Announcing Lightroom for Apple TV

69 thoughts on “Announcing Lightroom for Apple TV”

1. I would call it a nice idea, but don’t have any use for it as I got for showing around my photos either the Apple Pictures stream or use my Flickr Account. I don’t see any use for me in the future.

   1. Why even share that post? So you use something else, but that means you are publishing your lightroom pictures to another source, which is another step. This app is for people using LR and an Apple TV. Sorry it doesn’t also cure cancer.

2. How about support for Chromecast? When can we expect that?

   1. CC doesn’t have the CPU to run it or the memory based on my experience of running both. CC is largely just HTML5 based apps. Lightroom requires a whole lot more muscle ..

      1. I was thinking more just to view the collections like a slideshow. Not enough horsepower in CC to do that?

         1. Easily. It would basically be a modified LR Web. No reason they couldn’t do it.

            1. they could just add the icon to cast to your tv. That shouldn’t be difficult at all.

3. Thats, exactly what is was waiting for!

4. Well, this is a welcome surprise 🙂 For me, this will make my workflow a little better!

5. Not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it would be so much nicer if Adobe would direct their programming resources towards fixing the bugs and performance issues in the Lr desktop app.

   Things like Lr for Apple TV would be nice icing on a cake…problem is, the cake itself keeps tasting worse & worse with every version!

   1. Good news, a Lightroom update was also released today that fixed a high memory issue that should improve performance in the develop module 🙂

   2. You’re confused. People don’t buy software b/c of bugs fixed, but go for shiny new features and/or new workflow opportunities. Adobe knows this, and LR Desktop is still so buggy a lot of work would be required – I’m still enjoying the regular “broken keyboard shortcuts = restart lr” bug after some hours.

      So take a constructive approach, and help Adobe to come up with new ways to market the LR brand. My entry into the “the next LR platform” would be “Lightroom for Apple Watch” – what are your ideas?

6. Great App, really love it, especially the zoom function.
   Super fast und stable.

   What I miss regarding the lightroom mobile sync is to sync smart collections.
   That would completely automate my workflow from developing in lightroom CC to presenting on Apple TV.

   1. Totally agree! This would seem to be an easy fix. E.g. just let my 4- and 5-star smart collection automatically sync to LR mobile

7. This is useful for displaying a collection if one uses an Apple TV. I find greater utility in the ability to view collections (and now even import raw files) on my iPad Pro. But all of this, while a great step forward, only highlights for me one significant deficit in Adobe’s mobile strategy.

   I do my editing on a Mac Pro. My catalog resides there, and my raw files reside on Pegasus RAID drives. When I am traveling, I have no access to my files, not even my Creative Cloud synchronized collections, on my laptop. The only option is to copy and take the catalog with me. So, if Adobe really wants to do something impressive, allow me to access those collections on my MacBook Pro. Why not allow a second computer to connect to those collections for culling and initial edits? Give the same feature to laptops you just gave to iPads. Allow me to import my raw files into Lightroom on my laptop and have them sync back to my desktop, which is my primary editing machine. Of course, I understand the latter is probably more complex engineering. But at minimum, let me see my collections on ALL my devices (iPhones, iPads, MacBook Pros).

   1. I generally use this app called younity to access my Lr remotely on my phone. I like it a lot more than the Lr mobile app for just viewing and sharing photos. It scans the hard drive that my Lr files are stored on and automatically “serves” them my phone. Then when I want to see them or share them I can do it from within the app.

      Also it lets you view your entire Lr collection with airplay rather than just the synced folders. It does kind of lag if you have a large catalog tho.

8. This is awesome! I moved to Lightroom a year and a half ago after is was clear that Apple was abandoning Aperture, and one thing I missed was the ability to easily display (not to edit) my pictures on Apple TV. Thanks Adobe! Now if you could just figure out how to sync Smart Collections with LR Mobile and LR for Apple TV, I would be a very happy camper.

   1. Currently Smart Collection sync isn’t supported but it is one of the most popular feature requests!

9. That’s exactly what we, photographers sitting and waiting couple of seconds for a (every) photo to render, waiting for.

   Really worth all your development efforts, Adobe.

   Keep up a good work, producing new and new apps.

   There is really no need to fix any bugs in existing software, and performance of core product – Lightroom for desktop is top notch.

   Hardware acceleration is outstanding and there is no need to switch it off to have performance gains (just look at healing brush).

   1. There is a saying that nine women can’t have a baby in 1 month. There are teams working on bug fixes for the other products, don’t worry 😉

      1. I don’t worry, I even celebrate every year some of the most annoying bugs 🙂

         https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/multiple_image_move_operation_bug_since_at_least_version_2

10. Very cool. Any chance of a Roku or Samsung App with this feature?
    Are videos supported as well?
    Thanks in advance.
    joel*

11. Can you implement rating / keywording into this?

12. Yes let’s put our resources into this, while the main Lightroom app gets crappier every year. It sad this is adobe’s priority now.

13. Interesting concept light room on Apple TV I can imagine a world of different possibilities.

14. Just tried it out and LOVE it Simple…fast…perfect. Time for a 4K tv I guess.

15. LOVE this, but can’t figure out how to show slideshow. Please confirm if this works as a slideshow or if you have to manually scroll through the images as it appears, which is a bit useless.

    1. See the manual/help document here: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/view-lightroom-photos-collections-apple-tv.html#Playaslideshowofyourphotos

       1. Hit the Play Button for a slideshow. Search Tery White for his latest tutorial.

    2. I also hope we get the ability to shuffle a slideshow (on AppleTV but also iOS). I was messing around with Apple Photos etc but LR mobile would be perfect as a screensaver, etc, if it only had shuffle

16. Sounds promising for trade shows, studios,
    and casual use. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

17. Great stuff – was looking forward to getting this on my Apple TV. Loading of images is pretty quick on screen and everything works nicely in my quick test of it so far.

    The only glaring issue for me is that the collections on the front page are in alphabetical order which is pretty useless for me with heaps of collections. I think most people are going to want to look at their latest collections so it would be nice to have a setting like on the mobile apps to choose between latest collections descending date order or alphabetical order for the people that want that too. Hopefully sub-folders support comes at some stage.

    And yes another vote for smart collections to be able to be synced – that would make everything so much more useful.

    After smart collections I am just waiting on full quality original backups – surely this is going to be coming at some point. Having to backup my images at Dropbox, S3 or wherever would be much easier if we could just pay an extra fee to Adobe to keep every original file in the cloud rather than Smart Previews.

    1. Can’t you just cast your screen (with LR, Preview, whatever) to your Apple TV?

18. It feels like Christmas!
    This app is the perfect way for me to benefit from the time I spend working on pictures.
    I hope there will be some more slideshow styles, ability to change the order of collections, possibility to show only flagged pictures etc…
    But it is a great addition to the Lightroom family.
    Now the best feature for me would be to sync between two computers to allow my wife to do the albums when I do the edits.

19. Would have made more sense for the Revel product. Not sure how Adobe is positioning LR anymore. Was this a hack project that got released?

    1. Makes perfect sense for Lightroom too

20. At first I thought this might be cool. Then I noticed “synced photos” Would be more useful if it could display the huge collections on my iMac instead of the tiny set in the cloud
    Or maybe I’m missing something

21. I just started viewing my flagged pictures collection as a slide show. I think it is GREAT! I was hoping something like this was coming and I am very pleased to see it. I think transition choices would be nice, but I think it’s really awesome that I can show my favorites on the big screen without having to dump them into the Apple pictures app or using screen casting. Thanks. Five stars.

22. 20 GB in the cloud is really so embarrassing that any good app will not make it better. But if you pick up on the cloud-service, it may become interesting.

23. Nice to be able to zoom! If the app will support smart collections and video in the future I can replace my current workflow (using iTunes home sharing and a mac mini in a closet) with it. Looking forward to it!

24. Nice idea, but as long as it’s not possible to sync Smart Collections, it’s as useful as mobile sync without Smart Collections – i.e. not useful at all.

    The idea of syncing should be that things happen automatically. Has Adobe not seen Apple Photos or Google Photos? Who the h*ll has time to create some new sync collections every frigging day to see the latest photos on mobile, or now TV? Can’t we at least have the “Previous Import” automatically synced or something? ZOMG this makes no sense except in some mid-managers head at Adobe.

    1. +1

25. Well, it is actually a nice feature – beeing able to Watch/show Lr Collections on Apple TV.

    Would though love the Lr Mobile to catch up a bit – using labels, create virtual copy, perhaps even use keywords.

    Would also like the desktop – Lr core – to catch up with really old-time bugs like secondary window and multi select and keywording plus take a look at that old-school database (decades behind the rest of the world).

    Adobe is spraying new features (and gimicks) – but are not that good at hold pace at the core applications – seen from a customer perspective it’s somewhat cool (new toys) but also anoying (really oldtime bugs).

26. Cant get the Apple tv app to work it states I dont have a subscription – I have lightroom 6 installed on my apple Imac
    ????

    1. In order to use any of the Adobe Lightroom mobile ecosystem, Lightroom mobile, Lightroom web, Lightroom TV you must be using the subscription version of Lightroom. If you go to Help>System Info… and your Lightroom version is 6.x you are not using the subscription version. It must say CC2015.x under version. If you have a subscription, log in with the Adobe ID associated with your subscription. If you do not have subscription, LR for Apple TV is not available to you.

27. Every time I upgrade my Lightroom desktop software it gets SLOWER. TRY FIXING THAT,

28. Let’s focus on fixing Lightroom before adding more new features. I’m all for new features, and I can defiantly see this being used in a studio setting with clients, but Adobe… If you don’t fix the foundation, the house is going to fall down. Nearly every photography podcast I listen to has spent a good amount of time over the last year discussing alternatives to Lightroom because of the performance issues. It’s not a good sign for the future. You have to get this fixed.

    As a side note, I opened up Aperture yesterday and the difference in performance to Lightroom made me remember why I used to use it before migrating to Lightroom when Apple ended development. If software that hasn’t seen any updates in several years is performing drastically better than constantly updated software, something is wrong.

29. “Our goal has always been to make Lightroom the one solution that you use to enjoy your photography, anywhere and to let you share your photos with anyone, anywhere, with the best possible quality.”

    If the above statement is true … why can we only create books that can only be printed by Blurb?

    Many of us really do want Lightroom to be our ‘one solution’ but you insist upon walling us in to a single vendor. How does that accomplish the end goal of sharing out photos with anyone, anywhere, with the best possible quality when Blurb may not offer the end products with the dimensions, paper types and cover styles we desire?

30. Is this only available in the US? Does not show on the UK App Store. Latest version is 2.4.1 dated 21 July 16.

    1. 2.4.1 is the iOS app version. The Apple TV app is downloaded via your Version 4 Apple TV in the Apple TV App Store. It won’t show up on your Phone/Tablet.

31. I have a subscription to both LightRoom CC and Photoshop CC. As a photographer, all my work when edited etc, is placed on a Lacie d2 – 4TB back up disk. I usually carry around 300 to 400 photos at one time in LightRoom. I don’t back up to the cloud. That being said, will I be able too see my photos that I have in LightRoom CC now on my 27 inch iMac, if I have the 4 Generation of Apple TV? I have the 2nd Generation now and will upgrade if I am able to see my photos now that I am working on and editing on LightRoom CC. I can view them now using Airplay on my iPhone 6 or the same on my 27 inch iMac. An answer would be appreciated before I decide to get the 4th Generation. Thanks…

    Tunney

32. Can you get Apple TV to see a folder in your LR catalogue and use it as a screensaver that Apple TV defaults to like it currently does with photos? THEN I’m interested…

33. I use Apple TV all the time. The problem has been that I have to copy my photos to Apple’s Photos program to show on Apple TV as a slide show. Will I be able to show my LR pics as a slideshow on Apple TV maybe through the collections?

    1. You will be able to share Collections synced through Lightroom for mobile to your Lightroom for Apple TV. Those collections can be played as individual slideshows.

34. I am so happy to hear about this! I’ve been waiting for what seems an endless amount of time for SmugMug to develop and Apple TV interface, and it still hasn’t happened. This is fabulous news for me!

35. Can Apple TV play music from AirPlay or home network while using the app?
    That’s the biggest drawback I’ve had since converting from Aperture to LR. With Aperture, Apple TV could grab the Aperture photo library to display photos as the screen saver while I play music. With LR, there’s no integration so the best it can do is grab the images on my computer. The issues are that it grabs all photos, including the ones I’ve rejected in LR, and it display the photos without any of the LR edits.

    1. The only photos Lightroom for Apple TV should be showing are photos you’ve explicitly specified for sharing. If you include rejected items in your collections you are sharing to mobile, they will show in all mobile-enabled devices.

36. Is it just me or are these little preview pictures not really made for the “big screen”?
    … especially when in zoom mode

37. This is awesome and very useful!

38. I love the new Lightroom for Apple TV app, I have been missing this for quite a while.
    The only thing that I miss is the wrong order of the photos within the collection.
    But other than that… just beautiful!

39. I like this a lot, but I do have a couple of questions.

    How do I get the images to show as a presentation (ie I dont have to forward through them)?

    How can I add music to the presentation?

    Many thanks for a great app otherwise

40. Hi,

    It Works great. But it is not possible to make diashow an Play Musik at the same time!
    When i start the diashow the musik stops!

41. I’m not updating my Apple TV, I only bought it last year. Give us a break. Do you think we are made of money?

42. Very good idea. See the photos from lightroom is what i expected. only tooday I saw the new. I will change my Apple TV from de 3th for the 4th generation. Congratulations for adobe.

43. Great! That is exactly what I was looking for as all of my “serious” photos are in the LR cloud and not in Apple’s cloud.

44. Great app! You actually solved the slideshow issue on the Apple TV. But some extra features would be welcome: more transitions and effects (Ken Burns), some timing settings and the possibility to add a music track

45. Happy to see this added to the Lightroom family since I dislike copying photos to iPhoto. I would love to see less harsh transitions, an option for “very slow” slideshow speed, and shuffle.

    1. Thanks for the feedback, Tony! Will definitely keep those points in mind 🙂

46. Would it be possible to display (with controls) a LR generated Slideshow with music and effects?

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