Adobe first released Lightroom in 2006 as a public beta, asking photographers to participate in the design through the associated discussion forum. While that forum is now closed, the opportunity to influence the direction of Lightroom still exists.

Bug reports and feature requests can be submitted directly to Adobe using a form on their support site, and I'm told that every submission will be seen by the people who can do something with it.

The same form is used for bug reports and feature requests.

If filing a bug report:

In order to make your bug report useful to the Lightroom engineers, it needs to include a lot of detail -- in order to fix the bug, the engineers need to be able to reproduce the problem in their own environment, so that they can confirm that it's fixed after making the patch. Give them all the relevant information, and a detailed recipe to follow including any variations you've tested. Describe what happens in your environment, how that differs from what you expect, and why it's a problem. If you've discovered a workaround, tell them about it.

To do this, they'll need your Lightroom version, operating system and version, and perhaps details about your camera equipment and computer equipment and configuration. If you know what version of Lightroom first exhibited the problem, that's helpful too. If you're using any third-party plug-ins, presets, or other tools, be sure to mention that. Some of this information can be found under the Help menu, in System Info.

If you see an error message, provide the exact text of that message. It may help to include screen shots and console logs, and you might consider supplying copies of your original files or catalog if that seems relevant. If there are copyright issues or privacy implications to consider, see if you can reproduce the problem using files that don't have those constraints.

If filing a feature request:

If you'd like your idea to be taken seriously, you need to explain not only what you want, but why you want it. How would it save you time, allow you to get a result you can't otherwise get, simplify your workflow, reduce the opportunity for user error, shave costs, or eliminate world hunger?

If you have a solution that solves the same problem today in a more complicated fashion, detail that to ensure that the Lightroom team understands what you're proposing. If you can mock up an interface in Photoshop, do that. If other software does what you're asking for, feel free to mention that but don't assume that others are familiar with it -- provide screen shots, links to online documentation, and/or detailed descriptions.

Additional Resources

If you feel your bug report or feature request deserves more discussion than the online form can provide, you might consider posting it to the Adobe User to User Forum. That forum is monitored by Adobe staff and Lightroom testers, in addition to a huge number of Lightroom users. While it is not an official help channel, it's probably the best way to bend the ear of people who might be able to do something about it. On the flip side, it's high-traffic and somewhat unfriendly.

There are numerous other online forums for Lightroom discussions, some of which are read by Adobe staff and testers. One of my favorites is Lightroom Forums, which is much friendlier than the Adobe forum and has a remarkable depth of Lightroom gurus helping out. It's a great place to air your idea, see if others are experiencing the same bug or would find your feature idea useful before submitting it officially.

Other things to think about:

The Lightroom team at Adobe can't do everything we want them to do; they have to prioritize bug fixes and feature enhancements. While the bug you're submitting may seem huge to you, or the feature you're looking for may seem absolutely critical, don't assume they'll see it the way you see it. Don't be disappointed if it doesn't make it into the next release; maybe it'll get into the one after that.

Remember that it takes time for these things to be done. Even the most trivial change needs to go through a Quality Assurance process, which takes time, and no Quality Assurance process can possibly test every combination of hardware, software, configuration, files, and user actions. Some bugs are bound to get through.

And remember, they're people too. A report containing "You idiots, how could you get this far without implementing soft proofing? It's the number one most important element of any photographer's workflow! I could write that code in an hour!" isn't likely to get a whole lot of sympathy.

So with all that in mind, if you've got a wishlist, pet peeve, or you just want to make the world a better place, go ahead and submit that bug report or feature request. Adobe is listening.