We get requests often: “Can I use Lightroom” to stack my photos? The answer is yes, you can – but there are some nuisances. See the “Plusses” and “Minuses” listed at the bottom of this article.
It is a bit painful to run Photoshop Actions from within Lightroom especially compared to the relative ease of using Adobe Bridge to drive the stacker. But using Lightroom does have a few charms, so how do you accomplish the goal of stacking using the Advanced Stacker PLUS?
Here is What to Do
- Install and configure the Advanced Stacker PLUS.
- In Photoshop Use File -> Automate -> Create Droplet for the “Do This First” step. Be sure to select all the needed options as shown.
- Also Create a Droplet for your favorite stacking method (E.g. Short Comets).
- In Lightroom use Export -> Post Processing (down at the bottom) After Export -> Go To Export Folder NOW.
- Copy the Droplet files into the folder that opened when you did the “Go to Export Folder” action.
- Next pull down the After Export and choose “Do This First”
- It’s probably safe to leave all the other defaults, but you can choose resizing, file type and naming options. We recommend exporting into a subfolder e.g. “LargeJPGs” or “LargeTIFFs”
- Click “Add” to save this as a user Preset.
- Repeat steps 7 and 8 with your favorite stacking action(s)
We learned some of these tips from this website.
PLUSSES:
- You can pick specific files from a folder (or multiple folders) for stacking – you don’t have to stack a whole folder of files.
- You don’t have to leave Lightroom
MINUSES:
- Lightroom will first export the files after applying Lightroom or Adobe Camera RAW processing to them. This chews up a bit more file space.
- Because of the extra step, stacking using Droplets in Lightroom may take a bit longer.
- More memory is required since you will be using both Lightroom and Photoshop at once.
- Droplets are not portable, that is you can’t run a Mac droplet on a Windows PC and v.v. (but the Stacking Action scripts are portable).
- If you use intermediates, there is not an option to change which folder is used to accumulate the results.