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What I’d Love To See Next in Lightroom…Part 7

I was going to do 10 of these, but I realized I could do a whole bunch more, so I’m just going to cut my series off here at Part 7. Then on Friday, I’ll compile and list my favorites from your suggestions (and it’s going to be hard to narrow those down, because you guys have come up with some great ideas!). OK, on to the last in my series:

#7: We need a better way to import graphics

If you can think of a program that makes it clunkier to work with an imported graphic, I’d like to know what it is, because importing a graphic using The Identity Plate Editor, where you can’t actually see your graphic unless it just happens to be a graphic that is long, wide and less than 1-inch tall, is about as clumsy a method I’ve ever seen. Heck, MacPaint did a better job of working with imported graphics.

Iden

Above: This is what the Identity Plate Editor looks like with my logo just imported into it. What? You don’t see my logo? Exactly my point!

There’s got to be a better way to a get a graphic onto our prints, into our slideshows, and in our photo books. The Identity Plate method is definitely a workaround — so I would dearly love to see a way to bring in graphics that makes sense, and doesn’t cause us to lose the text that we would have been able to add using the Identity Plate Editor, but again — if the Identity Plate editor was just used for what it was designed for (replacing the Lightroom logo with your studio’s logo), then Lightroom would have:

(a) A real type engine in the Print and Slideshow modules

(b) A method for bringing in and working with graphics like most every other program on the planet

(c ) An Identity Plate Editor that just did what it was designed to do, so we wouldn’t need it for workarounds for other stuff Lightroom should be able to do.

Lightroom is now around eight years old. It’s time to fix some of these foundational things, like importing graphics and having the people who actually invented the Postscript type engine give Lightroom decent type control outside of just the Book Module (but it’s limited there, too, to just two blocks of text you can only move in certain ways and only so far). It’s time.

OK, folks. There ya have it. Seven of the things I’d love to see added to Lightroom.

Tomorrow Mr. Pete will be here sharing his Lightroom Love, and then on Friday (since the Lightroom Show is on our season hiatus), I’ll be back with our look at my favorites of your submissions.

Best,

-Scott

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