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Nikon D3 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/1250 sec, f/5, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Me Playing Dressup
Paul swung by with his camera while I was out on a date with my wife last month.
photo by Paul Barr
Back during the Lightroom 2 days (circa early 2009), I spent some intense weeks writing a really great plugin, allowing a user to create custom image metadata fields on the fly. If a user suddenly decides that he wants an extra metadata field to describe the weather for a shot, or the flash setup, or a model's name, or whatever, just a few clicks in a plugin dialog and voilà, it would appear with the standard image metadata alongside each photo. I really wanted this for my own use, and I knew lots of folks would be jazzed about it as well.
Unfortunately, I eventually noticed an incompatibility with how Lightroom sometimes loads plugins. I spent much energy trying everything I could think of to dance around the issue. I'm pretty good at this kind of thing because I routinely push Lightroom's plugin infrastructure well beyond what it was designed for. In a twisted way, this is part of the fun of Lightroom plugin development for me, to come up with “creative” ways to get things done and make my photo workflow easier.
But in this case, back in 2009, it beat me, and with great reluctance I abandoned the plugin.
Nikon D3 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/640 sec, f/4, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Dedication To The Shot
( this shot )
photo by Paul Barr
(I'm populating this narcissistic post with various shots of me that I've accumulated from friends I go out shooting with, mostly by Paul on his visits to Kyoto.)
Over the years I've kept an eye out for a change in Lightroom plugin infrastructure that would happen to allow the plugin to work, but it's never come. (To be clear, I can't blame Adobe because, again, I'm pushing things well beyond the design envelope). But on a whim last night, perhaps in an effort to avoid actually having to address the hundreds of request-for-help emails that have accumulated recently, I pulled the old plugin carcass from my archive and gave it a try.
It still didn't work, but I expected that.
Nikon D3 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1600 sec, f/8, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Squished Nose
happens every time the camera is in landscape mode
photo by Paul Barr
But even though Lightroom's plugin-infrastructure tools have not improved in this particular area, they have definitely improved here and there in other areas, so I gave it another try. Combined with perhaps a bit more ingenuity under my belt this time, after a few hours of hacking around, I figured out a way to make it work!
Woo-hoo!
Nikon D3 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/200 sec, f/4, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Just Rewards!
the beer she was pulling was for me
photo by Paul Barr
Getting the custom-metadata plugin working was great news, but also dreadful news.
It's great because now I can use this plugin for myself. It works. It does what I need. My workflow will be better because of it.
It's dreadful because I know others would find it useful, so I feel a strong desire to release the plugin, and that would take a lot more work. I'd have to bullet-proof the thing. I'd have to write up docs and FAQs and make screenshots. I'd have to add all kinds of things to the plugin that I don't personally need, but I'm sure others will ask for (and in some cases, demand). Some of those things (such as the ability to transfer the custom metadata when exporting or merging catalogs) pose serious complications whose potential solutions are all among the “dammed if you do, dammed if you don't” can't-please-everyone genre that will certainly, no matter what, generate complaints and requests.
E-P2 — 1/640 sec, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Futzing With the Polarizer Filter
"Why can't Nikon design a lens hood that incorporates access to a filter? They must all be idiots!"
photo by Nicolas Joannin
So in the end, I will spend a ridiculous amount of time doing all this, resulting in yet another incessant flow of request-for-help mails that fill my inbox and increase my stress. That sounds like a complaint, and I suppose it is, but I choose this hobby freely because I like most aspects of it. I just need to be smart about how I handle the stressful aspects of it, lest I let it drive me into another stress breakdown.
I went to bed last night trying to decide whether I want to even try to release it. Do I want to accept the burden of stress that inevitably comes with it? If so, can I do anything now to decrease the amount of stress generated later?
Nikon D3 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/200 sec, f/4, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Taking A Rest
while on the outing that produced this post and this post.
photo by Paul Barr
I woke up without an answer, but as I helped prepare Anthony for school, I decided to at least give it a try, to prepare a version with ample caveats about data migration, and see how it went from there. If it became popular, I'd feel good about spending more energy to tackle the tough problems that remained, and if not, well, I just saved myself a lot of grief.
Nikon D3 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24mm — 1/125 sec, f/2.8, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
In a Friendly Frame of Mind
photo by Paul Barr
So it was with that frame of mind that I saw Anthony off to school, prepared a cup of coffee, and checked in on the computer. I found among my mail the notice of a gift from a Boston photographer who wanted to register one of my plugins. As per the “donationware” thing, he didn't have to send me anything at all to use my plugins, but he kindly chose to send $5. That was nice, but he also added this personal message to me:
| “ |
Another extortion payment to keep my Lr plugin running.
Advice: Make the darn thing about $100, let us pay that and then leave us alone STOP INTERRUPTING MY WORK WITH THESE INSIDIOUS 'RE" REGISTRATIONS. ” |
Well, that's not a pleasant way to start the day.
Nikon D3 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 38mm — 1/50 sec, f/4, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Oh My!
Call the cops, someone was rude on the Internet!
photo by Paul Barr
Well, it certainly didn't put me in the nose-to-the-grindstone mood I would need to tackle the custom-metadata plugin.
Granted, the guy did send me a dollar for a previous version of Lightroom as recently as 2010, but I don't think this calls for words like “insidious” and “extortion”. I require nothing. I returned his $5 with a note that I wanted it only if it were a true gift. 'Cause that's, you know, how I roll.
I shouldn't have been surprised, based on the maturity of his initial comment, but his subsequent replies only went downhill from there. Sigh.
Nikon D3 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/160 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Manners and Civility on the Internet
still looking
photo by Paul Barr
Anyway, I thought I'd vent a bit with this post to the sympathetic ear of the friendly audience who reads my blog. (Hi Mom.)
So, would anyone have interest in that kind of custom-metadata plugin?
Nikon D3 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 35mm — 1/200 sec, f/4, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
“I'll Get Right On It”
photo by Paul Barr
I for one really appreciate all the hard work and effort you’ve put into your plugins. I do blame you for me becoming really pedantic about geotagging ALL my shots as precisely as possible, which your tool allows me to do with ease 🙂
Haters gonna hate and all that…
Don’t let the trolls get you down, they’re an unfortunate reality of the internet. I’d love such a plug-in and would gladly donate for it.
Hi Jeffrey
Your plugins are excellent– rock solid and well thought out. Much better than some from other sources that I have tried and abandoned. I don’t need the extra metadata plugin that you suggest here.
But I have a suggestion for your polarizing lens hood problem you mention. B+W make a collapsible rubber lens hood that screws in to filter threads. All you need to do is gently turn the lens hood to rotate the circular polarizer. It’s one solution… here is a link http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/11156-REG/B_W_65069611_67mm_Screw_In_Folding_Rubber.html
Thanks for the kinds words, and the pointer. I actually bought one of the rubber hoods here in Kyoto (from a German manufacture, IIRC) for the Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5. I had been using the small metal hood seen in the last picture (a gift from Paul, actually), but wanted something with a bit better flare protection, and perhaps less vignetting. I haven’t been out yet with it, so time will tell. I’d prefer a solid one over the rubber, though, because I always leave my hoods on for general lens protection, including in my lens bag, and I worry that the rubber one won’t pass muster. We’ll see. —Jeffrey
I know exactly how you feel and it would have affected me the same way. If you didn’t battle these questions/issues, you wouldn’t be human!
It’s really tough to find ways to manage the stressful parts of a hobby, and to fend off all the requests, and as you put it, ‘demands.’ I have no suggestions for you, other than to make it clear that this is what it is, and any extra functionality you create in the plugins is from pure desire within to be creative, and not just to appease the masses. As it stands, all of the plugins I use from you (I think 3 or 4, maybe more) are *exactly* what I need and I couldn’t ask for more. You’ve thought of much more than I ever would have in terms of functionality and for that, I thank you. Aside from updates to keep it working with the latest versions of LR and the latest bugs introduced by various APIs, you could back away from this completely and start enjoying other things in your life, like taking beautiful photos 🙂 If there’s one thing you’re better at than Lightroom Plugins, it’s being a photographer. Also, you could maybe work on more tech posts, like about color management and anything else in the editing world. OK, that last one was me being selfish.. haha.
As for that plugin, personally I’m really happy just adding extra meta-data to the description/keywords if needed. I don’t think I would use a plugin that created more meta-data fields to use (from a standards point of view), although I could see that some people may find it useful.
And as for the ‘extortion’ .. I actually look forward to renewing my subscription as it gives me an opportunity to thank you, with words and with money, for the work you’ve done to make it ready for the next version, and everything else in between. If Lightroom asked for a new serial number, than so should you!
Take care of yourself Jeffrey, I look forward to your next picture posts!
Sub
Oh, I hate forgetting things!
My suggestion for a lens hood that gives access to your filters? Your hand!
I’ve ditched all my lens hoods, haha. Just one more thing taking up space in my camera bag, one more thing to break, and one more thing to get in my way. May not be for you, but I’d certainly look into just hooding the lens with your hand as needed, and doing away with that big chunk of shade.
Sub
That extortion note was hilarious, at least from here.
If the front of the lens does not rotate, could you not buy another solid hood and cut a slit at the top (or bottom if you prefer) of the hood?
I really like the “Oh my” image due to expression, lighting, composition. 🙂
I’ve thought about cutting a slit. I know I’ve seen the idea in practice before, somewhere. Paul is an amazing photographer, but even he doesn’t realize it because he never looks at his own photos. I see them when he gives me a dump from an outing so I can get the ones I’m in, but as far as I know he never looks at them after taking them. What a waste. —Jeffrey
Your plugins “cost” a minimum of 0.01, I believe? Now that is definitely a reason to call it “Extortion”! 🙂 As a developer of other free stuff (to make money with, no less) I face this frequently. My only support goes through a forum (moderated against foul language and the likes) and custom development or personal assistance cost money (not extra money, the basis is free). Just don’t let it get to you, there will always people that don’t like the way it works, don’t like the way it must be registered, etc. But there are far more people that do like it, and unfortunately say nothing. Just by seeing all the “Uploaded using Jeffrey’s Lightroom Exporter” on Flickr, there are way more people who do appreciate your work than people that don’t.
Just keep up that good work, whenever and however YOU decide you like it and let those who complain have their own problems. You can never please everyone, don’t try, it would cost you more than it would give you. Your work is great, with bugs like any other program, the programmer is only human 🙂 . If people can’t accept this, they should look elsewhere.
Thanks again for your great work!
Jeffrey, I appreciate your work – a lot. You’ve saved me so much time! I never regret sending you another 15 bucks (or so) to upgrade the plugin. I hope enough people contribute that the time ends up being worth it for you.
Also, thanks for posting the pictures of yourself! Sometimes it’s nice to see the human behind all the great work you do.
Best Regards,
Andrew
It might be easier to have a forum set up for support, instead of offering support by email – that way you might have a lot of requests that fall in your email inbox today get addressed by other users of your plugins instead. Having the community provide its own support (to a point) takes a lot of burden off of the developer – Apple even does this to some extend with its own forums, I’m sure they’ve saved it millions in what otherwise would have ended up being trips to the Geninus Bar.
It makes me feel like an old person saying it, but I worry about the future when it seems like basic civility is a dead art on the internet – all the pleases and thank yous that we teach our kids to say as toddlers seem to get thrown out the window when people are texting and emailing. I see it a lot at work too, where email exchanges turn into unprofessional ranting – but it’s really painful to have it intrude on your hobby. People say things over email that I’m pretty sure they’d never do to someone’s face looking at another living, breathing human being, but the internet depersonalizes communication to a point. Anyway, good luck – it’s a tough balance, between helping those who use your creations and having them drive you insane.
Jeffrey: Your plugins were one (two) of the major reasons I’m now painfully running Lightroom through a Windows virtual machine instead of something more Linux native to deal with photo processing. I really do appreciate the work you’ve put in. I think I’ve donated to you anything between $2 – $10 per plugin/upgrade, depending on how needy of your plugins I am at that time and how much money I’m currently making.
There are times, when I read your posts like this, that I feel the need to state that open sourcing some of your work and accepting patches is totally an option. As also is telling folks to learn how to do things the mildly hard way and pointing them to exiftool or this not gui friendly plugin.
Anyhow, again thank you for the time you’ve thrown into these projects.
Some people just don’t get it, and not everyone is willing to be educated. Your plug-ins clearly have real value to many, including me, and some of us are quite willing to acknowledge that value and compensate your appropriately, with the understanding that you’re a real human being with finite time and energy, just like us.
That was a long way of saying thank you.
I’m one who has cut slots in hoods. I find it works reasonably well and wonder why they’re not manufactured that way. Probably because it’s a possible source of flare, which the hood is designed to protect against, but if designed in there could be some kind of door or something. I like the slots to be on the bottom right, where I find I can rotate the filter with my left fingers while my hand cradles the lens. I use a Dremel to cut them.
I don’t know that custom metadata is something I would use regularly; I’ve generally repurposed other unused fields as needed. But I would still like to see a way for the exported filename to make its way into searchable metadata, which we’ve discussed in the past but you ran into a limitation in the plugin architecture which prevented its release. Any chance that was the same limitation?
Hi Jeff,
Another person who appreciates your plugin development work. And I echo some of the above and sympathize with the all take/no give of donationware publishing. I can only suggest either open sourcing the plugins (via github or somesuch) at whatever stage you’re comfortable with (including “this doesn’t work yet”).
Or, alternatively, charging real dollars for the plugins. Elasticity will solve the support problem for you. Even at small amounts like $10, significantly fewer people will take advantage of them, although that increases the potential feeling of obligation/stress at dealing with bugs/feature requests.
Again, thanks for your plugins and posts. Always look forward to them.
-Pablo
Since I don’t use Lightroom, I have not made use of your plugins (although based on how people reference them, I probably would if I used it). However, I have made heavy use of another service of yours: the Japanese-English online dictionary. I used it almost daily during my years of Japanese study in college, and even now I still use it every now and then. I’ve thanked you for it once before, but since you could use a bit of a boost right now, I’d like to say it again – it was (and probably still is) the best electronic Japanese-English dictionary out there, even compared with the dictionaries that cost money.
I don’t really have any advice to offer on the plugin development situation. It just reminds me of that saying, “give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.” Do what you have to do to protect yourself and your time. That you’re sharing your coding talents with the world at or nearly for free is already incredibly generous. People tend to forget that there’s a person on the other end, I suppose.
I would guess that person doesn’t remember the days when there was no shareware, and no donationware. You have my sympathy, but more so, that person has my pity. If it’s on the Internet it must be free, right? Also I notice he didn’t bother to send you the $100 he mentioned…
In a world long gone by, I took on Y! Unix messenger development (as a hobby). Been there, done that, and got the flames for “non official” work.
In the end, I decided to delete nasty emails and assume that they were sent to the “official devs”. That might work for you 🙂
While I have nothing to add on the Metadata front, I will say I’d like to know if Mr. Insidious Extortion’s “downhill from there” emails ever reached the entertainment heights of This Guy:
http://regex.info/blog/2006-05-10/191
Hard to say which was better, but in the recent case, as part of his efforts to highlight how smart he is (and therefor how stupid I must be not to see things his way), I got a full list of the guy’s extensive degrees and accomplishments. He was a lawyer and had already learned all he would ever learn, so I left it at that. —Jeffrey
Just another quick note to let you know how much I appreciate the hours of work you put into your plugins. Haven’t sent in the money to upgrade the Flickr plugin to LR4, but it’s on the list. Consider it a true gift!! 😉
Mike.
Hi Jeffrey,
Just chanced upon your blog post as the Zenfolio plugin expired after upgrading to LR4. Had forgotten it would do that.
Anyway, had already donated $20 for the plugin as that’s what you suggested and I felt you should rightly get paid for your work. Along with many others, I value your work and it helps me work with my photographs, so many thanks.
To then read about some miserly lawyer (who probably gets paids thousands for his work) whinge about donating a few dollars for something he obviously uses and values, is simply bewildering.
I was thinking about what disparaging name to call this person without having it censored but then I realised he had already done this for me – a lawyer!
Best wishes,
England,
UK
I don’t understand why keywords won’t work for you. I have set up a fairly detailed keyword list and I have things in there like weather (“clouds”, with cloud types underneath, cold, dust, fog, hait, humid, snow, sunny, etc.). I find this mechanism very useful.
Free tip: I have two kids, and I often want to ask Lightroom to show me pictures of the kids at a certain age. So, I have created keyword entries for each kid, and nested below each name are “tagged keywords” (my phrase) such as “s-1 year old”, “c-12 years old”, etc. (all the way from days old to the century mark). For example, for my first-born, I tag photos of him taken today not with his name, but with his age (e.g., “s-13 years old”). Since I have the ages underneath his name, it automatically tags with his name as well. I do the same thing for the kids’ school grade (kindergarten, etc.). This way, I can build searches for the kids that don’t have false positives (my son at five might be in a picture with my daughter at 1, and I want my son at five searches to not include my pictures in which he is seen with my daughter when she is five). I built smart collections for my kids for each age and grade. Now when my wife or I want to see one of the kids at a certain grade or age, I just click on the appropriate quick collection.
If you really like this tip, you can send me $20 by PayPal:-)
BTW, I sent you $20 by PayPal (incidentally, my employer) a short while ago for your metadata viewer plugin — very slick. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work for me, as I want to see “Focus Distance” on my Nikon D800, and the plugin can only get at “Subject Distance”.
Oh well, consider it a gift to the community at large for your good work.
Keywords work for many people to solve many problems, but everyone has their own threshold, and for some things a metadata field just works better. Otherwise, all metadata would be done via keywords.
About your kids’ age thing, it seems silly that you are forced to go to the lengths you do…. if you could merely mark the kid, and somehow tell Lightroom when the kid was born, it could calculate the date itself. Hmm, I wonder whether there’s a plugin in there?
About your focus distance (thanks for your kind gift, BTW!), I think they’re one in the same. The image file doesn’t actually have names for these fields like “Focus Distance”… they have numerical codes, and it’s up to display software (Lightroom, my plugin, any kind of exif display) to come up with a title for the field. The Exif standard uses “Subject Distance”. Perhaps Nikon uses “Focus Distance”, which seems more technically correct. However, if you have some Nikon tool that shows both, then the plugin is missing an opportunity to decode a Nikon-specific field… send an out-of-camera small basic JPG and a screenshot of the data in whatever Nikon app you’re using, and I’ll pass it along to the ExifTool guy. —Jeffrey
Wait, you accept a dollar or two from people, and you don’t think that makes you their slave for evermore? What kind of entitlement complex do you have?
I’ve often wondered if you actually make a profit from your endeavours? I doubt it, but please don’t stop.
I think I do. I hope I do. It’s all about karma. I take a lot from this world; it’s nice to give back, and I think I earn some good karma with this plugin work. —Jeffrey
Great article and pictures. Try keeping booth eyes open.
I believe the extortionee wasn’t objecting to paying, he was objecting to having to go through the motions with Paypal every time he upgrades Lightroom. I am somewhat sympathetic with this, as I’d prefer to pay one time for a “lifetime license” (even if it’s substantial) if it meant I didn’t have to go through those motions again. Unfortunately, I understand there are technical limitations on Jeffrey’s ability to offer this feature.
But I can’t imagine any alternate universe where I’d send that kind of snotty, entitled, ungrateful note to anybody whose work I made regular use of.
What a dick.
Jeffrey,
I would LOVE the custom metadata plugin. I need to change some metadata fields (licensing, title, headline, sublocation) depending on my client. So a plugin that would allow me to do so on the fly, similar to for example the LR/Mogrify export plugin, would be fantastic. I’ll gladly test a beta-version. It doesn’t need to be fancy, as long as I can change some metadata values when exporting. Keep it simple! 🙂
As for paying? of course I’ll donate some money, and am happy to donate some more when I upgrade LR. That is the least I can do to show my appreciation for all the time you spend on these plugins!
Screw the trolls, you do a great thing and dont let anyone tell you otherwise.
I recently had to “upgrade” as a result of the new Lightroom but I honestly don’t care, I paid $20 for my first purchase and then $1 the next time.. I suppose that’s fair!
Perhaps you could have a forum so users could end up helping other users to reduce some of the burden on you. Get a Wiki etc..
Fight the good fight
Jeffrey,
Yet another extremely satisfied user of your LR plugins who NEVER regrets ponying up some cash to help support the cause. Keep them coming! (It’s really hard for me to imagine the type of person who would write a note like that – unfortunately the ‘net has given a voice to a number of truly regrettable individuals.) BTW, your blog is one of my favorite, a very interesting glimpse into life in another land.
Thanks for all the hard work, i have enjoyed everyone of your plug-in!
I also think there is a plug-in idea behind using a Keyword/Metadata and Current Date to keep track of people by age.. pretty smart really..
I also appreciate your devotion to continually improving your products. I wish everyone was so diligent. I am not overly concerned with metadata options, but I do have one request. If the API allows it, I would love to be reminded at the beginning of a (Facebook) upload if I have a bunch of photos that will be re-published. Sometimes just saving metadata to a bunch of files queues them up for another upload, not my intention. On too many occasions I have hit “Publish” only to find that there are a lot of photos being duplicated in my album. That then necessitates going into FB and rooting out the duplicates. That would be a big help for us click-before-you-think types. (I also wish Adobe would do the same thing when one clicks on the “Edit in…” menu item and there are 50 photos selected. You cannot interrupt the rendering of each image, sometimes a time-consuming process.) Thanks, and domo arigato.
Modern versions of the plugin should delete prior copies when uploading a changed version. Are you sure you’re using the most recent version? But really, Facebook is not suitable for Publish… I’d think you’re better off just creating an export preset… —Jeffrey
Jeffrey, thank you for the plugins and your generous donationware model! I have found your plugins to be solid and useful! I am too bothered by rudeness/trolling that the Internet has made so easy to do and I understand many of your frustrations, been there done that. Anyway, thank you and have been really enjoying your photos as I peruse your blog.