P: Enable the use of more than 2 monitors

Report · Jan 10, 2012

Two monitors is nice for Lightroom, but I could really use a third screen for added screen-space while I'm working on my photos. I frequently use a full screen for loupe view and a full screen for survey view, which leaves me with no place for development settings, keywords or other features. This would be great for a third monitor - having the ability to view more information and functions at once.

Report · Jan 11, 2012

I currently use an external monitor for my critical editing/evaluation as my iMac display doesn't reproduce reds very well. I understand newer iMacs can support 2 external displays, obviously desktop machines can support as many displays as there are open slots for video cards.

While editing a photo shot in portrait on a monitor set for landscape is not a problem, it would be cool to have two external color-accurate monitors for developing/loupe views, one oriented in portrait, one in landscape, with the third (iMac in this case) showing the develop controls. Even if the two external monitors showed the same image, one would always be fullscreen in the correct orientation.

MacOS and Windows both give the user control over all the displays connected to a given system, so driving a portrait and a landscape monitor simultaneously shouldn't be a problem from an OS/hardware standpoint.

Is this something that can be rolled into LR4?

Respectfully,

Andre

Report · Feb 17, 2012

LR4 - Request for better multiple monitor support / 4K output in Slideshow

I have three monitors on my main imaging computer, which is not that uncommon these days. It would be wonderful if the final release of LR4 would support more than two monitors, or at least let the user choose the two that they want to use. Also, a little more flexibility in configuring the monitors would be helpful...for instance, floating or draggable panels would be a great feature. In my opinion, the ability to mix and match panels from different modules and place them on the monitor of my choice would greatly improve the functionality and efficiency of LR4 while working with a multiple monitor setup.

Also, on an unrelated note, I shoot time-lapse photography and would like to use the slideshow module video export function to create my footage. As it stands, the existing codec and bitrate limitations make LR video export unusable for high quality output. 4K support and the ability to choose the codec (for example ProRes 422HQ) are sorely needed upgrades to make the video export usable for anything beyond web display. We need editing friendly codecs...H.264 in the current implementation is not up to the task.

Regards,

Josh Himes

Report · Feb 18, 2012

One of my biggest complaints about LR is its unability to have real multimonitor support with floating panels. Having to scroll through panels or opening and closing them is just plain awkward.

Report · Apr 07, 2012

Indeed - having the ability to move panels around as in Dreamweaver would be a real plus. I would very much like to use 3 monitors with Lightroom and arrange my windows across them as I please.

I want to be able to move the folder list and develop sliders onto another screen to maximize the screen area.

Report · Nov 09, 2012

Lightroom's support for a second display has definitely helped my workflow. I hope the team will consider adding more flexible multiple monitor support in version 4. Here's why.

I've recently experimented with running one of my three screens in portrait mode. When this screen hosts Lightroom's secondary display window in Loupe view, my verticals finally get equal real estate for editing. While I've not done hard statistics on my library, I know more than 50% of my imagery is in portrait orientation.

I'd like to see LR V4 support three or more screens so I could set up as follow:

Screen 1 - main lightroom interface, would not need to be calibrated, for controls and navigation

Screen 2 - Portrait orientation, loupe view - this would be a calibrated display, all develop changes to verticals would be judged on this screen

Screen 3 - Landscape orientation, loupe view - another calibrated display, all develop changes to horizontals would be judged on this screen

If Adobe could make the app intelligent enough to route the image to the correct screen based on orientation (recognizing and respecting cropping that could change orientation) my edit sessions would certainly speed up and I could maximize the productivity of multiple screens.

I'd be happy with this, but I'm also stymied by the need to switch back to Library mode to tag images when my primary workflow has me in develop. Ultimately everything depends on the quality of the image. Before I invest in image-specific meta data, I have to process or at least "test-process" an image. IMO the Quick Develop panel is useless, once you become accustomed to the granular control of the develop sliders, it just doesn't cut it.

In the three monitor setup I described above I'd love to be able to configure screen 1, with a combination of panels from Library and Develop, so I could stay "develop centric" with immediate access to keywording and meta. The two additional screens would intelligently handle image display.

I think this might speed my workflow by 33% and having just returned from a Tour de France project that generated 23,000 images I need all the productivity help I can get.

Report · Apr 18, 2013

Sadly the word I'm hearing from power users trying the beta of LR5 is that this feature hasn't been incorporated into the product, so we will have to wait even longer for this to (maybe) become a reality. Thanks Adobe!!

Report · Apr 24, 2013

When will there be "proper" multi-screen support on Lightroom? When I click outside Lightroom, the preview on the second screen will disappear, this is very annoying to me!

Report · Apr 30, 2013

Many users now deploy multiple monitors in their workflow, but Lightroom currently only supports 1 additional monitor, so instead of having a color-calibrated monitor in portrait AND another in landscape to view images full screen in either orientation in addition to the "main" display, we have to choose one OR the other.

MacOS and Windows both support spanning the desktop across multiple video cards/monitors, and both OS's are agnostic when it comes to the orientation of those monitors. Could Adobe please implement something similar in Lightroom 5?

Respectfully

Report · Apr 30, 2013

My apologies for the double post...it seemed as though this topic wasn't getting any Adobe love in its current state so I attempted to post it as a new topic...which ended up getting sent right back here again.

Report · Mar 12, 2016

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!

Report · Jun 02, 2017

It would be usefull to use 3 displays :
- Mosaic / Grid
- Full screen adapted (interactive)
- 3:1 interactive zoom

It will lead to a big time gain in sorting photos...
Best regards.

Report · Aug 12, 2017

Thank you Geobert, your script has just saved me a lot of head aches 🙂
I run 3 monitors, two aRGB and one refernce sRGB and your script literally saves me time in my work flow.

Report · Apr 20, 2018

This was awesome! It was so annoying trying to get my second high res monitor to display as my secondary display instead of my tiny laptop screen. Thanks!

Report · Nov 13, 2018

when Lightroom will be capable of supporting more then one external screen?