{"id":1134,"date":"2009-02-03T23:44:07","date_gmt":"2009-02-03T14:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-02-03\/1134"},"modified":"2009-02-03T23:44:07","modified_gmt":"2009-02-03T14:44:07","slug":"lightroom-plugin-development-what-to-do-when-a-hobby-becomes-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-02-03\/1134","title":{"rendered":"Lightroom Plugin Development: What To Do When a Hobby Becomes Work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I do a lot of Lightroom-related development. I don't<\/span> get paid for it,\nbut I'm a geek<\/span> and I really<\/span> enjoy it.<\/p>\n\n

In case you're familiar with Lightroom, but not with what I've provided,\nhere's a bit<\/span> about what I've done...<\/p>\n\n

\n

First, I built<\/span> and released my Lightroom Metadata Viewer\nPreset Builder<\/a>, which allows you to create a custom<\/span> metadata view so\nthat you see just the items you want about each photo. Building it took\nweeks of intensive research, coding, testing, and tweaking. I didn't<\/span> need\nthis myself (I knew<\/span> how to build templates by hand), but I spent<\/span> so much\nenergy on it because I thought<\/span> it would be really helpful to a large<\/span>\nsegment of the Lightroom-using community.<\/p>\n\n

Then I built and released my Lightroom Configuration\nManager<\/a>, which allows you to customize a bunch<\/span> of things about\nLightroom. It also took<\/span> a long<\/span> time, but this one involved a lot<\/span> more trial\nand error, trying to figure out what knobs and buttons Lightroom had under\nits hood for me to configure.<\/p>\n\n

Then came plugins. I was hired<\/span> by Adobe for a period<\/span> to help test and\ndebug their plugin infrastructure, and so I became<\/span> well acquainted with it. I put that<\/span> knowledge to work and built export plugins for Zenfolio<\/a>\nand for\nSmugMug<\/a>. These are pro-level photo-hosting sites, and although I\npersonally<\/span> had no interest in using either, I knew that<\/span> they matched\nLightroom's demographics, and so I knew<\/span> a lot<\/span> of people would appreciate\nhaving such plugins.<\/p>\n\n

There were quickly calls for more plugins, and I ended<\/span> up making\none for Flickr<\/a>,\none for PicasaWeb<\/a>,\nand one for Facebook<\/a>. The early<\/span> versions of Lightroom's plugin infrastructure was severely limited, so I worked<\/span>\novertime to figure out a way<\/span> people could get more out of my (and others') plugins,\ninventing the Piglet extension<\/a>\nthat perhaps served as the inspiration for post-process actions in Lightroom 2.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

I've also done other plugins... for Geoencoding, metadata maintenance,\nproximity searching, and more... the full list is on my Lightroom Goodies<\/a> page.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

Well, that's enough of tooting one's own horn... you get the picture.<\/p>\n\n

I don't actually use<\/i> most of these personally, and I don't<\/span> get\npaid for them; I work<\/span> on them because I enjoy<\/span> it. I enjoy<\/span> creating useful\nstuff, I enjoy<\/span> that people use the useful stuff I've created, and I enjoy<\/span>\nthe warm fuzzy feelings that people sometimes return when I give<\/span> them\nuseful stuff.<\/p>\n\n

It'd be nice if it were as simple as that, but more and more, the unfun\naspects of software development have been creeping in. It seems<\/span> that the\nmere act of giving actually creates much more work than it took to make the\nthing in the first place. Some days the crush of email – mostly bug\nreports, feature requests, and complaints – is so overwhelming that I\ncan't<\/span> even get through them, much less actually fix something or add a new<\/span>\nfeature. As I write<\/span> this, my inbox has 1,544 messages that I've yet to\nfully attend to. This is stressful. Why do I<\/span> feel a responsibility<\/i>\nto follow through on something I've done for free in my almost-nonexistent\nspare time? I don't<\/span> know, but I do.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Some days, of course, I do have<\/span> time to work on things, and so far, for\nexample, I have pushed<\/span> out 72 upgrades to the Flickr plugin, and that's\njust since Lightroom 2<\/span> came out. For Lightroom<\/span> 1\nthere were 47 additional versions. And that's just for one plugins; I've so\nfar written 10.<\/p>\n\n

I've been working on these as a warm<\/span>-fuzzy side project for over two\nyears now, and it's come to a point<\/span> where it's now work<\/i> and I have<\/span>\nto make a change,<\/span> to decide to let them languish, or get more serious about\nmaking it more tangibly worthwhile for me to attend to the unfun parts.<\/p>\n\n

I sort of took a step last year when I quietly<\/span> added a “donate” button\nto the plugins and to my blog. I have received<\/span> some donations, and I am<\/span>\ngrateful. Oddly, the largest donation (a hundred<\/span> bucks!) was unrelated to\nLightroom: someone in Denmark simply enjoyed my blog.<\/p>\n\n

Anyway, I'm thinking<\/span> of ways to carry this further, to make the time and\neffort I spend<\/span> on plugin development and maintenance – the\nwork<\/i> – worthwhile in a way<\/span> that justifies it to me and my family.\nThis is the point where most people would start a business,<\/span> and start\nselling their work.<\/p>\n\n

But I don't want to run a business. I don't<\/span> want to sell a product.<\/span> I\ndon't<\/span> want to deal with marketing or irate customers.<\/p>\n\n

What to do?<\/p>\n\n

The approach that plugin-developer Tim Armes<\/a> has taken has a certain<\/span> appeal. His\nfreely-available plugins are limited (in his case, to process only 10\nphotos at a time<\/span>) so that you can at least try them out. However, by making\na donation<\/span> via PayPal – a donation<\/span> of any amount you like, whatever\nyou feel the plugin is worth – you can remove the restriction.<\/p>\n\n

A lot of people have been using my plugins freely for a long<\/span> time, and\nmay feel “cheated” to be suddenly restricted and hit up for registration.\nSure, they could do it with just one cent (or whatever PayPal's minimum\nis), but perhaps even that's more hassle than it's worth for some. Some\npeople might have philosophical issues with it, not wanting to part with\neven one cent, on principle. I expect<\/span> that having used my free plugins for\nso long, some may even feel a sense<\/span> of entitlement for them. How much of<\/span>\nthat is my responsibility?<\/p>\n\n

I'd like to hear your comments. If you're a user<\/span> of one of my plugins,\nhow do you feel about this? What kind of approach would sit well with you,\nfeel reasonable to you? What about if you use more than one plugin, and\/or\ndo so on more than one computer?<\/p>\n\n

You can leave a comment on my blog, or via email<\/a>. Thanks.<\/p>\n\n

(To head off one thing I'm sure some plugin-users will comment on: I'll\nlikely remove plugin expiration, but at the cost of rejecting bug reports\nthat aren't for the most-recent version.)<\/p>\n\n

Continued here...<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I do a lot of Lightroom-related development. I don't get paid for it, but I'm a geek and I really enjoy it.<\/p>

In case you're familiar with Lightroom, but not with what I've provided, here's a bit about what I've done...<\/p>

Well, that's enough of tooting one's own horn... you get the picture.<\/p>

I don't actually use most of these personally, and I don't get paid for them; I work on them because I enjoy it. I enjoy creating useful stuff, I enjoy that people use the useful stuff I've created, and I enjoy the warm fuzzy feelings that people [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}