EditCheck plug-in, the story behind it

Friday 31 August 2018, 16:32 by Dick Holtman | 5,429 views | 0 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Over the coming period, I want to share with you the stories behind the development of a number of well-known Lightroom plug-ins from various developers.
The first plug-in I am covering is EditCheck. I wrote this plug-in myself and it was the start of the development of a whole series of Lightroom plug-ins and of LightroomStatistics.com, the company behind it.

EditCheck in essence

As a photographer, I want to be able to check whether one or more edits have or have not been applied to a series of photos, so that I do not deliver half-edited or unedited photos to my client, including myself.

Example: show all photos without sharpening, or without a clarity adjustment, or without ...

How it started

It all started with three people around me. First of all, Ada, my wife. She is an enthusiastic wildlife photographer.
In 2005, she bought her first digital camera, a Canon 350D.

Source: Wikimedia Commons, by André Karwath aka Aka

Of course, the photos she took also had to be edited. And that is where I came in. She was the photographer and I was the computer expert. I have worked as a software engineer in IT for years and it is my passion. When Lightroom came out, I immediately saw its potential and bought a licence straight away. I still have the licence key for version 1.0. All your photos together, well organised, no more opening and saving photos, no complicated menus, all metadata at hand, so photos can be found again quickly. Ideal!

Through my work, I came into contact with the second main character. He came from East Germany and had been hired as a self-employed IT contractor at the company where I worked. We were on the same team. Every afternoon, we went for a walk during lunch and he invariably took a camera and a GPS with him. For the record, this was around 2007. During one of these walks, he said to me: “Dick, one day I will be one of the few people with digital photos from the early 2000s.” Why, I asked in surprise. Well, he said: “everyone takes photos everywhere and they are everywhere, but nobody makes proper backups.” That remark triggered me and from that moment on I started looking into Digital Asset Management. At the bottom of the article, you will find two blogs about making backups.

Not long afterwards, I bought Peter Krogh's book “The Dam book”. A fantastic reference work, the third edition of which was recently published. You can buy it at a discount via the link at the bottom of the blog.

Source: The DAM book website

The final main character is Geurt Besselink. For years, he has been one of the better professional wildlife photographers in the Netherlands. He has since written three books about the Veluwe, runs photography courses and lectures, and organises fascinating photography trips to beautiful places abroad.

Source: Geurt Besselink's website

EditCheck plug-in

At one point, Geurt and I got talking and he asked whether it would be possible to write a plug-in for him. From a quality perspective, he wanted a plug-in that would allow him to quickly check whether he had applied all the necessary edits to a series of photos before delivering his images to his clients.

The customer request

Or, as he put it: “I want to see all photos without sharpening, or where the exposure has not yet been adjusted, or that have no vibrance or clarity adjustment . And so on.”
The plug-in reports almost 50 settings.

This was the birth of EditCheck, my first Lightroom plug-in. Since then, many more plug-ins have seen the light of day, including various bespoke plug-ins for professional photographers and companies.

The next blog is about a peculiar outsider among Lightroom plug-ins, namely the Export LUT plug-in by John R. Ellis.

Price reduced

From 1 September 2018, the plug-in costs 10 instead of 20 euros.

Background information

You can find more information via the following links.

LightroomStatistics.com

LightroomStatistics is the company that, in addition to Lightroom plug-ins, also releases analysis software for analysing your use of Lightroom and your camera and lenses.

• LightroomStatistics website
• Analysis reports
• Photographers-Toolbox, marketplace for Lightroom plug-ins (all)
• Photographers-Toolbox: overview of LightroomStatistics plug-ins
• Photofacts: Photos & computers, backup (1 of 2)
• Photofacts: Photos & computers, backup (2 of 2)

The DAM book

The DAM book 3 is one of the better reference works on digital photography. A real recommendation for anyone who is proficient in English.

• The Dam book 3 (at a discount)
• The DAM book website

Geurt Besselink

For years, Geurt has been building a career as a professional wildlife photographer, educator and organiser of photography trips. For more information, see his website.

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