Lightroom: Support Common Image Formats (EPS, GIF, PDF, BMP etc.)

well the request is over 4 years old.

adobe cares a sh*t.... obviously.
every shareware coder could do it in less time.

i mean most lightroom user are on subscription anyway.. so why do something?

a few crappy beta features every 6 month keeps most of the lemmings hooked.

I've only recently become aware of another need for GIF file support - in particular: for Animated GIFs or Cinemagraphs produced by Photoshop CC 2015. So, I'm really surprised to discover my LR CC 2015 is unable to add them to the catalogue.

I also notice that Bridge is listed under "Previous Versions" in that ridiculous Creative Cloud App that take so long to verify my account - a possible indicator that Adobe is allowing Bridge to vanish altogether.

And another thing: they are unable to change my Adobe ID (i.e. my email) and say I must delete my current subscription and create a new one to do this. I find that to be pathetic.

All this is causing me to become p***ed off and look elsewhere, but there just isn't a viable Photoshop alternative for the type of work I do. They have me by the short and curlys.

I would love to be able to import non-image files into Lightroom's database. It would be a very useful feature.

An example of where this would be useful: I occasionally have additional files which are associated with a set of photos. Notes in text files, information in PDFs, audio files, and so on. I can copy these files to the same folder as the photos in the library. But without the ability to see these files in Lightroom, to add keywords and make them searchable, they are effectively lost forever among the thousands of other files and directories.

The ability to manage these files in Lightroom would be extremely valuable. I would not expect Lightroom to support editing or even preview of non-image files. Just the ability to keep track of them.

I've just found this out and am gobsmacked. I created the GIF in Photoshop from a series of photos, exported it, and now can't use it in Lightroom. Yet Lightroom reads videos. Astounding. I came to Adobe Creative CLoud because it was supposed to be more of a standard than the DAM that I had been using. Now I find it does less. My vote has been cast for Adobe to include them, even if only to enable Lightroom to be more of a PROPER cataloguing program. I thought so! I previously had Photoshop Elements 12, and that can handle GIFs and also PDF files. Now I am even more amazed that the supposedly professional better option cannot.

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Massive failing, all DAM software see bmp except Adobe.

For what would be some simple coding to view bmp files by Adobe..., Lightroom would have been the new replacement to what was an excellent DAM software, Extensis Portfolio, (discontinued and Portfolio users not happy !!!!)  but Lr doesnt support a native raster file type hat has existed since the inception of windows, that of bmp. All others do. I am gutted. Thats Lightroom of no use, I have thousands of bmp files, and no  I am not converting them, as I am making them daily with the progs that by default make them, simulators, and also I have to make them for Msoft Access database displays as it only works on bmp.

As such Lightroom falls at first hurdle.

Merlin

Question: what is so special about GIF that Lightroom cannot support it?

How can we make Adobe see how common GIF is, and how Lightroom already supports a (albeit extremely limited) set of video formats?

GIF engines are *plentyful* and should be dead-easy to implement. Heck, even Photoshop can read and write GIF (among very many others!), so why are the Lightroom devs so stubborn in comparison?

Oh? Lightroom didn't support .bmp ? 
Now I have to go for ACDsee? Wow. 

I've been asking Adobe to let us see pdfs for... how many years now?... in their "surveys". 
Obviously no one is listening! 
Surely this can't be that difficult a request, especially when so many users are in favor. 
But I guess users don't count.

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Feature Request - Ability to Import PDF files into LR Classic CC.

Please Adobe, make your Creative Suite truly integrated with at least our own products. I want to be able to use LR to import,view and manage PDF files (an Adobe standard). I can do it in Bridge without any fuss, why can't I do it in LR. I understand this feature request goes back at least 8 years and still nothing has been done about it. If you negelect the very core premise of your CC products, i.e. seamless workflow integration, then Adobe and the CC suite will soon lose relevance and value, a competitor will come along that listens to its user needs and they will attract your customers. Once you lose your customers trust and confidence, it is very hard (and expensive) to win them back. I have been an Adobe LR user since the beta days, it is generally a good product, but it is losing its shine. In the past, third party LR plugins like import anyfile would get around this issue but that no longer works with latest versions of LR.

Another example of lacking true integration that I have raised before is not having the ability to drag and drop edited images in LR into Indesign and keep the non destructive edits. There is Live captioning between programs, but not Live edits. A significant oversight resulting in a time consuming workflow of having to edit in Photoshop, then re-save the image so the image can be placed into indesign.

Please  stop procrastinating on this matter, you have the expertise and the ability to solve these issues quickly and efficiently, just do it.

Thank you, Doug Willis.

I am delighted to see the plug-in for "Any Files".  I did not know this plug-in existed. Complements to John R Ellis for the effort involved.  I will test it out and make a donation if I find it anyway useful (which I expect to do).

My background is large scale enterprise level commercial application and infrastructure development and implementation. I understand what is involved in terms of integrating systems and applications.

It has been my view, for many years, that Adobe does not under stand the meaning of 'integration' or real world 'workflow'. 

It is astonishing that Lightroom does not fully integrate to InDesign, especially to avoid round trips and the creation of intermediate files that end up  populating / clogging various directories and sub directories. There is a large number of people just waiting for the Data Merge feature in Affinity to ditch InDesign. I will be one of those then supporting Affinity.


It is also really bad form that Lightroom does not allow Creative Suite docs to be managed by Lightroom. I keep a client sub folder for each project, which contains related documents, such as briefs, agreements, project notes, etc.  If Adobe allowed pdf's to be maintained in Lr then I could work around that. Ideally, all documents of the user's choice should be manageable  by Lightroom.  This is seriously short sighted behaviour by Adobe, as it just narrows the audience for their products.


I have been encouraged by some recent improvements in Lightroom and Photoshop  usability. I sense someone in authority has joined the team and has a real world grasp of usability from a user's perspective. A release of Ps a few months ago fixed about 20 scenarios which always confounded new PS users.  Well done.   I hope this trend continues. For the first time in years and years and years I was impressed by a meaningful application update. Complements to the architect of these improvements.


Bottom line. 
Allow Lightroom to manage all file types, priority on Pdf's. Secondly, improve integration between Lr and InDesign or face the prospect of InDesign becoming a sideshow.

Photographers like me don't want to be juggling both Lightroom and Bridge to manage our image assets. Lightroom should be improved to recognize common image formats.

It's actually worse than some of the comments imply. Lightroom gives certain image types the same namespace. For example, if you have a png and jpg file in the directory, Lightroom will only show one of them.

I think it is also a shame that there is no multi-user version of Lightroom, to make it more useful in SOHO and workgroup environments, as well as in enterprises. 

1. Mixing Lightroom and Bridge (in my view) is a recipe for disaster.  The most obvious is moving files outside of Lr. There is also potential for side car issues, messages that metadata has been updated by 3rd party apps, etc. 

2. The minimum Adobe should do is cater for their own eco-system. There is no excuse for Adobe to ignore images in their own Creative Suite family.  Adobe have the resources to do this if they wanted to. Catering for non Adobe file formats would be nice to have. Catering for pdf's would be a super fist step.

3. They really only have to cater for the Library module.