LRB Exhibition almost ready

My new web Plugin LRB Exhibition is almost ready for launch. Written from the ground up with new internal code and ideas, this is my second website in a gallery plugin for Lightroom. From the Porfolio family, it allows the user to create home, about, contact and general use pages, along with 6 galleries and 2 external links.

An earlier prototype of the plugin was used to create SkyWaterLand.com. It's been much improved since then though. Once I get the all clear, I'll upload and launch the product. This will be the same price as LRB Portfolio (15 euro), but I will have a 20% Discount for the first week. The code for this will be announced in the launch post.

The main image area in the gallery is based around a single image preview in an enclosed space. Using jQuery, each slide can be navigated to either using the navigation arrows, or numbered links to the relevant slide. LRB Exhibition is far more mature that LRB Portfolio was at version 1.0, in fact it's almost par with LRB Portfolio 2.51, and probably equal to 2.4. It does however have features not available to LRB Portfolio, such as per page image and text placement and a floating text box.

Launch should be very soon. And no this is not vapourware!

Coding and keeping it safe.

This is a Lightroom post in the sense that it's talking about coding plugins for Lightroom. If you're not interested in coding, you can stop right here and keep 5 minutes of your life.

I've lost track of the number of versions of LRB Portfolio and other plugins I have on my drive, both as code, and compiled. I literally have folders of them. Why? Well, because I've lost my codebase before and had to redo an update from memory, way back in between version 1.1 and 1.2. I overwrote the code with complied versions by accident. That really sucked. I called myself obscene names, but I got over it.

Talking with other developers, I heard about different ways to manage code. One of them was Subversion, but it seemed too complex for the simple codebase I have. Coda, the software I use for coding plugins and websites, has subversion built it, but it seems really geared to websites, and not good for plugins. It may well be fine, but I couldn't get my head around it. My interest was purely academic, and I'd no reason to find a particular product.

Then something terrible happened. Somewhere between LRB Portfolio 2.3 and 2.4, an entire block of code, in the main file of the plugin, got overwritten by text. I literally have no idea how it happened. I just opened the file to edit and half of it was gone. I was able to replace the bad bits with the 2.3 code, but all the new stuff was gone. That sealed the deal for me, I had to find a way to keep my code safe always, not just when an update was launched.

After much seeking, I found a really cool piece of software called Cornerstone, from Zennaware. It does full Subversion, but I only need a tiny part of the functionality. Normally you would use a server, but I'm just using a folder on my drive. The 15 day trial seemed more like 15 days of having it open, than 15 successive days. Still they proved I needed the program, so I parted with my $60 happily.

Here's my workflow.

I have a repository on the drive and I have a working copy checked out. I do all my edits in Coda and Cornerstone keeps track, making new copies in the background as I save. I can always step back to a previous version at any time. When I get to a point where I want to test the plugin, I commit my changes. I can choose to add text to a log file, helping figure out which previous version I might need in the future. Next I select the working copy and click on the 'Export' button. I've set this up to create a copy in the Web Galleries folder of Lightroom. While the export is happening, I restart Lightroom. The export is fast, so when Lightroom reopens, I can immediately see the changes.

What's great about this is that the version in Web Galleries is no longer a precious commodity. I simply export the current working copy. Because Coda is working on a safe copy, with automatic backup, this working copy is used to make the compiled version of the file for beta testing. I have a script that copies the folder specified, and tags .lrwebengine to the name. It then opens this new folder and compiles the 2 .lrweb files, leaving the plugin ready for distribution. At this point, there's a compiled version, the working copy, the copy in Web Galleries, and of course all the versions in the repository. Because of this I can then continue working on the plugin, knowing that finally, the code is safe.

LR2Pikchur Plugin Launch

In my ongoing roundup of Twitter related photo hosts, I'm very pleased to announce the launch of LR2Pikchur, an export service for Pikchur.com, which also can post a message on Twitter after upload. With a successful upload the URL and message information are available via a custom Metadata Field List in the Metadata Panel. Price=Coffee for me €2.50.

Details on installing, using and a demo version are available from the LR2Pikchur page.

Doing It The Hard Way

This post is a bit geeky/nerdy, so don't feel obliged to read it!

At the start of October, Tweetphoto changed their API. As most folk know nothing about code, it's kinda like they changed the combination to the lock. That meant loads of whinging from me as the old API did everything I needed. I think that made them add a new section to the API for me, but alas I couldn't get it to work. There was loads of back and forth, and I'm sure my frustration was showing. They were patient with me, but I still couldn't get an upload going. All the code seemed perfect, in line with the new API, but no joy, I couldn't upload. So I did what any good quitter does and gave up.

I'd already promised a cross grade to any user that wanted to go to Twitpic, so there was an out in that form. Still I wasn't happy with that. So the other night I started tinkering again. I commented out the optional sections of API until I got an upload. This little success led me to fixing my issue, which, believe it or not, was down to a misplaced space. With upload working, I considered myself done. Just as I was about to go to bed, I figured I better check the error list, and make sure it was parsing correctly. Disaster. Garbled internal error messages. I was a bit distraught, coming down quickly from the ecstasy of getting an upload again. I sent out feelers in a few directions for help. I left the code and started back to work on a new Web Gallery that I was building to create my new website: SkyWaterLand.com.

The Tweetphoto guys came back telling me that the I probably wasn't going to get any XML error codes back from this API, but to check the HTTP status codes. Of course I couldn't see what was coming back as the log didn't show anything. Eventually I had a peek at my Twitpic code and noticed I'd left out a line to print the log.. Doh! After inserting the code, I was able to see the exact error coming back in the Console. It wasn't an actual HTTP/HTML response as I expected, it was simply 'Bad Request'. Well that meant that I needed to search for 'Bad Request' and trap that error. So all seems well now. Of course the code needs to be compiled again and tested, but I'm glad I'm at least to that stage again after having practically given up.

New MapiMailer Export Plug-in Available (for Windows)

Steve Sutherland, the creator of the Mapi Mailer export action has gone a step further and created a dedicated Export plugin for emailing from Windows Lightroom.

"Just thought I'd announce to any MapiMailer users out there, that I've finally created an Export plug-in version of MapiMailer. The main benefit to users of the old MapiMailer is that the Windows limitation on how many files could be attached to your email is now gone.

For those who have not heard of MapiMailer, it is a plug-in which allows Windows (only) users to export and attach multiple photos to their default email program. Without it, you can only attach a single photo. It is free for anyone to use (donations accepted). It has been submitted to the Adobe plug-in exchange, but you can also download and read about it now at my new website www.sbsutherland.com.

Spread the word.
Steve Sutherland"

An introduction to Lightroom Plugins

Plugins in Lightroom
Lightroom has a plugin architecture that allows third parties to add to the functionality of Lightroom. Often these plugins add to Lightroom's core functions, but more often they add entirely new features to the program. Plugins are a very different beast to Presets, and sometimes users can get the two confused. Presets are merely stored sets of instructions for Lightroom tools (and for plugins for that matter). Plugins, on the other hand, are additional programming, added to Lightroom.

Plugins for Lightroom originally came in one of two forms, Export and Web Gallery. But programmers being what they are have made much more of the available SDK to create even more than this, along with changes in the SDK. So we can broaden this view into more sections:

• Web Galleries
• Export Plugins
• Metadata Plugins
• Post Process Plugins
• External Editors
• Import
• Utilities

With this in mind, let's take a look at some of the available Lightroom plugins. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and many of the Plugin developers that are linked here have many other Lightroom Plugins that are worth a look.

Web Galleries
Lightroom ships with 2 galleries: Lightroom HTML Gallery and Lightroom Flash Gallery. Using templates you can get many different looks from it, but they all boil down to these two engines. A small group of developers have created gallery addons for Lightroom, myself included. Here's a selection to look at:

LRB Portfolio: This is my own website in a gallery plugin

The Turning Gate: Matthew Campagna has a large set of gallery plugins for Lightroom

Lightroom Galleries: Joe Capra has LRG Complete as a standalone Flash Gallery for Lightroom

SlideShowPro: Todd Dominey has converted his SlideShowPro Flash component into a powerful gallery for Lightroom

Export Plugins
Export Plugins take files from Lightroom and send them to services are required. A prime example of this is Export to Flickr, the flickr.com photo sharing service. Again, I've created some of these, but the absolute king of this is Jeffrey Friedl.

LR2Twitpic: This is my own plugin to allow users to post from Lightroom to Twitter via Twitpic

Jeffrey's Lightroom Goodies: Rather than link to individual plugins, you find all of Jeffrey's plugins there, including Flickr, SmugMug, PicasaWeb and Zenfolio.

LR/Blog: This plugin from Timothy Armes allows you to post directly to your Blog from Lightroom

Metadata Plugins
Metadata Plugins allow Lightroom to have custom metadata fields added to them. They're probably the easiest to code, but unfortunately there is no good way to allow the user to create a random custom field from within a plugin.

Search and Replace: This plugin allows users to search and replace text inside Lightroom metadata.

LRB Releases: This is a plugin that allows a user to enter/track model and property release info in Lightroom

LR/Transporter: This nifty plugin allows you to export metadata to text files among other things.

Nature Data LR: provides species data fields on your photos. It also allows you to create dynamic collections of your photos based on families of species.

Post Process Plugins
Post Process Plugins take the exported image and perform a further process on the files.

LR2/Mogrify: This plugin lets a use interact with the command line program Mogrify, to create watermarks and borders.

External Editors
There are a substantial number of Photoshop Plugins and Standalone programs that can be used with Lightroom. These generally create a rendered version of the files which is then processed by the application and finally stored in the Lightroom Catalog. Sometimes these are accessed with the 'Edit in' menu, or from the 'Plug-in Extras' menu. (Note that the Photoshop Plugins are modified to work as apps for Lightroom and that generally Photoshop Plugins are not useable in Lightroom)

Nik Filters: Nik have a range of tools from Color Efex for filter processing to noise reduction with D-Fine.

onOne Software: onOne have a range of plugins that go from Phototools for photo manipulation to PhotoFrame for creating image frames.

PT Lens: is a great lens correction program that includes a large lens library for automatic distortion correction.

Photomatix Pro: This plugin/app set allow users to export directly from Lightroom into Photomatix Pro to generate HDR images.

Import Plugins
While Import is only a small part of the Lightroom SDK, some plugin makers have successfully created interesting plugins that import into Lightroom.

Lightroom Tether: This plugin from Rich Cooper allows users with PTP based cameras to Tether directly to Lightroom (Note current Canon cameras do not use PTP anymore)

Video Assets: This nifty plugin from Jeffrey Friedl allows a very basic video import into Lightroom, and the ability to play them back via an external program.

Utilities

Config Backup: This plugin allows the user to back up the Lightroom Preferences and Catalog backup files

Preview Extraction: This plugin lets you access the previews used by Lightroom. A lifesaver for those that have accidently deleted photos.

Adding Plugins to Lightroom
Lightroom Plugins are automatically loaded if they are stored inside a folder called 'Modules' in the Lightroom Presets folder. The quickest way to access this folder, is to open Preferences (in the Edit menu on PC, the Lightroom menu on Mac). Next click on 'Presets' and then finally click on the 'Show Lightroom presets folder' button.
Inside this folder is a folder called Modules. Place the plugins there.
However I don't recommend doing it this way. Plugins like this cannot be removed from Lightroom via the Plugin Manager. Instead, create a folder called 'LR Plugins' in (My) Documents. Place all your plugins here (except Web Galleries). Use the Plugin Manager to add and remove plugins as you require them.

Plugin Manager
Open the Plugin Manger via the File menu. There's a four fingered shortcut for it, but generally clicking the menu is as quick as making a claw out of your hand! On the bottom left are 2 buttons (above Plug-in Exchange): Add and Remove. Simply click Add and browse to the LR Plugins folder to select the plugin you want to load. That's it pretty much. You can remove plugins here also. If the plugin writer has added information relating to the plugin, you'll also find it here.

For Web Galleries, open the Lightroom Presets folder as described above, and place the .lrwebengine file inside a folder called 'Web Engines'. Create it if it doesn't exist.

And so ends a quick look a Lightroom plugins. I do intend looking deeper into individual Plugins as time goes by.

LR2Tweetphoto on Hold.

Due to Tweetphoto deprecating their API, this plugin is no longer for sale, until I get it working with the new API. The API docs originally stated that they would be still using the old API, but it seems they've changed their mind and have stopped using it as of Oct 1st. There's a lot more to the new API, so it will be some time before I rerelease this plugin as a version 2 product. In the meantime, if you have a copy I will give a refund or a free cross grade to LR2Twitpic. My apologies for this, but the API change is out of my control.

TTG Pages 3.0

Matthew Campagna has launched TTG Pages 3.0. TTG Pages 3.0 is a spiritual successor to TTG LR Pages featuring many improvements, as well as integrating features from TTG Auto Index and TTG Stage. It's more powerful, more flexible and easier to use than any of its predecessors. Features include:

- Creates Home page, About page, Contact page and self-populating Album Index.
- Much improved Contact form featuring flexible visual and positioning customization and input validation.
- Full integration of TTG Stage, supporting the following Flash galleries: Autoviewer, Postcardviewer, Simpleviewer, Monoslideshow 1.x and 2.x, Slideshow Pro, FlashNifties, Dimin Slideshow, Polaroid Gallery, the Lightroom Flash Gallery and Flickr.
- Pre-built site navigation menus.
- Six new site templates.
- Includes TTG MSS2 XMLer for creating Flash galleries with Monoslideshow 2.x.
- More user-friendly for novice and veteran Web module users alike!
- Longer subscription terms for updates.

The cost is $25. Those previously subscribed to TTG LR Pages have been sent discount codes for the upgrade.

More information is available at The Turning Gate.

And a live demonstration here:
http://demo.theturninggate.net/

Portraiture 2 now available for Lightroom

Portraiture 2 from Imagenomic is now available as a plugin for Lightroom. This retouching plugin is designed to reduce the time it takes to retouch a photo, and being a Lightroom plugin, means one less trip to Photoshop for retouching. This is an 'Edit In' or Export plugin and works on a generated image, rather than being Metadata based editing. Once an image is opened in Portraiture 2, it can be edited in the same way as in the Photoshop Plugin version (bar the ability to add the results as a new layer). All the processing and masking features are available in the Lightroom version also.

Portraiture 2 costs $199.95. A video tutorial explaining how the plugin operates is available also. For new users, Portraiture 2 can be used on a 15-Day Free Trial basis.

LRB Portfolio updated to version 2.2

LRB Portfolio, the website plugin for Lightroom 2, has been updated to version 2.2. Along with bug fixes, there have been a number of additions to the program. The key addition allows a gallery index page with thumbnails slices of gallery images to link to the galleries. A sample of this in action in a real website can be seen at http://musofoto.com. This brings to 3 the number of options that can be used as the home page: A home page with a single photo (with optional text), A gallery index page, or a gallery page.

Other additions include removal of the image on the blank page to allow for video links etc. Text on the non gallery pages can be aligned left, right, or justified. Images can also be aligned, in this case, left, centre or right. A regular request is to have the names of the form titles changeable in the Contact form has been granted.

Finally an annoying bug that broke Gallery 1 only, has been fixed. Although internally the number 20 is used, Lightroom displays the number as 20.00 in the "number of images" for the gallery. This prompted a number of users to enter a decimal point when changing the default. Due to the way Lightroom handles text input, this was then interpreted as a string and caused the gallery to fail with an error. Other galleries were not affected as internal maths forced Lightroom to see it as a number. This issue has now been corrected. Lightroom still shows the decimal point, but it no longer matters if the user enters the decimal. This was actually hard to pin down, because it only affected the first gallery. I had tested the decimal point in other galleries, but not the the first one. A mix of Jorge Parra and finally Atma Singh lead to testing Gallery 1 again, revealing the error.

The UI has been updated with the changes and additional material, including more hints and tips, have been added to the User Guide. I will be creating a video to go along with this shortly.

All further information about the gallery, including purchase information and User Guide can be found at LRBPortfolio.com. Current users can download this update from their download link. As mentioned previously, this update also comes with a price increase to €15 to cover the ongoing costs of producing the additional features and bug fixes.

Read More

Update: If you're getting a error relating to com.lightroom-blog.lrbportfolio, try downloading again

Watermarking Web Galleries with LR2/Mogrify

One feature sorely lacking in Lightroom is a good watermark on Export. Using the fabulous 3rd party plugin LR2/Mogrify from Timothy Armes solves this issue for a straight export, but unfortunately post process plugins are not available in the Web Module. So how can we do it?

Well for my recently launched music photography website Muso Foto, I wanted nice (i.e. not the normal Lightroom one) watermarks on my images. Nothing intrusive, but something that doesn't take from the image.

Here's the steps I took:

1. Create the web gallery as you like. Leave the Add Copyright Watermark off. Also create a nice logo using the Identity Plate. Set the Quality high (like 95 or so).

2. Export the gallery to a folder (shortcut Cmd/Cntrl J).

3. In Library navigate to the folder you created via Import. Locate the folder with the large images. With LRB Portfolio, this is called 'large'. In the default HTML, this may be something like 'bin/images/large'.

4. Import this folder in to Lightroom via 'Add to Catalog'.

5. Select all the images in the folder.

6. Click Export.

7. Using Files to Disk, I set up the export as below: Jpg, sRGB, quality 80, subfolder of original folder.

8. In the Post Process Actions section, I click on Graphical Watermark and Inner Border.

9. For the Watermark, I navigate into the Gallery folder exported earlier and find 'logo.png'-the exported Identity Plate. I do this to keep the watermark and logo consistent. It helps create a 'brand'. With a little calculation, I work out a size I'm happy with and enter it.

10. I also want a semi transparent bar across the bottom which encompasses the logo. With the logo being 24px high, I opt for a 25px high Inner border on the bottom. I select Black as the colour and reduce the transparency to 50%.

11. With all this set up, I hit export.

12. From there I move the images from the subfolder up a level and overwrite the original gallery images-this is in Finder/Explorer.

13. In Lightroom I remove the still selected images from the Library with the delete key and choose 'Remove from Library' as my dialog option. After all I don't want to delete the image files I worked hard to create!

14. Finally I upload the Gallery.


Notes: Lightroom renames '-' to '_' and forces the filenames to lower case when exporting for Web Galleries. For this reason I use the actual gallery images, which will retain their correct names for the HTML files. This is the only reason why I simply don't export the files directly from Lightroom, overwriting the original gallery files.

New Lightroom Plugin: Export to Expono

Export to Expono "

is a new Plugin from Jeffrey Friedl. It joins a whole host of other plugins including Export to Flickr, Smugmug, Picasa, and a host of other like geoencoding and metadata management for export.

Timelapse Movies from Lightroom

Santa Ponsa from Sean McCormack on Vimeo.

As you may or may not know, I'm a huge fan of Timelapse movies. Now I haven't exactly been going around the world shooting stuff like Ross Ching, but I have shot timelapse all around Connemara, County Clare, in Scotland, London and even Mallorca in Spain. I even begged Jeffrey Friedl to help in the form of writing a script that allowed me to create panning and zooming using only Lightroom metadata.

Well last night, with a lot of help from some buddies on the Lightroom SDK forum, I managed to do something that I'd been hinting at to Timothy Armes.. I wrote a post process plugin, that allows me to send the exported files to FFMPEG and create a movie from them. FFMPEG is a cross platform, open source video application. It doesn't come compiled and needs substantial massaging to get it compiled. Still I found a compiled version for both Windows (untested) and Mac OS X.
Now the plugin is very fragile and needs a lot of polish. I'm not sure it's something I intend releasing, because of this fragility. However, if you are a timelapse creator that uses Lightroom, please contact me and we can test and work on it further. Basically if you mix the panning ability from Jeffrey's Pan script and this Export plugin, you can pretty much create cool timelapse within Lightroom.

The movie at the top was creating using panning from the Pan script and exported from Lightroom via my export plugin.

Lr2Twitpic plugin

Update: for those linking, please use http://lightroom-blog.com/lr2twitpic

Lr2Twitpic is a plugin for Lightroom 2 that allows the user to export a photo to the Twitpic online service. As with the website, this allows you to either upload the image, or upload and post a message on Twitter, along with a link to the image. This link, the Twitter Username and the URL of the image on Twitpic are stored in metadata and accessible via the provided Lr2Twitpic Metadata Tagset (or Metadata Viewer Preset as it has been called). The image generated is an sRGB Jpeg, and is put in a temporary location, which is then deleted once the export is finished. You can of course download the file via the link if so desired. If you opt not to post to Twitter, the Message box becomes inaccessible. A Signup button is built in to allow new users to create a Twitter account.

The plugin comes in 2 forms, a demo version that allows 10 exports before being disabled. As Twitpic tends to be a single image at a time service, this should be more than enough to form an opinion about requiring the plugin or not. The full version works in exactly the same way, but is not restricted. The full version is available for download via e-junkie for a coffee busting €2.50 (introductory offer).

Errors
The Plugin traps Twitpic errors and displays the text in a dialog. The list is not exhaustive, but covers incorrect username and password, incorrect file type and file too large (over 5Mb).

Note: As with the FTP presets in Lightroom, this sends text, including the password, in the clear, so be warned if you are using someone else's network, they can snoop out your password.

Known issues: Sometimes if the plugin is used immediately after starting, Twitpic will return an incorrect file type error. As the plugin automatically creates an sRGB Jpeg, it can't create the wrong file type. I suspect the file sends before it finishes processing. Simply resend the file and it will work the second time.

Install and use. To install this plugin, open the Plugin Manager (File>Plugin Manager) and click Add on the bottom left. Navigate to the unzipped file and choose it. The Plugin is now installed. To use click the Export button in the Left Panel of Library. Alternatively use the shortcut Shift Command E on Mac or Shift Control E on PC. Click the top of the Dialog (default says File on Disk) and choose Lr2Twitpic from the list. Enter your Twitter Username and password, along with an optional message. Choose from the other options including file sizing (recommended!) and watermarking. Click Export when ready.

Metadata
To view the custom metadata associated with this plugin, click the preset field beside the title of the Metadata panel and select Lr2Twitpic from the list.

Demo Download
Click to download demo. By clicking the link the user agrees to the EULA agreement.

Purchase
Click Add to Cart to be taken to E-junkie where payment can be processed. By purchasing the user agrees to the EULA agreement.




Support
Support can be obtained at http://lightroom-blog.com/forum

Teaser announcement... New Export Plugin

Those of you paying attention on Twitter might have been as surprised as I when my first ever Export Plugin worked. I'd been having an issue getting one part of the plugin to talk to the other. The plugin worked with manual entries internally, so I know it wasn't there. All good now. I've got the error codes working and the plugin now returns the Twitpic URL when completed.

And on to the announcement.

Lightroom-Blog.com is pleased to announce it's forthcoming Lightroom to Twitpic export plugin. This plugin allows the user to upload to Twitpic and have the option of posting the link to Twitter, along with a message, or simply to upload the image. If unsuccesful, the plugin posts the Twitpic error message, or if successful, it posts the URL into metadata, accessible via a custom Tagset in the Metadata Panel.

The plugin needs a little polish before it's ready for general release, like a better logo than I have, and a bottom of dialog section to link back to the plugin details and twitter signup page.

Metadata Plugin Schema got you down?

The Lightroom SDK covers the basics of creating a Metadata Plugin quite well. Detailed examples and explanations abound. I got a basic plugin going quickly and then went on to add new features to it. Two things I noticed I could add to the fields were

searchable=true,
browsable=true,

So I added searchable=true and then restarted Lightroom. Yes I know I can just reload the plugin, but sometimes restarting can rule out silly issues that may arise. All was well, or was it?
When I enabled the plugin I got a message I simply did not understand. It referred to a change in schema, with an increment in field version number needed to correct it. I had no idea what to do.. I tried expanding the schemaVersion code section and incrementing the schemaVersion. No joy. In the end I rang John Beardsworth. We'd been chinwagging online about Lua and the SDK and I figured he might be able to direct me. He was. It was all quite simple really. Each field you create also needs to have a 'version=x.x' line, which must be incremented when you change the properties of the field.

Obviously I got this all sorted, because lots of you are downloading LRB Releases. No reflection on the SDK writers as versioning is mentioned in the SDK (page 55 to be precise). It's marked as optional, but if you are making changes to the field, then you need to use it.

LRB Releases

For my first metadata plugin, I've created an extension of the SDK examples. This plugins allows you to tag an image with a Model Release or a Propery Release as required. For the more organised it also allows you to give it a number. The even more organised could scan in the release and name it with this number, making it easy to search for.

As with any Plugin, open the Plugin Manager (File>Plugin Manager). Click Add on the bottom left to start the process. In the window that appears, navigate to where you've stored the plugin (e.g. you could put it in My Documents/LR Plugins, or Documents/LR Plugins), then select it. Finally click the Add Plugin button on the bottom right.

You may get a request asking to Update the Catalog. Lightroom does this to add the new fields to the catalog. Click Update.

To use the plugin, open the Metadata panel at the bottom right Panel. From the preset list choose 'Release Forms Tagset'.

From here you can use the Model and Property Release menu to choose Yes, Not Required and No Release from the list. You can also enter the form number if you use such things.

Disclaimer. This Plugin is free and is offered as is. Use is at your own risk. I have used it successfully here, but offer no warranty or guarantee that it will be successful for you. By downloading this plugin you accept all liability for any damage that may occur, and release me from any such liability.


Click Add to Cart to be taken to E-Junkie.com for your download.
This product is donationware. If you find it useful, then please return and donate.

You download from Adobe Exchange, or using the e-junkie free cart:

To come.. Metadata Plugin #1

So I delve into the madness that is Lightroom Plugins. While they are Lua based, they are very much removed from the world of Web Engines.
The SDK only covers so much and you'd need to be aware of everything in it to get by. For instance the metadata examples don't contain version numbers, when you need this to allow the plugin to update. Also I think (only guessing) that because I started without one, and tried updating schema, that it is need there also.
So enough bellyaching about it, and off I got to make a nice post and polish up my first plugin.

LRB Portfolio 2.0 released

In the midst of all the current madness going on in the country around me, I'm pleased to announce that LRB Portfolio 2.0 has been released and is available to buy now. Users of older versions can use their download link to get the new version.
A new website is now online for the product: http://lrbportfolio.com/. The site will be the most up to date place to look for news on LRB Portfolio.

Changes

Changed charset to UTF-16 to allow for further languages

Fixed Content Area font size issues by adding a Content Font Size control

Added image choice to Menu

Added provisional code to allow Google Analytics code to be pasted:WARNING, each gallery loading will open the Google Analytics code in a browser window. This is how Lightroom deals with external resources and cannot be prevented. If you don't like this, then leave the Insert Analytics Code box unticked.

Added IE8 conditional code

Added an image choice to the mail page

Change the Page title on the mail page to whatever is in the Page Title

Addition of the Dynamic Drive scroll script and making the internal script options available in the Output Settings panel.

Added on text editing for home, about and blank pages

added a body width option

Fixed float issues with images dropping down.

Go to LRB Portfolio Website.

Links and news.

I've posted again on Lightroom news, but you should check out Tim Armes new plugin for Lightroom: LR2/Blog. It's a photoblog plugin for Lightroom that lets you publish blog posts to blogger and Wordpress (or those that use the metaWebLog API) blogs. You can add text to the post, overwrite previous files, etc. It's a great idea for a plugin and works well.

On the 'please release V2 of LRB Portfolio' front, well maybe if people would take a break from mailing in feature requests, it might actually get out the door. As it is I have to rewrite some of the user guide before release! Soon, I promise. And quit asking for beta versions.... :)


One thing I have been doing is spending some time on Lynda.com. I have the bones of a book on writing web galleries done from 1.3, so I've been looking at InDesign course, and of course I'm doing Eric Meyer's CSS course. I've even applied one or 2 ideas to the gallery since (like the dropping image when the window is too narrow issue - now it just hides instead).
Even though I'm only there a week, I really recommend it. I'll take a peek at the Lightroom courses there and do a mini review in time.
Anyhow, back to the grindstone.

LRB Portfolio updated to 1.1

LRB Portfolio, the website in a gallery plugin for Lightroom has been updated to version 1.1. New features include an error page for galleries lacking enough images, body font settings and background image control. Bug fixes include an issue with mail.php generation in 1.03. Current users can get the update through the download email they received with product purchase. If you have mislaid this, it went to your paypal email address. If you've used up all the downloads, reply with the download email and I'll reset it.

Where to keep your Lightroom Plugins.

There's been some questions and concern expressed in a few places about the where you should keep your Lightroom plugins (I'm not referring to Web Engines here, they do have a specific place).

The SDK tells us that Lightroom looks in a specific place for Plugins.

In Mac OS (current user) ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules
In Mac OS (all users) /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules
In Windows XP C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom\Modules
In Windows Vista C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Modules

Plugins located here are automatically loaded and can be both enabled or disabled by the Plugin Manager, but not removed.

This lack of removal is causing pain for a number of users, so a few Lightroom users/gurus/developers were talking about this a while ago. We bantered back and forth about how we work around this limitation. In the end we figured on a simple solution. Manually create a folder beside Modules called 'Plugins' and store your plugins there. This allows you to have a central repository for all your Lightroom plugins, and to be able to add or remove them using the Plugin Manager. This isn't any kind of mandatory or definitive solution, but may be of use if you feel you need to be able to remove plugins without losing them.

Export Plugin: Lightroom to Gallery2

A number of developers have jumped on board with Export Plugins for Gallery 2

Fototagebuch has a 0.1.1 version of the plugin available. It's quite feature laden for what is essentially a Beta Version of the Plugin.

Meanwhile Ubermind have their own Beta plugin for Gallery. Ubermind have created quite a lot of Aperture plugins, so it's good to see them on board with Lightroom also.