{"id":1452,"date":"2010-02-10T14:13:51","date_gmt":"2010-02-10T05:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2010-02-10\/1452"},"modified":"2010-02-16T08:35:29","modified_gmt":"2010-02-15T23:35:29","slug":"road-to-now-my-long-path-to-lightroom-plugin-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2010-02-10\/1452","title":{"rendered":"Road to Now: My Long Path To Lightroom Plugin Development"},"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
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>125 sec, f<\/span>\/4, ISO 3600 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nConnections Through Time<\/span>\nMe, with my son, his mom, her dad, and his mom<\/a>\n(though not<\/i> in that order!)<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

When I started to take photography somewhat seriously (circa January 2006 when I got<\/span>\na Nikon<\/span> D200<\/a>), a long-time friend<\/a>\nwho happened to work at Apple extolled the virtues of Apple Aperture<\/a>, which had just\nbeen released. It was, he said, still a bit<\/span> buggy, but even so was so\nmuch better<\/i> than working with files one by one in Photoshop. He had a<\/span>\nhard time constraining his excitement of the new workflow paradigm, even if\nthe current implementation still needed the kinks worked out.<\/p>\n\n

I wasn't sold on the whole new-paradigm idea, but when Apple announced\ntheir new line of\nlaptops<\/a> in May 2006, I decided<\/span> to get one<\/a> so I could<\/span> give\nAperture a try.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Unfortunately, I neglected<\/span> to notice that Apple's photo-workflow\napplication couldn't even be installed on my new MacBook.... to run\nAperture, you needed a MacBook<\/span> Pro. Arrrrrgh! It's my own<\/span> stupid fault for\nnot noticing the system requirements, but come on, Apple's software\ncouldn't even run on their latest hardware? So, I was out<\/span> of luck.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>1000 sec, f<\/span>\/4.5, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nWipeout<\/span>\nPhoto by 7-year-old Anthony Friedl<\/span>\nme, while sledding with Anthony<\/a> last weekend\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n

Or so I thought. It turns<\/span> out that somewhere along the line Adobe had\nput out a free<\/span> public beta for a similar<\/span> application they called\n“Lightroom” and it could actually run on my new Apple computer<\/i>, so\neven though I was<\/span> traveling (in The States at the time), I gave it<\/span> a try.<\/span>\nAnd wow, it didn't take long before I was<\/span> as excited about the new workflow\nparadigm as my friend had been. It was an<\/span> amazing<\/b> productivity boost\nmeasured in orders of magnitude. The boost<\/span> here was not Lightroom-specific,\nbut due to the new workflow paradigm being invented by Lightroom and\nAperture, so I'm sure that if I had<\/span> actually been able to try Aperture, I would<\/span> have been just as excited.<\/p>\n\n\n

To make it even better, Lightroom could also run on Windows. I detest<\/span> Windows, but my main workstation at home was a Windows<\/span> box, so I'd be able\nto use my more-beefy desktop hardware once I got<\/span> home from the trip. (Apple\neventually came out with a version<\/span> of Aperture that could run on my MacBook\n— which I still<\/span> have and am using at the moment — but by that\ntime I was<\/span> deep into Lightroom and wasn't about to abandon my mental\ninvestment in it.)<\/p>\n\n

Prior to Lightroom, I didn't know much one way or the other about Adobe\nexcept they were the PDF and Photoshop company, and that back in the mid 1990s,\nthe guy<\/a> who in put me on the road to\nwriting my first book<\/a> was a long<\/span>-time\nAdobe employee, and when I later<\/span> moved to Silicon Valley, I would<\/span> visit his\noffice at Adobe and partake in their great on-site lunch service. (His\nlittle boy was the first person to call me “Uncle Jeff”, and that he's now\nin college makes me feel very old.)<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/2, ISO 640 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nSome Things Get Better With Age<\/span>\nbut most things just get old\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Anyway, I apparently<\/span> started twiddling with Lightroom under the hood\nearly on. I see that<\/span> in July 2006 I posted<\/span> “Accessing\nLightroom's SQLite DB Directly<\/a>” on my blog, while still on my\ntravels. Some time later — and as far as I can<\/span> tell, based upon just\nthat one post — I was<\/span> quietly invited by Adobe to give feedback on\ntheir in-progress prototype for the next public release. Moi?<\/i> Sure,\ncool! I got a<\/span> free copy of Lightroom, but more importantly, I could<\/span> more-directly help shape the future of a tool<\/span> I so<\/span> heavily relied upon. It was enough<\/span> to make a photo<\/span>\/tech geek's heart go pitter-pat.<\/p>\n\n\n

Even while doing that, the software-geek in me was still twiddling on my\nown. Just after Lightroom 1<\/span> was released in early 2007, I released<\/span> two web\ntools I'd been working\non on \nmy own, a metadata<\/span>-viewer preset builder (now\nsuperseded by my plugin\nthat does the same thing<\/a>), and a Lightroom Configuration\nManager<\/a> that allows one to customize some extra things about\nLightroom.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>4000 sec, f<\/span>\/8, ISO 1600 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nPost Processing? Me?<\/span>\nwhy no, this is exactly<\/i> what the Awaji Flower Review<\/a> looks like\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n

Apparently recognizing my geeky nature, Adobe eventually hired me (for\nreal money, woo-hoo!) on a temporary<\/span> basis to consult intensively on a\nplugin<\/span> infrastructure they were developing for what would become Lightroom 1.3<\/span><\/a>.\nWorking with it day in and day out, I developed<\/span> a good<\/span> understanding of the\nplugin system, so it seemed only natural that I put<\/span> that to use for the\nworld, and in short order after Lightroom 1.3<\/span> was released, I put out<\/span>\nupload plugins for Zenfolio<\/a>, SmugMug<\/a>, Flickr<\/a>, and PicasaWeb<\/a>. I\ndidn't<\/span> actually use any of these services myself, but lots of Lightroom\nusers did, so it felt good to build something that people liked and\nused.<\/p>\n\n\n

That “it felt good” feeling is what drives a lot<\/span> of engineers much more\nthan money, and is certainly the case for me. I ended<\/span> up developing a lot<\/span> of plugins for\nLightroom<\/a>, but only a few<\/span> of which I actually<\/span> wanted for myself (I desperately<\/span> wanted geoencoding in Lightroom<\/a>, and\nI use<\/span> the Metadata\nWrangler<\/a> as part of my normal image export). The rest I<\/span> did because I thought<\/span> people\nwould enjoy them. Read the comments left by users on the page for my plugin that\nallows one to extract\nimages from Lightroom's preview cache<\/a> in an emergency, for a sense<\/span> of where this\nengineer derives “pay” for what he does.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f\/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>1000 sec, f<\/span>\/4, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nHat Paragliding With a Stuffed<\/span> Monkey<\/span>\nlike playing with your kid<\/a>, some things have value way beyond money\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

As nice as all the “thanks!” are, I was spending<\/span> inordinate<\/i>\namounts of time on these plugins, and was getting burnt out<\/a>\nwith a never<\/span>-ending onslaught of feature and support requests. I seemed<\/span> to\nhave found a niche<\/span> in life and wanted to find a way<\/span> to continue, so I created a way<\/span><\/a> to make it\neasy for a grateful<\/span> user to say thanks with a few<\/span> bucks, and to encourage\nthem to do so. I still<\/span> made it so that people could use my stuff without\ngiving me anything (I'm adamant that any gift be a gift<\/i>, which means\ngiven freely for nothing in return), and indeed, the vast majority of users\ndon't, but some do, which is nice.<\/p>\n\n

Another downside to the plugin development has been that it's taken time\naway from diving into some other photo-related tech things<\/a> as\nmuch as I'd like. Prior to doing plugin stuff, I was dabbling<\/span> in all kinds\nof things, such as write-ups like my primer on\ndigital-image color spaces<\/a>, digging into a qualitative<\/span>\nanalysis of NEF compression<\/a>, developing a kick-ass auto-focus\ntest chart<\/a>, conducting tripod stability tests<\/a>,\ndeveloping a Photoshop script to\ngenerate calendars<\/a>, etc.<\/p>\n\n

But, it seems the plugin thing has taken hold, so that's where I spend<\/span>\nmy free time.<\/p>\n\n\n

So last fall Adobe put out a free public beta for Lightroom 3,<\/span> and it\nincludes a whole<\/span> new way to export, “Publish”, and so for this\nthey brought me on again to consult on the plugin infrastructure. I had actually<\/span> reached out to them and volunteered to do it for free, just to\nimprove the product (which then improves the tool I have<\/span> to work with), but\nthey felt better to make it official, so I it<\/span> comes with a small<\/span> stipend\n(or will, if I ever<\/span> get the paperwork done). I'm sure I<\/span>'ll get a free<\/span> copy\nof Lightroom as well.... I've never actually paid for the copy I use,<\/span>\nthough I have<\/span> paid full retail when buying Lightroom as a gift<\/span> for others.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>80 sec, f<\/span>\/5.6, ISO 3600 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nLife is Like a Box<\/span> of Cherries<\/span>\nor something like that<\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

So what's up in Lightroom's future? I could<\/span> tell you, but\nthen I'd have to kill you<\/a>. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n

What's up in my future? I have no<\/span> idea... I'm not doing<\/span> any of this with\na plan.<\/span>.. just trying to enjoy myself and go along for the ride. I've often\nwondered whether I might<\/span> some day write a book<\/span> on photography (because most of them suck<\/a>), but\nnow the only sucking is what plugin development and consulting does to my\nfree time. But mostly, I enjoy<\/span> it.<\/p>\n\n

I don't know what the future holds (it could very well be nothing<\/a>), but I'm excited\nto find out.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f\/2 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>200 sec, f<\/span>\/2, ISO 2200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nThe Future?<\/span>\nit lies ahead, silly\n(a different<\/span> take, during a different<\/span> year, on these stepping stones<\/a>)<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

Some other random photos I prepared<\/span> for this post, but ended up not using...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/2, ISO 800 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nhey kids,\n“Who Wants To Work On Photo-Workflow Development?”<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f\/2.8 @ 17 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f<\/span>\/4, ISO 640 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nMorning Self Portrait<\/span>\ngraffiti on the wall of an abandoned house a friend<\/span> had just bought\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f\/2.8 @ 55 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>40 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 640 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nI ♥ Watermelon<\/span>\n( not particularly related to anything, just a bit<\/span> cute )<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D200 + 18-250mm f\/3.5-6.3 @ 18 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>800 sec, f<\/span>\/3.5, ISO 320 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nSquishing My Nose in Early 2008<\/span>\nwhile people threw beans to drive out demons<\/a>\nPhoto by Britto<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>640 sec, f<\/span>\/3.5, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nnot sure where this leads, but\nHolding On For the Ride<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f\/2.8 @ 55 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>125 sec, f<\/span>\/5, ISO 250 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nIt's a Flower<\/span><\/span>\nflowers are pretty\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f\/2.8 @ 120 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 900 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nThe Future<\/span>\nenter here\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I started to take photography somewhat seriously (circa January 2006 when I got a Nikon D200), a long-time friend who happened to work at Apple extolled the virtues of Apple Aperture, which had just been released. It was, he said, still a bit buggy, but even so was so much better than working with files one by one in Photoshop. He had a hard time constraining his excitement of the new workflow paradigm, even if the current implementation still needed the kinks worked out.<\/p>

I wasn't sold on the whole new-paradigm idea, but when Apple announced their new line [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,7,1,13,6,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452"}],"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=1452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}