Press Release

Photo Manager Brings Order to a Photo Library Spread Across Adobe Lightroom, Amazon Photos, and Local Drives

A self-hosted web app that gives photographers a single place to find, tag, and act on every photo they’ve ever taken — from any browser, on any device, on their home network

OLYMPIA, April 4, 2026 — The Knotty Maple today announces Photo Manager, a self-hosted web application and local photo server that gives photographers access to their full photo library — Adobe Lightroom, Amazon Photos, and drives connected to the local photo server — from any browser, on any device, on their home network. Find any photo, see exactly where it lives, and curate the ones worth sharing, printing, or posting — all in one place.

A photographer’s photo library is easy to fill and nearly impossible to curate. Photos accumulate across Adobe Lightroom, Amazon Photos, and local photo server drives, with no single place to surface the ones worth sharing, printing, or posting. You don’t know which photos exist only in the cloud and need a copy on the local photo server, which are duplicated across services, or which have never been backed up at all. There’s no unified way to build a tag vocabulary across both libraries, no way to see which albums a photo belongs to when viewing the individual photo, and adding one photo to one album in Adobe Lightroom is a multi-click operation. The result is that after hours of editing and comparing similar photos, you grab the wrong ones in a multi-select operation among twenty nearly-identical thumbnails in an endless grid, with no way to filter down to just the ones you want. Photo Manager fills that gap: find and filter across everything you’ve shot, tag while you browse, and let that categorization make the next search faster.

Starting today, photographers can easily locate the photos they love the most among their vast collection — from a laptop, a tablet, or a phone — so that they can share them with friends, hang them on the walls of their home or office, or post them online for the world to see. While viewing any photo, photographers now know which albums it belongs to, which tags have been applied, where it lives across cloud services and local photo server folders, and which related photos — duplicates or derived works — exist elsewhere in the library. While viewing a single photo or selecting multiple from a search, photographers can download to a sync folder on a local photo server, apply or remove tags, and open related files. A unified search spans Adobe Lightroom, local photo server drives, and — with the Firefox extension — Amazon Photos at once, filtering by date, camera, file type, resolution, or tag, with results from every source in a single grid.

“I’m proud of my photos and experiences. I can now summon the photos I want when sharing my experiences with others at parties or out and about” said the founder. “Before this app, I used to spend a minute or so scrolling through my entire collection and hoping to get lucky.”

Photo Manager is where you tag, organize, and surface the photos worth acting on — but the work continues in Adobe Lightroom and Amazon Photos. Duplicates need to be resized and cropped for different mediums, vignettes and edits applied, and photos added to albums to take advantage of each service’s native file sharing capabilities. The Photo Manager Firefox extension carries your curation into Adobe Lightroom and Amazon Photos. While browsing Adobe Lightroom web or Amazon Photos, it displays the Photo Manager tags and related files for the photo you are viewing, right alongside it in the browser. With it, you can add or adjust tags without leaving the browser, and add photos to albums in bulk — organized around the curation work already done in Photo Manager.

Frequently Asked Questions

Customer FAQs

Do I need a server?

The local photo server is an application that runs on any Windows, Linux, or Mac computer you likely already own. You can run the ‘server’ from the same computer that you use to browse your photos. What you cannot do is run Photo Manager from a tablet alone: the server application needs to be running on a computer somewhere on your home network, and your tablet (or any other browser) connects to it from there.

What does Photo Manager do that Adobe Lightroom and Amazon Photos do not?

Photo Manager is the layer above Adobe Lightroom and Amazon Photos, not a replacement for either. Adobe Lightroom is built around the editing workflow — keywords, develop settings (exposure, contrast, white balance, tone curve, noise reduction, etc.), star ratings — and Amazon Photos around backup and sharing. Neither answers questions like “which of my photos are in Adobe Lightroom but not stored on the local photo server?” or “which photos exist in multiple places?” Both make it difficult to tag photos or organize them into albums. Photo Manager does: see what you have and where it lives across all sources, apply your own tagging vocabulary, and act on what you find — download, organize, identify gaps — without leaving a single app.

What devices can I use Photo Manager on?

Any device with a browser that can reach the Photo Manager server on your home network — a laptop, a tablet, or a phone. A companion Firefox extension, available only on laptops running Firefox, adds write-back capabilities: album management in Adobe Lightroom, browsing Amazon Photos, uploading photos, and downloading originals. On a tablet or any non-Firefox browser, browsing and curation are fully available; write-back actions can be decided on any device and executed the next time you connect via a laptop with the extension.

What can I do on a tablet versus a laptop with the Firefox extension?

On a tablet or any non-Firefox browser, you can browse your full library of local photo server and Adobe Lightroom photos, search and filter, view photo details, apply tags, mark photos for deletion, and download photos to a sync folder on the local photo server. Amazon Photos is not accessible without the extension. On a laptop with Firefox and the extension installed, all of the above plus: browse and sync Amazon Photos, create and manage albums in Adobe Lightroom and Amazon Photos, upload photos between services, and download original camera files and high-resolution renders.

Does Photo Manager upload my photos?

Yes, with the Firefox extension. Photo Manager identifies photos on any source — local photo server drives or a cloud service — that are missing from a target cloud service. The Firefox extension makes it easy to upload them without hunting for the file manually.

Does Photo Manager edit my photos?

No. Photo Manager does not alter image data, change develop settings (exposure, contrast, white balance, tone curve, noise reduction, etc.), star ratings, or keywords in either service. It is a management layer, not an editing tool.

Can Photo Manager help me manage differently cropped or resized versions of my photos?

Photo Manager creates a copy of a photo and marks it with a target dimension, but the cropping itself happens in Adobe Lightroom where you can apply the right frame. Photo Manager tracks which copies have been cropped and which haven’t, making it easy to surface the photos that still need work in Adobe Lightroom. Once complete, it maintains the relationship between the original and the resized copy.

What happens to my Adobe Lightroom library when I connect Photo Manager?

Nothing changes in Adobe Lightroom. Photo Manager builds an inventory of your Adobe Lightroom library on the local photo server — filenames, capture dates, camera make and model, dimensions, album memberships, and keywords — without modifying anything in Adobe Lightroom. If you use the Firefox extension to create albums or add photos to albums, those changes appear in your Adobe Lightroom library the same way any other album operation would. Adobe Lightroom remains in control of editing, star ratings, and keywords.

Does Photo Manager work with photos on external hard drives?

Photo Manager registers any folder as a scan location — including folders on drives attached to the local photo server. When a drive is connected to the local photo server, those folders are active and their contents appear in search results alongside cloud and local photo server photos. When a drive is disconnected, the inventory record remains intact so you can still see what is stored there; the entries are grayed out to indicate the drive is offline. Reconnecting the drive to the local photo server offers to re-scan for any changes.

Does it work without an internet connection?

Browsing photos on the local photo server requires a connection to your home network, but no internet connection. Browsing Adobe Lightroom or Amazon Photos, loading full-resolution cloud previews, and syncing new cloud changes require an internet connection.

What does the Firefox extension do and do I need it?

The Firefox extension is a companion panel that runs alongside Adobe Lightroom web and Amazon Photos in the browser. It displays Photo Manager tags, album memberships, and related files for any photo you are viewing — keeping your curation context visible without switching apps. From the extension, you can add or remove tags, mark photos for deletion, and add photos to albums in bulk. It also enables downloading original camera files and high-resolution rendered images that the Adobe Lightroom Partner API does not expose. The extension is also required to browse and sync Amazon Photos, which has no public API. The extension communicates in real time with Photo Manager: navigate to a photo in Photo Manager and the browser follows; view a photo in the browser and Photo Manager stays in step. Album management, Amazon Photos access, and original file downloads require the extension; browsing, searching, and tagging within Photo Manager do not.

Can’t I just download everything from both services and manage it locally?

You can and should use the cloud services downloader apps, but once downloaded, then what? Adobe Lightroom provides a download tool for RAW files and a desktop app for batch full-resolution exports; Amazon Photos has its own full-library downloader. Between the two services the downloaded data adds up to under a terabyte. But downloading everything to the local photo server doesn’t solve the organizational problem — album-to-photo relationships, cross-service search, and duplicate detection don’t come with the files. Photo Manager works with the data in place, whether in the cloud or on local photo server drives, so you don’t have to download everything just to know what you have.

How does Photo Manager work with Adobe Lightroom Downloader and Amazon Photos?

Both Adobe Lightroom Downloader and Amazon Photos provide apps that let you download your full library to the local photo server — originals from Adobe Lightroom, and everything stored in Amazon Photos. Point Photo Manager to those download folders as the designated backup locations for each service on the local photo server, and it will connect each file to its cloud counterpart. From there, Photo Manager can show you which cloud photos have a copy on the local photo server, which don’t, and surface the full picture of where each photo lives across both services and your local photo server drives.

How do I know which of my cloud photos I’ve already downloaded to the local photo server?

Photo Manager links every file on the local photo server to its cloud counterpart. Downloaded photos show a visual badge directly on their thumbnail in the grid, and a filter toggle lets you switch between all photos, downloaded only, and not-yet-downloaded — so you can see at a glance which cloud photos have a copy on the local photo server and which don’t, without manually comparing directories against downloaded archives.

How does Adobe Lightroom integration work?

Photo Manager connects to Adobe Lightroom using your Adobe Lightroom credentials via the Adobe Lightroom Partner API. That connection covers browsing and inventory management — reading your library, albums, keywords, and asset metadata — and does not require the Firefox extension. Many write operations, however, are not supported by the Partner API: creating standard user albums, adding or removing photos from albums, and downloading original camera files and high-resolution rendered images all require the Firefox extension, which controls the Adobe Lightroom web app using your active browser session to perform those operations on your behalf.

How does Amazon Photos integration work?

Amazon Photos has no public API. Browsing Amazon Photos, syncing its inventory, and managing Amazon Photos albums all require the Photo Manager Firefox extension, which uses your active Amazon Photos browser session to access the service. Once synced via the extension, the Photo Manager inventory includes Amazon Photos photos alongside Adobe Lightroom and local photo server files. Because Photo Manager holds an inventory of both services, it identifies photos that exist in both and surfaces that overlap in unified search results.

How does Photo Manager handle duplicate photos?

Photo Manager computes a content hash for every file in its inventory and compares it across the full collection. Exact duplicates — identical byte-for-byte copies — are grouped and flagged. Related files — resized versions, edited copies, the same photo in different formats — are identified through a multi-pass process using EXIF metadata (capture date, camera, image unique ID), filename patterns, and sidecar file associations (XMP, Google Takeout JSON). Every photo in an identity group shows its siblings in the Related Files panel. A triage workflow lets you mark duplicates for deletion and confirm them in a second review pass before anything is permanently removed. Photo Manager also records the content signature of every deleted photo — if a copy resurfaces later from any source, it will be recognized and flagged.

Can I curate my photos without the Firefox extension and apply the changes to the cloud later?

Yes. Photo Manager knows the download folder locations you configured for Adobe Lightroom Downloader and Amazon Photos, and uses those locations — alongside EXIF metadata and filename patterns — to link each local file to its cloud counterpart. That means you can tag, organize, and manage albums against the local copies while offline. When you reconnect and open the Firefox extension, Photo Manager can propagate those curation changes — tags, album assignments, deletion intent — back to Adobe Lightroom and Amazon Photos through the extension.

Can I navigate back and forward between views?

Yes. Photo Manager maintains a navigation history across all panels. Back and forward buttons — and the keyboard shortcuts Alt+Left and Alt+Right — retrace your steps across the photo viewer, search results, and the inventory browser, restoring each view’s filters, scroll position, and selected photo.

How does Photo Manager help me propagate a deletion across all my photo stores?

When you delete a photo, Photo Manager records its content signature and surfaces a visual indicator on any related copy it finds — in Adobe Lightroom, Amazon Photos, or on local photo server drives. When a related copy turns up later, you’ll know you’ve already indicated you no longer want this photo around, making it straightforward to remove it from every store it has landed in.

Internal and Stakeholder FAQs

Why build a custom web app rather than using an existing tool like Photo Mechanic, digiKam, or Adobe Lightroom Classic?

The core requirement — a single view across Adobe Lightroom cloud, Amazon Photos, local photo server drives, and removable media, accessible from any device, with the ability to act on each — is not available in any existing tool. Adobe Lightroom Classic manages local files well but has no integrated Amazon Photos view and limited cross-source gap detection. Photo Mechanic is an excellent triage tool but is not designed for multi-source cloud integration or browser-based access. digiKam is local-first with no native Adobe Lightroom cloud support. Building a custom web app allows the integration points, tagging vocabulary, and organizational model to be designed specifically for this problem, while making the library accessible from any device on the home network without requiring software installation.

Why does the Firefox extension use a live browser session for write operations instead of the Adobe Lightroom Partner API?

The Partner API supports creating a type of album called a “project” album, but these appear only under Connections in Adobe Lightroom web and are invisible to the user without formal Adobe Partner Program enrollment. The API does not support removing assets from albums at all — in testing, the remove_asset endpoint returns HTTP 404. The Partner API is effectively read-only for this use case. The Firefox extension uses the same browser session that Adobe Lightroom web itself uses, which has full access to create and manage standard user albums with no enrollment or special API access required. The same approach is used for Amazon Photos, which has no public API at all.

Why does the architecture split into a local photo server and a web app server?

The local photo server requires physical access to local drives and USB storage. The web app server handles cloud API integrations, serves the web application, and holds the central database — none of which require local drive access. Keeping them separate means the web app server can eventually be hosted in the cloud (making Photo Manager accessible from anywhere, not just the home network) while the local photo server stays at home with the drives. That transition requires authentication infrastructure and is not in scope for the current release.

How is this different from the Adobe Lightroom desktop app?

The Adobe Lightroom desktop app syncs the Adobe Lightroom cloud library to the local photo server. It does a good job of that one task. Photo Manager’s relationship to Adobe Lightroom is different: it treats Adobe Lightroom as one source among several, links Adobe Lightroom cloud assets to their counterparts on the local photo server, applies a user-controlled tagging layer on top of Adobe Lightroom’s keyword system, and surfaces gaps — photos in the cloud but not on the local photo server, photos on the local photo server but not in any cloud service. It is also the place where you push categorization back to Adobe Lightroom via albums, map your own tag hierarchy to an Adobe Lightroom album hierarchy, and find photos across all locations using a single search and filter interface — from any device.