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ado-stan-be
ado-stan-be
Inspiring
March 2, 2017
Answered

Where to find the Exportant plugin by Rob Cole?

  • March 2, 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 5176 views

HI all,

I'm looking for a very specific plugin that appears to be called "Exportant" by a developer named Rob Cole. He seems to have disappeared from what I can tell, and his website and plugins are no longer available. He answered this Lightroom question in 2014 with a screenshot of his plugin, and it looks like it has a feature I really need: the ability to export from Lightroom using the same print resolution as the original source photo.

Is anyone able to share this plugin with me (it was completely free from what I could tell) or show me where it's available online? All of my searches haven't uncovered a source for it.

I'd greatly appreciate any help you could provide!

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer johnrellis

A little poking around and testing indicates the command line should be:

/usr/local/bin/exiftool -TagsFromFile '{FullMasterFile}' -XResolution -YResolution -ResolutionUnit '{FILE}'

Two things to note:

1. You have to include the complete file path for "exiftool", since it gets installed in a directory that isn't on the system's search path for finding programs.  (Terminal uses a search path that contains more directories, including /usr/local/bin.)  This was a little obscure to track down, given the lack of meaningful error messages.  It's been a while since I last used Run Any Command and forgot about this.

2. Put single quotes around {FullMasterFile} and {FILE}, since if their paths contain spaces, Exiftool won't see them as a single argument.

3 replies

ado-stan-be
ado-stan-beAuthor
Inspiring
March 6, 2017

Wow johnrellis and trshaner - thank you!!! I've made some significant progress with this solution thanks to your posts.

I'm running into one small issue, but I think I'm in the home stretch. Here's what I've done:

  • Installed ExifTool from here (I'm on a Mac, so I followed those instructions). I confirmed that it was installed correctly by typing "exiftool" in the Terminal (it works).
  • Installed the Run Any Command Lightroom plugin from here​ and installed it. It seems to be installed correctly in Lightroom.
  • Inserted the following under "Command per image". This was the best I could do after half an hour or so of perusing Exiftool examples and documentation. I'm not sure if I can combine these into one command or not.
    • exiftool -TagsFromFile {FullMasterFile} -XResolution {FILE};
    • exiftool -TagsFromFile {FullMasterFile} -YResolution {FILE};
    • exiftool -TagsFromFile {FullMasterFile} -ResolutionUnit {FILE};
  • Upon hitting Export, it fails with the following dialogue:

Now, here's the strange part: if I take those "actual command line sent to the operating system" lines and put them into my Terminal one at a time in the same order... it works!!! This gives me the desired effect (the file in the Destination folder has the same print dimensions as the source file).

I also tried combining these into one command (didn't work - I may have done it incorrectly) as well as giving Run Any Command just one of these to work with (XResolution didn't cause an error on its own though I'm not sure if it worked as the XResolution never changes, and ResolutionUnit did not work on its own).

Do either of you guys know what Run Any Command's issue with this series of commands could be? I feel like this is so close to a final solution!

johnrellis
johnrellisCorrect answer
Legend
March 6, 2017

A little poking around and testing indicates the command line should be:

/usr/local/bin/exiftool -TagsFromFile '{FullMasterFile}' -XResolution -YResolution -ResolutionUnit '{FILE}'

Two things to note:

1. You have to include the complete file path for "exiftool", since it gets installed in a directory that isn't on the system's search path for finding programs.  (Terminal uses a search path that contains more directories, including /usr/local/bin.)  This was a little obscure to track down, given the lack of meaningful error messages.  It's been a while since I last used Run Any Command and forgot about this.

2. Put single quotes around {FullMasterFile} and {FILE}, since if their paths contain spaces, Exiftool won't see them as a single argument.

ado-stan-be
ado-stan-beAuthor
Inspiring
March 10, 2017

Hi johnrellis​ - thank you so much! This command was exactly the right one to replicate the feature of Exportant that I originally created this thread searching for. Your recommendation of Run Any Command in conjunction with Exiftool was spot on!

johnrellis
johnrellis
Legend
March 2, 2017

the ability to export from Lightroom using the same print resolution as the original source photo.

You could use the Run Any Command plugin to invoke the free Exiftool utility to copy the resolution from the original photo to the exported version. If you're not familiar with command-line scripting and/or Exiftool, the learning curve will be pretty steep.

Todd Shaner
Todd Shaner
Legend
March 3, 2017

johnrellis  wrote

the ability to export from Lightroom using the same print resolution as the original source photo.

You could use the Run Any Command plugin to invoke the free Exiftool utility to copy the resolution from the original photo to the exported version. If you're not familiar with command-line scripting and/or Exiftool, the learning curve will be pretty steep.

Unfortunately that won't help because the OP needs to resize the LR Export image using the EXIF Resolution value:

Lightroom exporting incorrect image size

johnrellis
johnrellis
Legend
March 3, 2017

Reading ado-stan-be's other thread, it appears the images are getting exported with their original pixel dimensions (i.e. no cropping or scaling):

  • I have an image that's 2475 pixels x 3575 pixels. In Photoshop, I can set this to 18" x 26" at 137.5 pixels per inch and save it as a TIFF.
  • I can put this TIFF into any software that queues jobs for my large format printers, and they will correctly interpret it as 18" x 26" at 137.5 DPI/PPI.
  • I need to perform some light editing on this image in Lightroom, and have it export as a TIFF that Photoshop (and my other software) still recognizes as 18" x 26" at 137.5 DPI/PPI. This whole time, the image hasn't changed from 2475px x 3575px.

(Emphasis added.) If that's the case, then all that's needed is to copy the resolution from the original to the exported version, which Run Any Command / Exiftool can do.

dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
March 2, 2017

As far as I know, Rob no longer participates in this forum, and his plug-ins are no longer available. As far as I know, the reasons for his absence are not known.

It is not ethical for others to distribute his plug-ins without express permission being granted by the plug-in author.

ado-stan-be
ado-stan-beAuthor
Inspiring
March 2, 2017

Hi dj_paige, thanks for replying to this thread as well!

Do you know of a way I can recreate just this feature (the ability to export from Lightroom using the same print resolution as the original source photo) without Rob's plugin? I'm happy to purchase a paid plugin that would do this as well. This would be a huge help - it's what I was trying to describe in the other thread!

johnrellis
johnrellis
Legend
March 2, 2017

Unfortunately, we recently learned that Rob Cole passed away two years ago: Jeffrey Friedl's Blog » Rest in Peace, Rob Cole . You might read this thread for more information about obtaining his plugins: Re: Rob Cole has passed away

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