Photoshop Actions runner for Lightroom Classic

A Lightroom Classic user finishes culling and basic exposure work, then realizes they need to apply a complex multi-step edit — sharpening, frequency separation, dodge/burn — that only exists as a Photoshop Action. The complaint is direct: 'The one big feature missing is actions like Photoshop, or at least the ability to import Photoshop actions.' So they round-trip every image into Photoshop, run the action, save back, and return to Lightroom. For a shoot with 200 selects, this is an hour of mechanical switching.

This gap persists because Adobe's incentive is to keep Lightroom and Photoshop as separate paid products. A feature that lets Lightroom run Photoshop Actions natively would reduce Photoshop license justification. Adobe has no structural reason to close this gap — it's profitable to keep it open.

What users are left with: either they manually re-create the action steps as Lightroom presets (lossy translation — Lightroom has no frequency separation, no layer blend modes), or they do the round-trip every single time. Neither is acceptable at volume.

This is a business because the problem recurs with every shoot, every batch, every new Action a photographer wants to apply. Photographers who shoot weddings, portraits, or commercial work process thousands of images per month. The cost of the round-trip — in time and in broken flow state — is real and measurable. A tool that parses .atn files and executes the subset of steps that can be replicated via Lightroom SDK calls, flagging steps that require actual Photoshop with a one-click handoff, would eliminate 80% of round-trips for 80% of common Actions.

What to build

Build a Lightroom Classic plugin that parses Photoshop .atn Action files, executes compatible steps (exposure, curves, noise reduction, sharpening, selective adjustments) natively inside Lightroom, and batches the remainder to a headless Photoshop instance when layer operations are required — returning finished files directly to the Lightroom catalog.

Where to start

Target photographers who sell or buy Photoshop Action packs — this is a large, existing market with communities on Etsy and YouTube where Action creators would have direct incentive to promote a tool that makes their products usable inside Lightroom.

The hard part

The Lightroom Classic SDK is deliberately limited in what it exposes — many Photoshop Action steps (frequency separation, content-aware operations, layer blending) have no Lightroom equivalent, which means the compatibility surface is smaller than users expect and first impressions will disappoint unless you set scope expectations precisely at onboarding.

How it makes money

One-time license fee per seat ($49–79), with an optional annual subscription for updates as Adobe changes the Lightroom SDK — natural upsell when Adobe releases breaking changes.