Lightroom Secrets

Spotlight: Jeffrey Friedl

Lightroom has many many features but there are still things it cannot do out of the box. Luckily, Adobe anticipated this and provided an SDK (Software Developer Kit) to allow third party developers to create plugins that can enhance Lightroom’s feature set. If you’ve ever come across the need for a third party plugin then changes are you already know Jeffrey Friedl.

Jeffrey is on a very very short list of people whose names come to mind when you say Lightroom Plugin. He is one of the most prolific plugin developers for Lightroom. An excellent photographer in his own right, Jeffrey develops Lightroom plugins as a hobby! And the Lightroom community is certainly grateful for it!

Here is some background from Jeffrey’s site:

I enjoy researching a subject of personal interest, and then, because I occasionally stumble across an ability to write well, sharing the results. Examples include my long writeup on digital image color spaces and the autofocus test chart that I developed. (See all in my list of geeky photo-tech posts.)

I also seem to have become the main provider of export plugins for Adobe Lightroom, such as my plugins that allow direct export to Zenfolio, Flickr, SmugMug, PicasaWeb (with Facebook and more on the way for Lightroom 2.0) — see my Lightroom Goodies page for current details. I develop these on my own time, as a hobby, which is perhaps a bit odd because I don’t actually use any of these photo-hosting services myself.

Occasionally in response to my camera-tech writing, and much more after I released my plugins, I have been surprised to find how many people wanted to make a donation to thank me for my time and efforts. Like I said, I do all this as a hobby, so donations or payment are not required (nor is my reply to your support request ), but I’ve finally succumbed and set up a PayPal account. Donations are still not required, but if provided, are gratefully accepted.

Jeffrey currently has the following enhancements available for Lightroom:

“Export To…” Uploading Plugins:

• Export Plugin for Zenfolio
• Export Plugin for SmugMug
• Export Plugin for Flickr
• Export Plugin for PicasaWeb
• Export Plugin for Facebook
• Export Plugin for Expono
• Export Plugin for Photobucket

Export-Filter Plugins:

• Metadata Wrangler
• “Run Any Command”

Geoencoding-Related Plugins:

• GPS Support (geoencoding)
• GPS Proximity Search

Utility Plugins, Etc.:

• Video-Asset Management
• Metadata-Viewer Preset Builder
• Folder Watch (enhanced auto-importing)
• Megapixel Sort
• Focal-length Sort
• Data Plot (plot of focal lengths used)
• Extended Search (adds enhanced image-search capabilities)
• Preview-Cache Image Extraction Tool (LR2.x only)
• Picasa Face-Data Import (warning: highly “beta”)

Plugin-related Info:

• Installation and Management of Lightroom Plugins
• Known Bugs, and To-Do List
• Preset Templates in my Lightroom Plugins

Tools for Lightroom:

• Jeffrey’s Lightroom Configuration Manager
  

Jeffrey has set up a registration system for his plugins using PayPal. You only need to pay as little as one cent (which he doesn’t get because of PayPal fees) but which provides a registration code. Of course you can try any of them for free they will limit themselves after the trial period without registration.

While you can get registration codes for a penny I really encourage you to make a significantly higher donation. These plugins are extremely useful and masterfully crafted!

Even if you don’t use any of Jeffrey’s plugins stop by his blog or subscribe to his feed. He always has something interesting to say and his photography is great!

Thanks, Jeffrey, for all you do for the Lightroom Community!

Related posts:

1. What I’d Like to See in Lightroom 4
2. Spotlight: Anita Dennis
3. Spotlight: Mark Wilson

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Tags: Lightroom, News

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 19th, 2009 at 5:25 pm and is filed under Lightroom, News, Spotlight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.