This page describes my “Run Any Command” Lightroom Piglet, which allows the technically savvy user to run any command with each image exported via one of my Lightroom export plugins ( Zenfolio  ·  SmugMug  ·  Flickr  ·  Picasa Web ), or via any export plugin that uses my piglet infrastructure.

This “Run Any Command” piglet is already included with my export plugins since January 22, 2008. However, if you'd like to use the piglet with a different plugin, you can download AnyCommand-20080206.5.zip. Version history is shown below.

Even though the piglet is included with my plugins, like all piglets, it must be enabled from the Piglet Manager before it can be used the first time. As described on the piglet page, you can bring up the Piglet Manager from the bottom-most section of the export dialog of any of my export plugins. You then enable the piglet:

After restarting Lightroom, you'll have a section in the export dialog that allows you to enter a command. Here's what it might look like with a command already entered:

Later, during the actual export, the command is run after Lightroom generates each export file, but before the plugin does other things with the file (such as uploading the image to Flickr, in the case of my Export-to-Flickr plugin).

Command Metasequences

Within the text entered for the command, special sequences are recognized and replaced by image-specific values with each execution:

Be warned that you must be very careful about where to quote items: anything that has a space or other special shell variables must be quoted, but exactly what must be quoted, when, and with what kind of quotes is dependent on the operating system. It's fairly straightforward on a Mac: using single quotes will almost always be okay, double quotes probably okay in most cases as well. On Windows, use double quotes and cross your fingers.

As an example, you'll notice that in the screenshot above (which was made on Windows XP), I've quoted the command name (the full path to my exiftool install) because the path has a space in the name (in “Program Files”). I've also quoted {FILE} because the image filename may have a space in it as well (e.g. “Documents and Settings”).

ExifTool

This example command uses Phil Harvey's most-excellent exiftool command to strip out the thumbnail that Lightroom embeds in its exported images. The command is:

Using other permutations of arguments, you can do a lot with your images with exiftool and this piglet. It's with exiftool in mind that Mark Sirota first suggested this piglet to me, at which point I thought “duh, why didn't I think of that?” and, so, now here it is.

Version History