Lightroom plug-in for Nature Photographers

Nature Data LR - I have been working on a new plug-in for Adobe Lightroom 2 that allows nature photographers to add species information to their photos within the Lightroom library.  After a couple of months of development and testing, I am making the latest release available as a public beta.

The plug-in is called Nature Data LR.

I still have several features to add but think that the core functionality is ready for release to a wider audience – in fact, I already use it to classify all my own library of bird photographs.

At the moment, the plug-in provides data for bird species in the Western Palearctic and North America, with further geographic regions in progress.

The plug-in is designed to allow species lists for other things in the natural world, such as mammals, so if you have a specific request just let me know.

As this is still a beta, I strongly recommend that you backup your catalog before installing the plug-in.  Whilst I have every confidence it will work just fine, I would rather you were safe than sorry!

Unfortunately, there are some limitations in the way Lightroom allows plug-ins to operate, with the most significant being the ability to add the species data to the keywords directly.  Hopefully Adobe will hear us and release an update but until then you can add the species information as keywords when you export images.

Finally, my thanks go out to the people who have been providing input and testing during the private beta.

Special mentions go out to Massimo Grion for his efforts on providing the Italian version of the Western P’ list and testing, Wayne Nicholas for his continued efforts with testing (and patience with the early challenges on the Mac platform!) and John Stuart-Clarke for his help and support during the testing.

So, head over to the tools section of Rusticolus Images, read the instructions, install and start classifying your bird images!

-!-