Double entry wastes field time.
Scientific names, common names, place guesses, IDs, URLs, and quality grades should not be typed twice. The plugin pulls iNaturalist data back into Lightroom so your archive reflects what the community has resolved.
Available now · Plugin subscription · Lightroom Classic
Organize your wildlife catalog with iNaturalist metadata
A native Lightroom Classic plugin that automates species identification writebacks, nested keyword trees, and conservation statuses.
iNat Publish Pro · Lightroom Classic
iNat Publish Pro
iNat Publish Pro · Lightroom Classic
The bottleneck
Your catalog knows the photo. iNaturalist knows the organism.
iNat Publish Pro closes the gap between your Lightroom Classic archive and your iNaturalist observations. It keeps the online record, the local photograph, the taxonomic identity, and the conservation context tied together instead of scattered across browser tabs, spreadsheets, and half-finished keyword lists.
Identifications change.
Community IDs, retired taxa, split species, and corrected names are part of real biodiversity data. iNat Publish Pro gives you a reviewable workflow before those changes touch your catalog.
Keyword trees get ugly fast.
Building a clean Kingdom → Phylum → Class → Order → Family → Genus → Species tree by hand is brutal. iNat Publish Pro writes searchable taxonomy hierarchy without turning your Lightroom catalog into a manual data-entry job.
Platform
Lightroom Classic
Connection
iNaturalist API
Match logic
ID · Time · GPS
Data model
Schema v10
Sync review window
Every match gets a review step.
The review window groups candidates by observation, shows confidence percentages, flags already-linked photos, and lets you include or exclude files before accepting selected matches.
The workflow
The bidirectional sync path.
Shoot in the field. Publish or match to iNaturalist. Let the community improve the ID. Pull the verified biological context back into the catalog where your finished images actually live.
01 · Import
Bring the field day into Lightroom.
Import raw files, keep your edits, preserve EXIF, and choose whether the plugin writes only custom metadata or also updates standard Lightroom fields like titles, captions, and keywords.
02 · Match
Link photos to observations.
Match by explicit observation ID or URL, existing metadata links, or time-and-GPS correlation when no direct link exists.
03 · Write back
Pull the biology into the catalog.
Write scientific names, common names, observation IDs, place fields, quality grades, geoprivacy, conservation status, and full taxonomic hierarchy into Lightroom.
04 · Maintain
Keep taxonomy current without wrecking captions.
Use Update Taxa to triage retired names, changed IDs, and community refinements. Preserve title/caption controls protect your hand-written work while metadata and keywords stay current.
Start here
Stop rebuilding your species archive by hand.
Match photos, review confidence, write iNaturalist IDs back to Lightroom, and keep taxonomy current without turning every field day into a metadata cleanup project.
Command Center
A Lightroom control room for biodiversity records.
The Command Center is where syncing, taxonomy review, catalog health, and visual reporting come together. It is built for real archives, not demo folders.
Update Taxa⚑ retired taxon
Browse Catalogscientific name
Summarysync health
Reports & Chartscached insights
Export Diagnosticssafe support bundle
Taxonomy changes, reviewed before commit.
Compact rows, risk flags, Accept All, Exclude All, flag filters, and pre-commit previews keep large updates controlled.
Search by biology, not just filenames.
Find images by scientific name, common name, taxonomic rank, place name, or iNaturalist observation ID.
Know what is synced and what needs work.
See catalog health at a glance: synchronized photos, out-of-sync records, total observations, and next actions.
Turn the archive into insight.
Explore taxonomic distribution, family-level patterns, seasonal activity, and observation trends from cached local data.
Changed names are reviewed before commit.
Scan for renamed, retired, or shifted taxa, compare old and new classifications, then accept, exclude, reset, or commit updates deliberately.
Catalog data becomes usable intelligence.
Run taxonomy, phenology, conservation, operations, and quality reports; export CSV; or generate print/PDF-style outputs.
What gets written
Metadata with scientific spine.
A Lightroom catalog becomes dramatically more useful when each image carries the observation link, taxon identity, conservation context, and hierarchy that make it searchable years later.
Reference
inat_observation_id
inat_observation_uuid
inat_observation_url
Taxon
scientific name
common name
rank
taxon ID
Hierarchy
kingdom
phylum
class
order
family
genus
species
subspecies
variety
form
Conservation
IUCN
NatureServe
local status
Place
place guess
country
state
county
geoprivacy
Quality
research grade
needs ID
casual
Taxonomy lives in the catalog.
Observation URLs, taxon IDs, conservation status, family, genus, species, place data, and quality grades become searchable local metadata.
One image, full biological context.
Open a readable view of identification, observation, taxonomy, conservation, and geographic fields tied to the selected image.
Core tools
Built for the ways photographers actually publish.
Use it as a full publish pipeline, a metadata recovery tool, a taxonomy maintenance console, or a clean export helper for the web uploader.
Four-step onboarding.
Activate the subscription, connect iNaturalist through OAuth, configure metadata rules, and verify the connection before touching a catalog-wide workflow.
OAuth
license
preferences
Lightroom Publish Service.
Drag photos into publish collections, upload them to iNaturalist, and store the resulting observation links back in Lightroom.
collections
status tracking
Export for iNaturalist.
Prepare resized, metadata-tagged images for photographers who still prefer the iNaturalist web uploader.
manual upload
metadata prep
Multiple scopes.
Sync selected photos, folders, date ranges, or only changes since the last run. Keep small edits fast and catalog maintenance deliberate.
selected
folder
date range
Family-level catalog structure.
Reorganize synchronized photos into biological family collections so your library can be browsed like a natural history archive.
families
collections
Safe diagnostics.
Export a support bundle with logs and configuration snapshots while scrubbing sensitive credentials and masking precise coordinates.
logs
privacy
Prepare upload-ready files.
Resize, set JPEG quality, choose the export folder, and jump directly to the iNaturalist upload page when export finishes.
Inspect the subject before linking.
Open a larger preview while matching so the decision is based on the organism, not just a filename or timestamp.
Trust & resilience
Designed for real catalogs, field internet, and sensitive places.
The plugin respects your catalog, your credentials, your hand-edited text, and the reality that field photographers are not always sitting on perfect Wi-Fi.
No stored iNaturalist password.
Authentication uses OAuth. Tokens are stored through the operating system credential vault using Lightroom’s secure password APIs.
Work continues between connections.
Existing metadata editing, charts, reports, and cached taxonomy operations can continue locally. Fresh syncs and license validation reconnect when the network returns.
Your catalog remains yours.
Existing synchronized metadata stays in Lightroom if the subscription lapses or the plugin is disabled. Paid operations resume after renewal; your records are not locked away.
Chunked processing.
Large catalog work is processed in cooperative chunks to reduce Lightroom UI freezes and keep high-volume archives manageable.
Masked debug coordinates.
Debug logs mask exact GPS coordinates to protect sensitive species locations and personal field sites during support requests.
Nature Tools-hosted updates.
v1.16.0 moves updates to Nature Tools infrastructure with signed manifests and background validation built for field reliability.
Image overlay
The finished photograph keeps its field context.
Filename, scientific name, common name, exposure, ISO, focal length, and lens information can sit directly over the photograph for review, export, teaching, or field-storytelling use.
Who it is for
Three groups get immediate value.
Stop typing scientific names.
Keep the local archive clean, searchable, and correctly captioned without sacrificing finished edits or hand-written descriptions.
Make the contribution pipeline smoother.
Track observation links, quality grades, taxonomic updates, and searchable life-list context from inside the photo catalog.
Keep records defensible.
Preserve taxon IDs, conservation designations, place fields, exact observation URLs, and privacy-aware diagnostic logs.
FAQ
Plain answers before you install.
Is iNat Publish Pro officially affiliated with iNaturalist?
No. It is developed independently by Nature Tools and uses iNaturalist’s public developer APIs to simplify legitimate contribution and metadata workflows.
How does it match Lightroom photos to iNaturalist observations?
It can match by explicit observation ID or URL, by previously stored metadata links, or by comparing EXIF capture time and GPS coordinates against your iNaturalist observations.
Will it overwrite my titles and captions?
Not by default if you configure it not to. The Update Taxa workflow includes Preserve Title/Caption controls so taxonomy and keyword data can update while hand-written titles and captions remain untouched.
Can I use it offline?
Some operations work from local caches, including existing metadata review, charts, reports, and catalog queries. Fresh observation syncs, license activation, and new iNaturalist API requests need internet access.
What happens if the subscription expires?
Your existing Lightroom metadata remains intact. The plugin does not lock or delete previously synchronized records. New paid operations resume after the license is renewed.
Try it in your catalog
Take control of your taxonomy.
Bring iNaturalist observations, identifications, taxonomy, conservation status, and place data back into Lightroom Classic—then keep the catalog current as names and classifications change.