that TIFF files are just a container. From that point you can go all over the place in variations on it. Like 50 plus versions maybe, that's a guess. A TIFF file is not a like a musical recording it's more of an instrument to play. I also read that many proprietary RAW files began their development out of TIFF format, which makes sense. A container is perfect to play around in. That said, I do like TIFFs in the midst of the work flow but not the end of it. If many common imaging programs get used on the same computer, then periodically a TIFF made with one will be unreadable by other programs. Also, on the web, when you upload a TIFF to Flickr they convert it to a JPG automatically and your full size original becomes unavailable to download even if you wanted it to be available. If I save as a large PNG file, and because for some crazy reason many image editing programs will cut the EXIF off a PNG save, and I use a software program to append the EXIF to it, then the full original sized photo is available on Flickr for view or download, with the EXIF. Flickr uses open source cross platform "ExifTool" among others to read EXIF so even if Lightroom didn't keep the EXIF on the PNG during export there would be workarounds for that but Adobe could take the lead and provide full size PNG with EXIF saves. Finally I would like to see all my photos in the Lightroom organizer. Many of my final versions from long edits are invisible to me in Lightroom. That is acceptable to me when I use freeware Nikon View NX2 for raw conversion but for a paid program I'd like to make the request for full PNG support.

Report · Aug 02, 2012

Cataloging PNG files would indeed be very helpful.

I ran into this recently when working on a product photography shoot for leather jackets. We required images of the products with the background removed (transparent) so that we can process them further (add a certain background, stack them up, etc.).

I received the files in transparent PNG format, which suits me greatly as I use Fireworks primarily. However, they needed some additional retouching, like adjusting black levels, removing highlights, etc, that Lightroom is best at.

Upon trying to import them into Lightroom, I realized that I can't, since it doesn't support PNG files.

I had to open them up in Photoshop to do what I needed, but that wasn't very convenient. Fortunately, there were only about 10 files... but what if I had to to deal with 100 shots and I wanted to apply the same settings to all files?

So my vote goes to including PNG support in Lightroom please. Thanks!

Report · Aug 30, 2012

I would like to give my vote for png.

Report · Aug 30, 2012

Did you click the '+1' button above?

Report · Sep 19, 2012

Really, really need PNG format. Photoshop has it, so to say it is not ideal for Photography would mean it should not be in Photoshop as well. Way too many things (we based) that use PNG, and not being able to catalog things or for that matter import to catalog so you can export to another format make Lightroom really miss the boat on many things.

Report · Sep 19, 2012

Photoshop isn't for photography. A few percent of it is.

Report · Sep 22, 2012

Interesting to see and get many of definitive responses and defensive comments..... for example - Lightroom isn't for photographers.... I sometimes wonder about some of these comments. Just to see how adamant and "defensive" some people get about it their comments is humorous.

In real life many people do indeed use Lightroom as a workflow management tool and catalog images - their source: cameras. If this is not photography I don't know what it is?

The problem as I see and experience it is that Lightroom can be used as an effective tool in many ways, The issue I have is that sometimes source files you receive - be it for web work, or whatever (not really that relevant) may be in a PNG format. Having Lightroom not accept that format is a handicap, especially when other Adobe product will accept it. For an application workflow - I may just want to import so I can do a bulk export to another format (part of a workflow - which is what Lightroom is partly about). Why restrict it source file especially when it is so common. That is the only point I am making.

Report · Sep 22, 2012

Correction: Photoshop is not just for photographers (the comment cited was aim at Photoshop, NOT Lightroom). Lightroom *is* just for photographers. And that is the rationale for excluding support for importing png: they don't come from cameras. But, it seems so easy to implement png support, and useful to photographers who have pngs too, that it seems it would be a nice convenience, even if not justifiable by the stricter of the purists.

The best solution havable in the mean time is Jim Keir's solution (see above). But that would be for Windows only.

Report · Oct 10, 2012

Typical: We wrote our program to do X, therefore if you want to use it to do X.1 or X.2 or even Y, you are just plain out of luck. Stupid user: trying to use Lightroom for anything but raw pictures coming out of a compact flash card....... Innovation comes by LISTENING to users, not by sitting in your dark cubical and deciding what it is people should do with your software.

Report · Dec 04, 2012

Which makes more business sense—thwarting people in smug superiority? Or saying "Woohoo, new custimrz, how can we help them?"

Lightroom works reasonably well as a general-purpose asset manager, how about letting that happen instead of resisting? (maybe add a multi-user version too?)

Or is there some other product you're protecting by keeping Lightroom crippled?

Report · Dec 13, 2012

I don't really see any reason why Lightroom should be for "photographer file formats" only. It's a great tool to organize your photos - in whatever format they may be. And PNG is a popular format. Voting for PNG support.

Report · Dec 13, 2012

Chris Cox may want to follow his own advice.

For example, how good is TIFF at supporting 64 bit color depths? (Oh, not at all). And the _published_ version of TIFF would appear to be limited to 32 bit file sizes, so it doesn't (contrary to Chris' claim) support "exabyte sized files", etc.

But he also totally fails to see the point: the issue is not "one file format to rule them all", but one of "what's the best file format for my particular set of priorities". And until everyone's smartphones and tablets and out-of-the-box computers natively support displaying all TIFF files, and LibTIFF (or whatever Chris likes) is used universally, it is a suboptimal choice for many purposes.

[ Note: "suboptimal" doesn't mean "unusable". ]

Report · Dec 13, 2012

Bingo. By the way, TIFF defines ways to use the Kodak DCS and Nikon NEF compression schemes, as well as those from the well-known type of "cameras" called "fax machines"!

Report · Dec 13, 2012

If I scan a slide to a PNG, does that mean it did not come from a camera? The argument (not Rob's) that PNGs are not useful/essential to photographers is just stupid... especially since LR supports PNGs for e.g. watermarks, so you have the ridiculous situation that LR can use, but not catalog, PNGs.

Report · Dec 21, 2012

Please also support BMP. I know it's real basic old stuff that no one would use for a photo today, but many BMPs exist in my library and why should I have to go back through time and redo them all as tiffs? Come on, you know how to read BMPs. All your other products do it.

Export of BMPs would be nice also as sometimes to create a wallpaper or graphic for use in other applications it needs to be a BMP.

Report · Dec 23, 2012

PNG is a good and spread format. Why not support it. The "pro-photographers only" argument seams rather weak, since it is simply not true. As others point out, there's a demand for this and this request thread is proof.

Lightroom is great for organizing all kind of images. Why gifs and png are unsupported is beyond me.

Report · Dec 29, 2012

"Photographer file formats" has no meaning. That is no different than saying that paper is a photographer's medium, not bits. It is an empty statement that attempts to stop a conversation, implying that the speaker knows a special something that the listener SHOULD know. It is absurd.

There's absolutely no reason why Lightroom should not support the PNG format. It is a well documented format, and carries with it no licensing fees.

Report · Feb 22, 2013

Yeah, Adobe, support importing PNG already! What where you thinking to deliberately not allow this? Who the frak do you think you are dictating what formats photographers must use?!

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P: Support cataloging PNG files in Lightroom

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