How can I automatically export selected Lightroom photos as JPEGs to a synced folder?
Asked 1/19/2012
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2 answers
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I keep my Lightroom originals in a folder structure like /photos/album/good and /photos/album/rough. I’d like Lightroom to maintain JPEG copies of only my selected/final images in a separate export folder, preserving a similar structure so I can sync them to a tablet with Dropbox or similar.
Ideally this would be automatic, but even a mostly manual Lightroom-based workflow is fine. Is there a way to export a subset of images based on criteria such as folder, tag, rating, or collection, and keep those JPEGs updated in a destination folder for syncing?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
14y ago
2 Answers
5
I don't see why you couldn't use Publish Services for this. If you are in the Library module, it is on the left pane all the way at the bottom. Simply setup a new Publish Services to your hard drive, and select the criteria that you would like to use, such as Photos Edited today with 5 Stars.
Once you have that setup, you can really extend the functionality to do many different things that add to it. The publish service to hard drive is really setup for exactly what you are trying to do - something like manage files that will be synced to a tablet PC. So it should work very well for you.
The one "catch" here is that to actually publish the photos I believe you either have to click on the "Publish" at the bottom of the left pane in the Library Module, or Publish up at the top of the center pane. This will send them over.
Originally by user4892. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user4892
14y ago
0
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Yes. In Lightroom, the closest built-in feature is Publish Services, especially a hard-drive publish service. You can create a publish target for JPEG export and feed it photos from a smart collection based on criteria like rating, edited date, tags, or other metadata.
For preserving folder structure, a plugin such as Jeffrey Friedl’s Tree Publisher was suggested. That can publish a selected subset of photos while keeping the source tree layout, which fits your use case better than a basic export.
Two limitations were noted:
- It won’t automatically run when Lightroom closes.
- You generally need to manually click Publish to update the exported JPEGs.
Also, your current good/rough folder split may be less flexible than using one folder plus Lightroom metadata such as tags, flags, ratings, or a “good” keyword. Then a smart collection can select only the keepers, and the publish service can export just those for syncing to your tablet.
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