One difficulty I see with this, is: how should the Catalog know what export settings to use for making this placeable image? File type, colourspace, any resizing / PPI, saving location. Should these matters (in particular saving location) be defined from the LrClassic end, or should InDesign somehow communicate what it 'wanted', back to LrC? AFAICT there is no opportunity for settling such questions when dragging-and-dropping from one application to another.
One suggestion for tighter integration might be Publish based. A Publish service includes defined export settings. Get some inter-communication with ID involved in setting up a new Publish Collection maybe, which then gets in some way auto-associated with a particular ID publication. Then perhaps, any unneeded images that ID had sight of, might be purged at that end and this might tell LrC to remove those from the relevant LrC Publish collection. Publish is more about an ongoing relationship, than Export is - just a thought.
This seems like a no brainer: When creating a document in INDD, it would make great sense to be able to select and drag and edited version of the file image to INDD as a Linked FIle. Lightroom should make this file export in its edited form on the fly. A dialogue box should appear and ask where the export file (that is now to be LINKED to INDD file is to be saved. An option should also exist to automatically import he Edited Exported FIle back into Lightroom as a Version of the Original file for future linkage or use for print etc. This seems to be a HUGE GAP in INTEGRATING LIGHTROOM with INDESIGN in a streamlined and valuable workflow. Please make this happen ASAP!
I am curious, what would be gained by re-importing the exports? Seems to me counter-productive, and far from a no-brainer IMO. Yes indeed the user could be prompted for a saving location, but if multiple publications existed at the same time, then repeatedly selecting the right location for each one, without error, could consume a lot of needless attention IMO..
There is no concept of 'versions' in LrC btw, that would pick up on any subsequent editing of the primary image - did you mean stacking? A reimported export could not update to reflect further edits on the master image: it would need to be re-exported and LrC would not then let you overwrite (because you'd be overwriting something that was itself imported).
Publish on the other hand will track and accommodate later editing. It is then up to the user whether / when the published external copies should refresh themselves with latest editing.
And if separate external uses of an image required different editing, that is what virtual copies are good at.
Hi Richard, thank you for your prompt answer! There are two benefits to me using Lightroom: A Digital Asset Management system that allows me to visaulize asses in a lightbox and which allows me to batch adjust, batch modify Metadata, as well of course integrate image editing. My problem is (as I'm sure you understand from my previous question, is how I can use the visual convenience of the lightbox to identify and integrrate with my building of an INDD document. I realized only recently that any dragging and dropping into my INDD frame only brings in the original, non edited file. I am trying to figure out how to best achieve the benefits of the visual lightbox and the drag and drop simplicity of creating Linked Images in INDD. I do not presently use the Publish function, though I imagine it would be a useful tool in many workflows. I have a 55,000 Image Library broken down into folders and collections, these are very high-res images. I have a very organized file folder structure on my desktop mirroring the LR catalog with a very logical taxonomy. DO you have any ideas how I may leverage Publish Services or any other approach to get the benefit of the Visual Lightbox and the edited files? Perhaps a second Mirror Lightroom Library with a paralallel folder structure with the exported/published versions? Or is reimporting and Stacking the way to go? Would love your guidance here of best practices!
Sure, I envisage: working images (that you can continue to edit) to remain the only image versions inside the Catalog - no reimporting of exports.
A Publish setup ('hard drive' type) called something like "for InDesign", set up with the export specifications and folder destination suitable for that specific kind of external usage.
Inside this, creating as needed a number of named Published Folders (Publish Collections) that will each group the photos you need for various particular InDesign purposes. And that will manage the appropriate external image copies in a corresponding subfolder, inside whatever destination was chosen for this overall Publish setup. And you'd place into InDesign from there.
On clicking the Publish button for any particular such 'published folder', exports then happen for any newly arrived photos since the last time / prior exports get refreshed (but only as applicable) with any editing done in the meanwhile / any prior exports will be deleted, whose corresponding photos you have meanwhile removed from this 'published folder' Collection within LrC.
Later, when this Publish updating relationship is no longer needed: you can delete this particular published folder from the Publish panel in LrC. At that point you can either let LrC delete the external folder and contents too - or else, tell it to leave all that in place.
There may be underlying OS issues that prevent this. In MacOS you can already drag an image from the Lightroom grid onto another application in the dock, but if I remember correctly, that will open the unedited origial image in that application.
The OP has confirmed that an image does arrive with a drag-drop, but that this is the imported source file which therefore appears in InDesign without the work done in LrC. File-centric in other words. AFAIK an Export (and Save to disk) action of some sort must happen in between. The image seen within the Catalog, and the image seen in the InD publication, being of two different natures, cannot be the same single entity AFAICT. AS with Photoshop where a new working document must also be made. I've never tried dragging an image from LrC to PS but would expect a similar result, except that possibly if LrC edits have been written out to that file, in principle those ought to get interpreted. But obviously nothing like as good as the intended LrC / PS integration.
If there was to be a LrC / InD integration this would need to be specially developed. LrC is in some ways an unsuitable DAM to use with InD though IMO, since there are so many file formats useful within InD that LrC does not support at all. PDF being the obvious example. Bridge, on the other hand, is fully on top of all that.
And unlike Photoshop, InD has to rely on a ready-to-place image resource being available.
Following up that thought, it may be worth the experiment - I can't test myself just now - to set up an Export preset which calls the InD application executable in its Postprocessing section. And see what happens! Best case, ideally, maybe, InD might then offer to place this newly made, already saved, edited image copy into the active publication.
If you drag an image from the Lightroom grid to Photoshop, then the original image will be opened in Photoshop. If the original is a raw image, then obviously camera raw will be invoked, but you will not see the Lightroom edits in ACR.
Johan, my interest is integrating Lightroom with InDesign for a seamless drag and drop of edited version of images. This would trigger an automatic export of the edited image (selected from the stack of alternates). This would allow Lightroom to achieve signifcant value enhancement as DAM system for Graphic Artists creating content in InDesign or other print/web based document layout/ publishing applications. It seems the focus of Lightroom is entirely focused on traditional Photographer workflows exclusively when in fact its benefits can be realized by a wider range of creative users. From a business POV this is a huge win for adobe LR to multiply its adressable market exponentially. hashtag #Ann Lewnes
This is an interesting idea, but like I said in an earlier reply, this may not be possible, at least not on MacOS. Apple is very strict in what apps can do and cannot do, and as MacOS regulates drag & drop actions between apps, they may not allow a derivative file to be created and dropped instead of the original dragged file.
2 Questions: what does AFAICT mean? I like the sounds of this but I don't fully understand the process: "A Publish service includes defined export settings. Get some inter-communication with ID (???) involved in setting up a new Publish Collection maybe, which then gets in some way auto-associated with a particular ID publication. Then perhaps, any unneeded images that ID had sight of, might be purged at that end and this might tell LrC to remove those from the relevant LrC Publish collection. Publish is more about an ongoing relationship, than Export is"
sorry: AFAICT = "as far as I can tell". That was lazy of me.
The part you've marked ??? was just my speculations of how some (hypothetical) interaction might need to work, and what limitations that may need to involve.
Personally when using a publishing application I depend a lot on other kinds of asset besides standard digital photos - file types such as PDF where LrC would be of no help. And since those have nothing to do with Lightroom's core "photo library" nature: I don't expect things to change. I have zero inside knowledge though, just guessing!
But LrC is certanily an efficient way to edit photos and then Export the needed versions of those to disk. And Publish can help semi-automate that part.
These photos on disk would then be visible to InD directly, also perhaps a dedicated "file-managing" application such as Bridge may be of help from there.
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