P: Open With should launch Lightroom Classic in Import mode.

[RAbel1975]

I have Lightroom Classic on my Macbook Pro.  The Macbook is running MacOS 13 (Ventura).  I would like to be able to right click an image file and be able to select "Open with" and have Lightroom Classic as an option.  I currently have Lightroom, Photoshop, and Photoshop Elements.  I don't know why there isn't Lightroom Classic.  How do I fix this?

[johnrellis]

Agreed, it would be convenient to have Finder's Open With Lightroom Classic behave similarly to Open With Lightroom, opening the Import window with the photo or photos checked.  Unfortunately, Lightroom Classic doesn't provide that. 

However, on Mac, you can drag photos from Finder to the LrC icon in the Dock, and that will do the same thing, opening the Import window with those photos selected.

On both Mac and Windows, if Lightroom Classic is open in Library, you can drag photos from Finder / File Explorer to the center of the Library window, and the Import window will open with those photos selected.

And on both platforms, if Lighroom Classic is open in Library but minimized to the Dock, you can drag the photos from Finder / File Explorer to the LrC icon in the Dock, hover over the icon until Lightroom unminimizes, and then drag the photos to the center of the Library window. (On Mac, you have to haver, wait until a thumbnail of Lightroom appears above the dock, then hover over that.)

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please move to Ideas.

[Bob Somrak]

You don't "Open" images in LrC, you Import them.  Lightroom Opens catalogs.  If you have an image or images selected than just drag the photos to LrC while in Library view or to the LrC icon in the Dock in any view.

[TheDigitalDog]

Open With exists as an option on Montery (12.6), so this is likely an issue with OS 13 beta/bug and nothing we can help you with as it's a beta OS. That said, what Bob wrote is key; you don't open, you import. But Open With is an option today on a released OS. 

[johnrellis]

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"Open With exists as an option on Montery (12.6)"

Hmm, there's an Open With Lightroom.app on my Mac OS 12.4 main computer and my Mac OS 12.6 clean test machine, but no Open With Lightroom Classic.app. This matches what @RAbel1975 sees on Mac OS 13:

I don't recall ever seeing Open With Lightroom Classic.app on Mac or Windows.  

Open With Lightroom.app opens Lightroom Desktop's Add Photos window (similar to Classic's Import) with the selected photos, starting Lightroom Desktop if necessary.  I guess the Adobe developers don't care that it's not "opening" the photos in the traditional sense.

I drag photos to from Finder to Lightroom Classic frequently, but right-click Open With would be more convenient.

[TheDigitalDog]

If there is no Open With for an application, you can add it. That's what I did, and it worked (launched and for LR, invoke Import dialog). 

Edit: See https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/choose-an-app-to-open-a-file-on-mac-mh35597/mac

[johnrellis]

Very interesting, I didn't know that you could make LR the default application for an image file type.  

Unfortunately, you can't add LR to the right-click context menu without also making it the default.  I use the current default of Mac Preview for image files much more frequently than dragging them to LR, so changing the default to LR wouldn't make sense for me.

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please move this thread to Ideas.

[th0th1]

This may seem like a minor issue, but it is a constant annoyance.  When I right-click on a image file, the MacOs "open with" context menu includes Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, and a host of other options, but NOT "Adobe Lightroom Classic.app" And if I click "Always Open With" there is no change in the behavior.  So every time I want to open an image file in Lightroom Classic, I have to click "other" then fish around in the submenu of Lightroom Classic in order to find Lightroom Classic.app. Is there any way that Lightroom Classic can be included in the "open with" menu, like all the other Adobe products?

[dj_paige]

What you see is the way LrC is supposed to operate. Photos can only be worked on if you open the LrC application and then import the desired photos.

Perhaps you should use Bridge / ACR, no importing needed, same editing capabilites.

[richardplondon]

The kind of file that Lightroom Classic is primarily associated with - that the OS knows that it will "open for editing" properly speaking - is a Catalog.

Lightroom Classic does not "open" or even "work on" images in that same direct sense. So it's problematic IMO to try to force onto it the methods and concepts that are proper to applications which do do that.

As an analogy, say that one wanted to place an image into a word processor document. It would be rather odd to set up an "open with" association for images, referring to that word processing application. For one thing, in order to place an image into a document you first need to have a suitable containng document open in that word processor. And which document should that be? True, one might default to the last one used, or a new blank  one, but either may not be what you have in mind. And the place to declare what you DO have in mnd, is within that word processing application - not, when looking at a folder of images. I hope you can see that the objection would be the same.

[JohanElzenga]

The real question is not why Lightroom Classic is not in that list, but why Lightroom (desktop) is in that list...

[johnrellis]

@th0th1's request is quite reasonable.

Finder's Open works well with Lightroom Classic and behaves just like dragging photos and folders to the LR dock icon: The Import window opens with the chosen photos selected. (Lightroom Desktop works similarly, opening the Add window).  

You can demonstrate the basic functionality by right-clicking a photo in Finder, doing Open With > Other and navigating to /Applications/Adobe Lightroom Classic/Adobe Lightroom Classic.app. You can also set the default app for an image type, e.g. JPEG, to be "Adobe Lightroom Classic.app".  

I drag photos from Finder to LR frequently, when I already have Finder open on the folder containing the photos, and I've wished that Open With was easier to use, since dragging on large screens to small dock icons can be clumsy.

The problem called out by @th0th1, who understands this functionality perfectly well, is that when you select an image in Finder and do right-click Open With, LR does not appear in the list of the two dozen other apps that know how to open that image. I believe this is a trivial bug in the app's Info.plist file, which specifies the file types it handles. 

[johnrellis]

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@th0th1, your post inspired me to make a very simple workaround.  Download this Automator Quick Action:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xezojkkld846qld/Import%20to%20Lightroom.workflow.zip?dl=0

Unzip it and double-click the unzipped file "Import to Lightroom.workflow" -- Mac OS will ask if you want to install it.

In Finder, select one or more photos or a folder of photos, right-click, and do Quick Actions > Import To Lightroom.  (Same number of clicks as right-click Open With > Adobe Lightroom Classic, if that worked.)

The Automator workflow is very simple:

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this existing Idea:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-open-with-should-launch-lightroom-classic-i...

[ConstantineD]

Hello all,

I've been having this problem for a few years now and although I found it strange, I was manually opening lightroom but it is so frustrating that I had to post it here.

Everytime I want to open a photo either RAW or JPEG, lightroom never shows up on the "Open With" list on my mac nor is the default for RAW photos. (When double clikcing one)

I have to manually go to "Other..." find the lighroom app and then hit open. 

Even if I select "Always Open With" it saves that option for the specific image and not for all the RAW images that I want to open in the future.

The weird thing is that it suggests every other non relevant app on my mac that can open photos but never LrC, however it can open the photos once I manually select it from "Other..."

I have tried unistalling and installing it again with no luck.

Is there a Terminal command I can use on the Mac to always open all photos through LrC or at least make it visisble on the "Open With" list? Becasuse I cannot find any other threads regarding this.

Thank you all in advance!

(I'm using a 2020 13inch M1 Macbook Pro)

[JohanElzenga]

When an application is installed, it registers in MacOS LaunchServices which file types it can open. That is where this list comes from. Adobe apparently chose not to register Lightroom Classic for images. Technically that is correct. Lightroom Classic does not 'open' an image directly, it imports images in its database. I haven't checked, but I assume Bridge won't be in the list for the same reason. In practice Adobe could add this and make Lightroom Classic behave like you do now manually. This might be an existing feature request in 'Ideas' (I am pretty sure I have seen this being discussed somewhere), otherwise that is the place to request it yourself.

BTW, dragging and dropping an image onto the Lightroom Classic dock icon should work.

[richardplondon]

We can boil down the principle of every application to: running; opening a file of a certain type; working on the contents of that file; saving changes and closing. In the case of Lightroom Classic, the file type that is opened, worked on and saved is a Catalog - not any kind of image. So if you double-click on a Catalog file you will see LrC run; open that Catalog; allow you to change the contents of that Catalog; save the changes as it goes; then close.

And this is indeed what will happen e.g. with Photoshop, for an image file.

To expect LrC to do the same towards a "bare" image file, though, is problematic. LrC does not directly edit and save images in that sense. What Catalog should LrC use to work with this image - an existing one, in which case which - or should it make a new one, or what? Are you expecting LrC to then import this image / do something with an image that it already has got imported (the Operating System can know nothing about this either way), or what?

All that said, there is a shortcut method you can use. Dragging an image file onto the LrC application icon at the bottom of your screen (on Windows, afaik on MacOS also) communicates to LrC your desire to do [something] with this image file. LrC then comes to the foreground - or starts up if not already running - and then offers to import this file into a Catalog - the currently open one, otherwise by default the most recently opened one. Again, not normal workflow and runs entirely counter to the idea of using an image library, not the OS file manager, as your "front end".

The usual expectation of new books being added to a real library's collection, would not include throwing them in through a window for the librarian to discover and then have to deal with one at a time - the librarian would process batches of new arrivals in a planned efficient manner. LrC's equivalent of that is a deliberate Import workflow initiated from the Catalog.

[ConstantineD]

Thank you for your answer and this makes total sence. I wish there could be a way to manually register what files an application can open as indeed Bridge doens't do that either.

[ConstantineD]

That's what I've come to understand however for the sake of ease of use and workflow, I usually have a folder with RAW photos inside and it would be really easy to simply double click on one or all of them and open lightroom at the import window as it does when I manually select it or drag and drop them onto the LrC icon.

[richardplondon]

So far as ease of use and workflow, it is important to consider the wider picture - pun not intended. You "have a folder with Raw images inside" - these must have come from some origin (you have perhaps used Finder to copy them into the computer, and then to look at those as files). That consumed some time and attention to do. And now you have additional time and attention to expend on bringing these Raw images into LrC. 

As an alternative, you can have LrC fetch newly taken Raws directly from the camera card, copy those into the computer AND import these for you. You can optionally have LrC detect insertion into a card reader and automatically invoke this Copy import session. In the course of this you can have LrC execute date based folder filing, automatically creating suitably named subfolders to your choice of scheme. And thereafter you can rely on LrC as the sole front-end for accessing, postprocessing from, and outputting edited versions of these Raw images without yourself touching Finder / Explorer at any point.

IOW, you simply do not have to micromanage any of the files-and-folders stuff yourself - unless you especially enjoy that, of course! The Catalog can become your "librarian", who is given blanket instruction and responsibility for all the back-end practicalities.

[ConstantineD]

Thank you for that! That is a great way to go about it as I usually mass import all of the RAW photos after a shoot into an extenrall SSD so that I have a backup before I start picking and editing my photos.

I'll search how I can do all of those automations you mentioned as it sounds ideal and when it comes to editing one photo I'll simply drag it onto the app! 

[richardplondon]

So far as a backup, there is the option during LrC import to make a duplicate safety copy elsewhere as well - for example, onto a separate NAS drive. This backup is just datestamped in and auto way, and does not receive any autorenaming etc you may have chosen for your main import. I don't bother with that though: during the interval until separate backups of the main image file storage and also of the Catalog are updated, these newly taken Raw files can still be re-copied if necessary, from the original camera memory card (assuming that is not cleared off immediately).

I tend to slide the physical write-protect tab on an SD card the moment it leaves the camera, to ensure safety of those fresh images for the meanwhile, pending the eventual creation of other copies by backup from the computer. Once that backup's happened, I consider the relevant SD card as available for re-use. Also this tab helps to distinguish image-containing cards from empty cards!

[JohanElzenga]

So far as a backup, there is the option during LrC import to make a duplicate safety copy elsewhere as well - for example, onto a separate NAS drive. This backup is just datestamped in and auto way, and does not receive any autorenaming etc you may have chosen for your main import.

By @richardplondon

Actually, it does. The secondary copy images are renamed just like the imported mages.

[Conrad_C]

This happens to me with lots of different file types. I don’t really use Open With all that often because the Open With list is strictly limited to applications that let themselves be registered on it, so a lot of times the app I want to send a document to is not always on that menu.

Instead, I make heavy use of drag-and-drop as an alternate way to Open With. For example, if I have an image or a folder, and I want to add it to a Lightroom Classic catalog, I just drag it and drop it on the Lightroom Classic icon. Lightroom Classic is programmed to open the Import dialog box when this happens, so as long as my preferred Import preset is selected, at that point all I have to do is click the Import button to continue on. Of course, this means I keep the Lightroom Classic app icon in my Dock, but it works wherever you have stashed a Lightroom Classic alias/shortcut, such as the desktop.

For this reason I keep my favorite image file viewers/editors in the Dock (Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, Bridge, Apple Preview, GraphicConverter, RawDigger…) so the any file can be dropped on any of them at any time.

---

In case anyone thinks Adobe is being “un-Mac-like” here, I can mention one other photo application that does not appear on the Open With menu when you right-click a raw or JPEG file: Apple’s own Photos app. And probably for the same reason: Like Lightroom Classic, Apple Photos can’t open/save a file as a standalone document; it uses a database into which the file must be cataloged. So any photo you want to view in Apple Photos must be “imported” first. But, Apple Preview does open images as standalone documents, so Preview does appear on the Open With menu.