Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Magic Export for Lightroom


ImageMagick is a swell open source package that can do all manor of things to images, including save them in many different file formats. I was asked for a way to save files out of Lightroom into production-oriented formats like DPX, so I wired ImageMagick into a Lightroom plug-in that you can download for free.

So far it just lets you save into six additional file formats and pick the bit depth. ImageMagick has many more formats and other capabilities that could be added in the future, so let me hear your requests!

Version: 0.5
Date: 11 November 2014
Download
(includes Mac & Win)

65 comments:

  1. Nice post. I love it. I hope to see more. Thanks for sharing with us.

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  2. What exactly would I click to make it work? I've installed it, it shows up in LR 4's plug-in manager, but cannot see what to click to make it appear or do anything. Thanks in advance for any help.

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  3. It appears in the dialog that pops up when you do an Export.

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  5. When the Export dialog comes up, you'll see an "Export To:" menu at the top. Switch it to "Magic Export" to expose the extra options.

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  6. Is there way to import and read JPEG 2000 in LR?

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  7. No, I don't think it's possible to make Lightroom plug-ins that read new file formats. Even this plug-in works by exporting in one of Lightroom's native formats and then converts it to the desired format.

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  8. I see, Thank you.

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  9. Does this plugin not work with LR5? Worked fine for me on LR4 but will not on 5. :(

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  10. Does this work with LR5? I can't seem to get it to work. Thanks!

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  11. Thanks for the plugin, it's great. Running perfectly on Lightroom v5.

    I am currently using it to export PSDs to PNG and maintain the transparency. My only issue is the export gives me 2 versions, flattened and transparent, is there any way to just get the transparent version? Otherwise I have to manually go through them and delete the flattened versions.

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  12. As Daniel pointed out, yes the plug-in does work in Lightroom 5. Make sure you read the ReadMe file for instructions on installing and using it.

    I ran a few tests and transparency seemed to work as expected for me. Maybe try exporting to "Hard Drive" instead of Magic Export and see what Lightroom does normally.

    I'll also point out that this plug-in is basically open source because the script files are right there inside the plug-in. If you want to alter the behavior, break it open and start tinkering.

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  13. I got LR5 to recognize the plugin, but the jpeg2000 files are 0 bytes. What would cause this?

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  14. Don't work with OS X 10.9 :( It will be need XQuartz...

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  15. Hi, thx for the plug in. I have LR4, but the oinly extra export showing is TIFF & PSD, when I switch to Magic Export. Am I doing something wrong. I didn't appear to have a read me file in the download to refer to.

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  16. That one stumped me too for a bit. After you select Export to Magic Export at the top of the dialog box, go through and make your normal selections, but when you get down to where you'd typically select file type, go all the way to the bottom of the dialog box and there's a new "Magic Export" section, and THAT'S where you can choose PNG or whatever.

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  18. This plugin is literally incredible! I have 55 cut-out PSDs, which my client has asked to be provided as PNGs (with transparency). I seriously doubted that this plugin would preserve the transparency in the PSDs, but since it popped up when searching for Lightroom export to PNG I thought I would give it a go.

    Amazingly, it does preserve the transparency. Great I thought, but I bet it doesn't allow me to export virtual copies of PSD files which I have cropped, straightened and sharpened in Lightroom and retain both the lightroom edits and the transparency.

    And what do you know, it does! This is excellent!!

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  19. Thank you so much for making available this plug-in for free. It's awesome.

    In one of your posts you mention that the plug-in works by first converting the files to a native Lightroom format and then by converting those files to DPX.

    I'm working with RAW images that I want to convert to DPX preserving as much information to process them outside LR. Is there much information lost in this process? What is that intermediate LR format?

    Thanks again!

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  20. It works by first exporting the file as a TIFF or PSD, whichever you specify in the standard Lightroom File Settings section. From there, Image Magick will convert to DPX.

    If you go from a 16-bit TIFF to a 16-bit DPX, the DPX will have all the pixel information that the TIFF had.

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  21. Wow, thank you for the super fast response. One thing though, I'm using LR 5 on a mac, and I don't see the DPX option in the Image Format drop down menu. I can only choose between TIFF and PSD.
    Is there something else I need to do?

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  22. I know, it's a little confusing. There are actually two places where you specify file formats.

    The first is the regular Lightroom File Settings section, where you specify PSD or TIFF. This is what Lightroom itself exports, to be used as an intermediate file and then deleted.

    The second place is down below in the Magic Export section, which will only be visible if you set the Export As menu at the top of the dialog box to Magic Export. This lets you specify which format the file will finally end up as when its converted by ImageMagick.

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  23. oohh I see it! Perfect! This is very nice, thank you so very much.

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  24. Hi there... I've already installed the plugin and the needed xquartz.app. How come it gives me the error "failed to export 1 file to " or something like that

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  25. Thanks man, finally got it to work. I am less and less satisfied with adobe. I should start invoicing them for my time trying to resolve this which should wokr natively, thanks again

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  26. Great plug in, it's been working great, but suddenly stopped working - could it be to do with OSX 10.10 Yosemite?

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  27. Ok. Huge Issue. Since Ive updated the OS to Yosemite the xQuartz app is no longer working and throwing up an error when trying to export as .png in LR. (Failed to export) This has stopped me dead in my tracks. The Plugin doesnt work and no other option is available in LR plugins. Please Help. Deadlines looming.

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  28. I'm with Tony above - this is a major problem. I know the main issue is Adobes refusal to support png, but your plugin was ace ... PLEASE can we have a fix for Yosemite???

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  29. Hey guys, I think it was just a simple linking fix, which I've posted. Please re-download the plug-in and report back.

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  30. Thanks Brendan

    Yes, simple fresh download and re-instal of plug-in.

    All working again now :)

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  31. Hi Brandon, My plug in is from 2012. Is there a newer version to play with Yosemite. I followed your prompt to re install and I am still getting the error message.

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  32. Hey Lori, I didn't update the date on the blog until just now, but the file was in fact updated. So re-download and install the newest version, which should work in Yosemite.

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  33. It worked!! Airhug on the way. Thanks, you're the best!

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  34. Thanks
    Tony Here. Fresh Install works. Ace

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  35. Thank you SO much for the update - it's a lifesaver!!

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  36. Thank you very much for this. Greatly appreciated!

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  37. Thanks for the plugin. Sadly the PNG export (long side 960pc) is often larger than 1mb and this Facebook will convert it to jpg again. This voids the use of the plugin for me.
    I see that there is an option for quality on convert.exe. Maybe you could add this, so we can fiddle around and keep the filesize below 1mb.

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  38. PNG uses lossless compression, so it will always be a lot bigger than JPEG. You're probably better off just uploading a big JPEG.

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  39. When I try to add the pluging in Lightroom Plugin manager I have the option Mac or Win ( I have windows). When I click on windows, Lightroom says "an error occured while attempting to load this plugin". What am I doing wrong?

    Thanks!

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  40. Just installed the plug in, but it only shows PSD and TIFF as possible file formats to export.

    Is PNG not supported anymore?

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  41. As it says in the ReadMe, there are a few steps to get the plug-in working:

    1. Install the plug-in using Lightroom's plug-in manager.

    2. In the Export dialog, change the "Export To:" menu at the top of the window to "Magic Export".

    3. Go to the Magic Export section at the bottom of the dialog to set other file formats like PNG.

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  42. It works perfectly!
    Thank you so much for the efforts!

    Kind regards,
    Damian

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  43. Works perfectly in LR6
    Thank you for the plugin.

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  44. Hi, great tool, thank you very much for it, works perfect in my LR 4.4.

    What I personally miss very much in the PNG export is including the Alpha channel in exported PNGs. I work on bulks of PSDs with semi-transparent backgrounds and I'm looking for a tool to be able to convert them all to semi-transparent PNGs, Image Processor Pro plugin for Photoshop does the job but is terribly slow in handling a batch process (at least with my Photoshop CS6). Any chance you can add the PNG Alpha channel export to your plugin?

    Thanks again!

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  45. When I use the j2k plug from fnord, I can get a much smaller file size. It gives me a file that's about 2mb with maximum 16 bit lossy settings, but the 16 bit files with the lightroom plugin are 39mb. Is there any way to change the settings somewhere in the script to use a lossy encoding?

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  46. Thanks a lot for this great plugin. I am using it for exporting images to facebook by 1200px longest side and it works perfectly.

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  47. 2016 and still useful!
    I have been looking for png export for ages now.

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  48. Hi

    I have problem with download. All browsers have the same message ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT.

    Can I ask to check this? I realy need that SOFT! :)

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  49. I have problem with download. All browsers have the same message ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT.

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  50. Great tool, it works. Just wondering if it is possible to customise it, in particular, keeping the metadata from the original photo?

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  51. I should add that while PNG does not support EXIF natively, it does support data chunks for some metadata (eg: creation time, title, author, etc)

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  52. Great plug-in!

    Any plans to update to the latest versions of ImageMagick?

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  53. Thanks for the Plugin. It works. But having a set of transparent PSD (one layer) images I always end up having two exported png-files. One is transparent and one has a white background. Do need to change any settings or ist there another way to end up with just one transparent png-file? Thanks for a hint.

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  54. Hello,

    I have some problems with this plugin. I only get the option for .psd and .tiff files, but whenever I export, I'm getting a .dpx file which I can't open with any program.
    Hopefully you can help

    Sam

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  55. Something change on it Sam, It used to work flawlessly and then after some LR updates, it no longer gels for me. It's a shame that LR doesn't offer PNG on export.

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  56. Works great on Lr 6.12! Is there a way to rename existing exports instead of overwiting them? eg after some further editing I export the same file and need to have both before-after exported files. Thanks for this extremely useful plugin!

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  58. Not working on Lr 6.12.

    Giving an error "The export post-processing filter failed to render the file. (1)"

    (I have installed LRMogrify2 also )

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  59. To avoid error "The export post-processing filter failed to render the file. (1)" Use TIFF instead of PSD in the "file settings" section.

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  60. Hi Is there a way to install this for LR CC on the mac?

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  61. How to your install magic export plugin?

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  62. Thank you, you saved my working day!!

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  63. It has installed, and is visible in Plugin Mgr, but I don't see it when I click Export to. Using LR CC on windows 10

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  65. Genie, be sure you select it from the 'Export To' menu at the top of the export dialogue. This was a step I missed, but all good now.

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