Testing new workflow: photo mechanic + lightroom

[babuja]

Hi guys, i'm using a 30days trial photo mechanic and nees some help about workflow.

I use a laptop for catalog and external HDD as source for all photos. Photos are imported using LR and are stored in HDD under G:/Photography folder, automatically at import by year and day. When sd card has several day photos LR automatically creates new year/day folders and stores filee accordingly.

Can photo mechanic do the same?

Photo mechanic changes everything and i would like to setup this workflow.

1. Ingest photos from SD card
2. Cull/rating/keywords/metadata and other presets
3. Copy selected photos to G:/Photography creating automatically year/day folders
4. Open LR and add photos automatically to catalog.

Is this possible? Any help is very appreciate.

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[Gnits]

I used PhotoMechanic for a while and liked it for a lot of reasons. If I was shooting Pro sports it would be an essential tool.

It has very sophisticated Ingest options, too many to reply specifically to your file/folder renaming needs (as I cannot remember the vast array of options possible).

• In principle....use the PhotoMechanic Ingest option to get the images to your hard drive with the folder/filenames as required.
• Use PM then to review and rate your images
• Select in PM your images you want to import to Lr (by rating/colour etc).
• Drag and drop the images from PM into an open Library Grid View.
• This will trigger the Import process dialogue (using the Add mode as the images are already on your disk).

You will need to decide what you want to do about the images ingested to disk but not imported to Lr. There are pros and cons to this scenario.

I stopped using PM for a variety of reasons, but the key problem is I wanted a unique serial number and PM kept resetting the sequence number.
The other main reasons were...

• GUI too clunky and user error prone.
• No preview Ingest option ....

I also needed a warning if I had a jpg with no corresponding raw before I deleted all my jpgs from my camnera.

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

@babuja, I recommend you do the following:

1) Import via Photo Mechanic, not Lightroom, let's say to C:\stage\date (let it put the folder name date in just so they stay separate). Note at least by default the date is the date of the import, not the date of the shot; never dug around to see if it could replicate LR in that regard.

2) Cull and Crop in Photo Mechanic. Cull by marking the keepers, I use "tag" which is just hitting the T key (it is a toggle so it it again and it un-tags). I do this in two passes - tag all the shots I like, then go back and crop them.

2A) Optionally do metadata here. I do not, except occasional captions, but you can. LR is fast for metadata in batches so I just do it there for consistency.

3) Select all tagged, and drag and drop into Lightroom. Lightroom can then do all the renaming and breaking into year/day or other changes you like, including metadata presets, develop presets, etc.

Because you now have a much smaller set of images they import quickly to LR, and you can build standard previews for further review with LR's default (or preset) adjustments. I find most images then I can get away with just using the quick develop to touch up exposure or tone a bit, and do not need to go into develop mode often, which speeds things up.

PM is actually more flexible than LR at file renaming and metadata changes, but to me those things LR does just fine, and fast enough, so since LR is the final destination (and sometimes I do not even bother with PM if most shots are keepers) I leave LR doing all that work.

For what it is worth, there are many paths through it.

 

[babuja]

Hi Gnits, thanks for youry reply

.

• In principle....use the PhotoMechanic Ingest option to get the images to your hard drive with the folder/filenames as required.

• 
  
  This would result in additional time to delete rejected photos from drive...that's why i thought to select/reject photos after injest and before i really move photo files from SD card to a specific drive folder. Not sure if this is the best options for me but would speed up process. Rejected files are deleted permanently from SD card during format after copy of selected files to drive folder and NAS backup are completed.
  
  This would avoid to import "bad" photos to catalog, preview creation, etc...and in the end all the bads are would need to be deleted. Avoiding time consuming and catalog unnecessary size increase and LR slow down?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
  

 

[babuja]

@babuja, I recommend you do the following:

1) Import via Photo Mechanic, not Lightroom, let's say to C:\stage\date (let it put the folder name date in just so they stay separate). Note at least by default the date is the date of the import, not the date of the shot; never dug around to see if it could replicate LR in that regard.

2) Cull and Crop in Photo Mechanic. Cull by marking the keepers, I use "tag" which is just hitting the T key (it is a toggle so it it again and it un-tags). I do this in two passes - tag all the shots I like, then go back and crop them.

2A) Optionally do metadata here. I do not, except occasional captions, but you can. LR is fast for metadata in batches so I just do it there for consistency.

3) Select all tagged, and drag and drop into Lightroom. Lightroom can then do all the renaming and breaking into year/day or other changes you like, including metadata presets, develop presets, etc.

Because you now have a much smaller set of images they import quickly to LR, and you can build standard previews for further review with LR's default (or preset) adjustments. I find most images then I can get away with just using the quick develop to touch up exposure or tone a bit, and do not need to go into develop mode often, which speeds things up.

PM is actually more flexible than LR at file renaming and metadata changes, but to me those things LR does just fine, and fast enough, so since LR is the final destination (and sometimes I do not even bother with PM if most shots are keepers) I leave LR doing all that work.

For what it is worth, there are many paths through it.

Thanks Ferguson

The only issue about the workflow you have presented is that photos are copied 2 times: from SD to c:/stage/data folder and from here to final destination on import to LR, correct?

I've been using something similar for last 2 days and that's why i thought of optimizate it to one single copy (data transfer).

Not sure if possible...

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[Gnits]

You could select the rejects in PM and delete there. I would not edit anything on the SD card (via PM or anything else) for fear of corrupting the card prior to copying images and backup.

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

Thanks Ferguson

The only issue about the workflow you have presented is that photos are copied 2 times: from SD to c:/stage/data folder and from here to final destination on import to LR, correct?

I've been using something similar for last 2 days and that's when i thought of optimizate it to only single copy (data transfer).

Not sure if possible...

Not necessarily (technically), and ... well so what?

You could put the stage folder on the same drive as the final destination; that's a bad idea if you have a fast C drive and slow (e.g. EHD) destination drive, but if they are similarly speedy you can do so, then the "move" for Lightroom is a directory move not a physical copy (if you did COPY yes, it would be a copy).

But whether this is an issue depends heavily on your percentage of keepers. In my case, in a typical event I import maybe 1200 images, and I tag about 100 or less to import to lightroom. So yes, I do 100 of them twice, but 1200 of them only once. The much smaller percentage means the copy time is small.

Also, PM's copy speed is MUCH faster than Lightroom's, generally, that you won't notice. You'll get the card emptied faster, and the import to LR will only be the likely keepers and be the second, and slower per each, but much smaller copy.

As to the comment on deleting -- once you have imported from c:\stage\20170918, then just delete the \20170918 and all the files left behind are gone. I do that about a month later, just in case I realize I want to hunt for an additional shot, so it is useful to keep the stage area around a while, and PM is so fast to browse through it, it takes no time to find things.

By the way, in your experimenting, there's an important difference in lightroom and PM in ingestion with regard to duplicate checking - Lightroom compares against the catalog to find duplicates; PM actually keeps a record ON YOUR CARD. So if you try something like import, delete what you imported, and import again, Lightroom won't see them as duplicates but PM will. Both work fine, and the difference doesn't come up in real life much, but it does come up in experimentation. PM isn't all that clear that it is marking which photos were imported on the card itself.

 

[babuja]

You could select the rejects in PM and delete there. I would not edit anything on the SD card (via PM or anything else) for fear of corrupting the card prior to copying images and backup.

I understand your concern, but i have a additional backup on my 5D, that's why i use several 16gb cards and a 128gb on camera. I use the 128gb on inject but if anything happens i have a copy on the 16gb cards.

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[Linwood Ferguson]

Editing or browsing on the card (if PM even will and I think it won't?) is silly slow compared to ingesting and culling on disk. Deleting 1000 files on disk takes probably 2 seconds on a typical system.

Your card use is ... interesting? So you have the camera in backup mode, but with a 128G and then a 16GB that you repeatedly change as you fill up the 16G, leaving the 128G?

Why not just have two 128G cards and never touch the card in the field?

 

[babuja]

Not necessarily (technically), and ... well so what?

You could put the stage folder on the same drive as the final destination; that's a bad idea if you have a fast C drive and slow (e.g. EHD) destination drive, but if they are similarly speedy you can do so, then the "move" for Lightroom is a directory move not a physical copy (if you did COPY yes, it would be a copy).

But whether this is an issue depends heavily on your percentage of keepers. In my case, in a typical event I import maybe 1200 images, and I tag about 100 or less to import to lightroom. So yes, I do 100 of them twice, but 1200 of them only once. The much smaller percentage means the copy time is small.

Also, PM's copy speed is MUCH faster than Lightroom's, generally, that you won't notice. You'll get the card emptied faster, and the import to LR will only be the likely keepers and be the second, and slower per each, but much smaller copy.

As to the comment on deleting -- once you have imported from c:\stage\20170918, then just delete the \20170918 and all the files left behind are gone. I do that about a month later, just in case I realize I want to hunt for an additional shot, so it is useful to keep the stage area around a while, and PM is so fast to browse through it, it takes no time to find things.

By the way, in your experimenting, there's an important difference in lightroom and PM in ingestion with regard to duplicate checking - Lightroom compares against the catalog to find duplicates; PM actually keeps a record ON YOUR CARD. So if you try something like import, delete what you imported, and import again, Lightroom won't see them as duplicates but PM will. Both work fine, and the difference doesn't come up in real life much, but it does come up in experimentation. PM isn't all that clear that it is marking which photos were imported on the card itself.

I'll continue to test this worflow

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[babuja]

Editing or browsing on the card (if PM even will and I think it won't?) is silly slow compared to ingesting and culling on disk. Deleting 1000 files on disk takes probably 2 seconds on a typical system.

you're more then right

Your card use is ... interesting? So you have the camera in backup mode, but with a 128G and then a 16GB that you repeatedly change as you fill up the 16G, leaving the 128G?

Why not just have two 128G cards and never touch the card in the field?

That's a option, it works just fine with 2x128gb. I use it because its safer to have smaller cards...and i already had several 16gb cards.



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[Linwood Ferguson]

your more then right
That a option, it works just fine with 2x128gb. I use it because its safer to have smaller cards...and i already had several 16gb cards.

I get the "I already have".

I've never understood the "safer to use multiple cards". It increases the chances of having a card failure, while decreasing the number of photos affected.

As an example, if you assume a 0.1% chance of card failure, having three cards gives you about a 0.3% chance of a card failure (it's (1-P)^N, not three times, but at small probabilities it is near linear). So the expected image loss remains virtually identical (three times the chance, a third as many).

I'd also argue that changing cards gives a substantial chance of loss, especially in the field, a chance that humans tend to discount because they feel in control over it. I would argue though that card loss (literally losing it) or damage from changing cards is actually a higher chance than card failure.

But I definitely get the "didn't want to buy more". They can be pricy, especially fast ones.

FWIW. Have to practice math once in awhile or it goes away.

 

[babuja]

decreasing the number of photos affected.

that's the spirit

FWIW. Have to practice math once in awhile or it goes away.

Now i get it

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[LRList001]

that's the spirit
Could you elaborate more the card failure vs data lost probability from 1 + 1 (128gb) card vs 8 x (16gb) + 1x (128gb)?
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This is a difficult subject to have absolute opinions on as your own preferences, practices and risk tolerances are different from everyone else on this forum.

Some pointers:
1/ Modern cards are very much more reliable than earlier cards
2/ Good card maintenance matters, once files have been copied and backed up, format the card, possibly in both a pc and then again in camera
3/ If images really, really matter (eg wedding) use a camera with two cards and record to both, use newish cards and expect to replace frequently, use two cameras
4/ Changing cards in the field can be risky (from simply dropping it down a mountain side, to letting in rain)
5/ If you are away from a backup regime, having multiple cards (less to do with size) and swapping them around every hour, day whatever, means if one gets lost, stolen, damaged you don't lose everything prior to that date, just some
6/ When flying, put backup cards in the hold, hand carry the masters, share between you if in a group
7/ If a card shows a fault no matter how minor, throw it away.

8/ Depending on engine reliability and what it takes to stay in the air, twin engined aircraft can be safer than four engined aircraft, the numbers are less obvious than at first sight they might appear to be. More RAID drives can be worse than fewer RAID drives.

 

[babuja]

This is a difficult subject to have absolute opinions on as your own preferences, practices and risk tolerances are different from everyone else on this forum.

Some pointers:
1/ Modern cards are very much more reliable than earlier cards
2/ Good card maintenance matters, once files have been copied and backed up, format the card, possibly in both a pc and then again in camera
3/ If images really, really matter (eg wedding) use a camera with two cards and record to both, use newish cards and expect to replace frequently, use two cameras
4/ Changing cards in the field can be risky (from simply dropping it down a mountain side, to letting in rain)
5/ If you are away from a backup regime, having multiple cards (less to do with size) and swapping them around every hour, day whatever, means if one gets lost, stolen, damaged you don't lose everything prior to that date, just some
6/ When flying, put backup cards in the hold, hand carry the masters, share between you if in a group
7/ If a card shows a fault no matter how minor, throw it away.

8/ Depending on engine reliability and what it takes to stay in the air, twin engined aircraft can be safer than four engined aircraft, the numbers are less obvious than at first sight they might appear to be. More RAID drives can be worse than fewer RAID drives.

I see it more clearly now

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[Linwood Ferguson]

This is a difficult subject to have absolute opinions on as your own preferences, practices and risk tolerances are different from everyone else on this forum.
....
8/ Depending on engine reliability and what it takes to stay in the air, twin engined aircraft can be safer than four engined aircraft, the numbers are less obvious than at first sight they might appear to be. More RAID drives can be worse than fewer RAID drives.

And a single engine is often safer than a twin, but for different reasons. :eek2:

I think the whole card failure probability is probably overshadowed by other considerations, as outlined by LRList001 above - human issues, in particular.

But if anyone wants to understand the math more completely think of it this way: Supposed the chance of a card failing was 50%, i.e. a coin toss. If you have 2 cards used equally during a shoot, there are 4 possibilities, 3 of which result in some loss of data. So with 2 cards, you are 75% likely to lose data, but if you used just one, you are 50% likely. The expected data loss though is the same -- 50% (in the 2 card case it's 25% * no loss + 25% * complete loss + 50% * half loss = half loss). So is it better to have a 75% chance of losing something, or a 50% chance of losing everything?

Obviously 50% is absurdly high, trying to apply it more precisely makes assumptions that are unlikely true - are the cards equally likely to fail, do you have the same number of shots on each, are you perfectly reliable in swapping them, how likely is it that a card reader issue will harm the card or data (since you are doing more swaps)... all very, very low probability items.

But as a rough approximation of the real calculation for JUST card failure, using N cards for one shoot will work similar to the 50% case -- you increase your chances of some loss, while reducing your chances of how much you lose, but the overall expected loss if you did this millions of times is somewhere near the same.

Which is why I think people who choose to use multiple small cards as a safety measure are fooling themselves, and may be making the situation worse with additional card swaps and handling.

But anyone who does it to save a few bucks has a much easier math problem.

Though how we got down this rat hole with Photo Mechanic I don't know (but see how I referred to it, so we are back on track?).

 

[babuja]

Though how we got down this rat hole with Photo Mechanic I don't know (but see how I referred to it, so we are back on track?).

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[babuja]

Hi guys, i'm using a 30days trial photo mechanic and nees some help about workflow.

I use a laptop for catalog and external HDD as source for all photos. Photos are imported using LR and are stored in HDD under G:/Photography folder, automatically at import by year and day. When sd card has several day photos LR automatically creates new year/day folders and stores filee accordingly.

Can photo mechanic do the same?

Photo mechanic changes everything and i would like to setup this workflow.

1. Ingest photos from SD card
2. Cull/rating/keywords/metadata and other presets
3. Copy selected photos to G:/Photography creating automatically year/day folders
4. Open LR and add photos automatically to catalog.

Is this possible? Any help is very appreciate.

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Some information how to get it done:

Workflow: inject creating folders by data and moving photos to proper folder automatically

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