A post by Wil Andrews in the Adobe Lightroom Feature Requests forum has me thinking about this again. Way back in the Beta forums, I placed forward extensive (and ignored!) ideas for improving Print. I’m adding my thoughts here, based on the post, but with more stuff added. Of course this is just my humble opinion.
For Print layout, I would like to be able to select a template on a page by page basis. I’d like to be able to go full bleed on one page and have 2 images on the next if I like.
I’d like to be able to specify cell size and shape on a per cell basis, not a per page basis as is currently the case. This would include where the cell is positioned on the page. These capabilities do amount to a basic book layout, but in a primitive form. I’d also like to see full Print to file capability including TIFF, JPG and PDF from within Lightroom from the Print Module at high resolution.
I’d like to be able to add text per page as I see fit and to include blank pages (with or without text though) to aid formatting when Printing to PDF.
We already seen how we can cheat with ID Plates to create borders. I’d like to see this function extended specifically to a Borders Pane, again selectable on a per image basis. IE each cell can be sized as you wished with it’s own custom border.
These features would be great for Wedding Photographers doing digital albums, Photographers self publishing through sites such as lulu.com and a host of other related media. It also would be a means of creating specialised portfolios quickly as a as photographer demands them.
The mixed media of test and photos means people could also do photo instruction through the medium, all without leaving Lightroom.
Hopefully this will make sense to people. While I’m asking a lot, even some of the features with a shortfall would still be good. Aim for the stars…
Book layout is my No1 request it shouldn’t be difficult the page size, bleed, front covers are pretty basic but the speed of working with the raw files directly and being linked to the source would be a major benefit in my workflow.
At present I use Aperture but these are hard coded to Apples own books so can’t output sizes for Bellissimo or Graphi-studio albums.
Fingers crossed the gurus at Adobe are listening on this one.
basically another pane is needed: Albums ! That would be great to stay on the same app to create nice looking albums.
Also, I’d like to see the possibility to add music to slideshow and to be able to export in DVD format has well as Quicktime, MP4, etc… Basically not having to load lightroom to show a slideshow.
Cheers
Yes Don, but Norby is referring to the Save as PDF in the Print Dialog in the Apple OS, which leaves a much larger file than that of Adobe for the same resolution
I always though PDF was an Adobe Acrobat file format. Not a Apple Format.
Absolutely! I would love to not have to use a 3rd-party program (and then rely on Apple’s bloated “Save as PDF”, especially given that this is the company that created the PDF file! (Image Buddy prints to JPG, but the printer I was using was looking for PDF files as they’re a copy shop, not an image lab).
The lack of any facility to add text to the page apart from per-image names keeps it from actually being useful for printing contact sheets, unless you’ve got a penchant for handwriting titles on every page…
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Yes! You hit on my number one Lightroom request: Print to JPEG file.
I do most of my printing through online print houses, so I would like to be able to use all the great layout features of the print pane, get everything setup just right, save it all to JPEG files, and upload to Mpix.
Since I can’t yet do that (and I don’t have a photo printer I’m really happy with), the Print pane goes mostly unused for me. 🙁