March 22, 2008
External Application Chooser for Adobe Lightroom
Dirk Essl has seen a gap in the Lightroom External editing options and created a solution. Basically, in Lightroom, you can choose Photoshop and one other Application from which to edit files with Lightroom adjustments. While you can Export and then open them in another Application, you then need to reimport the file. Using Edit in Application, Lightroom creates the new file in the Library and then opens it for editing in the external Application.
Dirk has created a little Applescript based program called ImagingChooser. This stores shortcuts to other programs, allowing you to select whichever one you need whenever you want. Simply install ImagingChooser and select it in the External Editing tab in Lightroom preferences. When you run it, ImagingChooser will open. From there select the shortcut you require. To add more shortcuts, hold Command and Option down while dragging the new App into the Applications>ImagingChooser>Apps folder. If you manually create the alias, remember to delete the ‘Alias’ from the name. This is currently a Mac OSX script only, but Dirk says he’ll create a VB script for Windows users when time allows.
UPDATE The Windows version is now available.