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lightroom-desktop-mcp

lightroom-desktop-mcp

by yuanruoyu515
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lightroom-desktop-mcp

An MCP server that lets an AI agent drive Adobe Lightroom desktop on macOS. This is the cloud-based Lightroom (bundle id com.adobe.mas.lightroomCC), not Lightroom Classic.

Lightroom desktop has no plug-in API, so this works from the outside. A small Swift helper uses the macOS Accessibility API to click menus and native controls and to send keyboard and mouse events. The Edit panel sliders are custom-drawn and invisible to Accessibility, so they are read and set through Vision OCR on window screenshots. In effect it is computer use with Lightroom-specific shortcuts.

For Lightroom Classic, use Automaat/lightroom-mcp instead. It talks to Classic's plug-in SDK directly and is faster and more reliable.

Tested with Lightroom 9.6 on macOS 27, Simplified Chinese UI.

Install

Requires Node.js 20+ and the Xcode Command Line Tools (swiftc).

git clone https://github.com/yuanruoyu515/lightroom-desktop-mcp.git
cd lightroom-desktop-mcp
npm install            # also compiles bin/lrax
claude mcp add lightroom-desktop -s user -- "$(which node)" "$PWD/index.js"

Grant the app that launches the server (Terminal, Claude desktop, etc.) Accessibility and Screen Recording permission in System Settings → Privacy & Security.

Related MCP server: mcp-macos-cua

Tools

Tool

What it does

lr_status, lr_launch, lr_quit

App state, start, quit

lr_screenshot

Screenshot of the main window. Later clicks use its pixel coordinates by default

lr_menu_list, lr_menu_click

List or click menu items by path, in the UI language, e.g. Photo > Set Rating > 5 Stars. The most reliable way to run commands

lr_read_sliders

Read visible Edit panel sliders as label → value

lr_set_slider

Set a slider by its label, e.g. {"label": "Exposure", "value": 0.7}, then read it back

lr_find_text

OCR the window and return text with clickable screen coordinates

lr_ui_tree, lr_ui_find, lr_ui_action

Accessibility tree for native buttons, toolbar, search field

lr_click, lr_drag, lr_scroll, lr_key, lr_type

Raw mouse and keyboard fallback

lr_add_photos

Hand files to Lightroom for import (uploads them to Adobe cloud)

lr_catalog_overview, lr_catalog_query

Read-only SELECT queries on Lightroom's local SQLite index (Managed Catalog.wfindex)

Environment variables: LIGHTROOM_DESKTOP_READ_ONLY=1 disables every tool that changes the UI or data; LIGHTROOM_DESKTOP_LIBRARY / LIGHTROOM_DESKTOP_INDEX point to a non-default library; LR_BUNDLE_ID overrides the app's bundle id.

Limitations

  • Slider positions come from OCR plus a measured layout offset (the value field's right edge sits 225 pt right of the label). A Lightroom redesign may break it. Only the Chinese UI has been tested.

  • Vision does not read a lone "0", so a slider is assumed to be 0 when the value slot has a glyph, nothing to its left, and a slider track below.

  • Masks, curves, crop and other drag-heavy tools only work through raw clicks and drags, which is slow and error-prone.

  • About 3 seconds per slider. Input events take over the mouse and keyboard while it runs.

  • In Local mode edits apply to the files on disk; cloud photos sync to Adobe.

License

MIT

This server cannot be deployed

One endpoint for every MCP toolRayrun runs every MCP server behind one URL and holds the credentials. Each call is decided per client, tool, and argument, then recorded.ray.runAd

Maintenance

ActivityMaintained
ResponsivenessNo recent community issues

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