Photo Mechanic > General Discussion
Photo Mechanic + Lightroom - What happens to all the information entered into PM
mikemyers:
After many, many years of wondering about it, I got to watching lots of YouTube videos about PM, then was pleasantly surprised to find the Black Friday discount. I placed the order.
I have one issue that I can't find an answer for. After ingesting photos, and filling out the folder names, file names, and all the other information, my goal is to import the selected photos into my Lightroom folders, where they will remain. The temporary folders I created for PM in order to do the work, will be deleted.
So, what happens to all the information I typed into the various forms, keywords, and so on, after import into Lightroom? Was it all wasted effort?
I certainly don't intend to change the way I deal with photos after they are imported and edited in Lightroom.
I certainly feel PM is a very useful tool for getting my photos sorted out, renamed, organized, and so on, but will all the information I typed into PM be lost, once the photos reside in my Lightroom folder structure?
mikemyers:
Having posted this question, I suppose I could always ingest the photos into a folder that is INSIDE my Lightroom folder structure. Then, when everything was done, I could use the ADD tool for Lightroom importing. Presumably, I would then have all the data that PM collected, and two sets of 'keywords', one from PM and another from LR. Even the IPTC Stationary Pad might be there, somewhere (not sure where it is kept).
Kirk Baker:
Mike,
You just need to import the folders containing the images in Lightroom. All of the metadata you entered in PM will be picked up by Lightroom, including crops. The only metadata that doesn't get represented in Lightroom is Photo Mechanic's 'Tag' checkbox.
-Kirk
mikemyers:
So far, very good! That's what I hoped for, but someone in these forums was saying the PM data got over-written by Lightroom, or vice versa....
So, please confirm. When I ingest a photo into PM, fill out all the labels and data I want, including the stationery, then import the image into LR where it will remain, someplace within the LR folders, the PM keywords will remain with the photo. If I then add yet more keywords, using LR, they will be added to the PM keywords. So if I later search for an image in LR using a keyword, LR will find any keywords that have been entered with either program. That's what I am hoping for.
Follow-up - does the "stationery" data stay either inside the image, or attached to the image? If I shot in RAW + JPG, and later delete all the JPG files from LR (not really needed), does all this data remain somehow?
.......and for that matter, can I tell PM when it's ingesting images, to ingest only DNG (raw) images, unless there is a JPG image without a corresponding DNG image? (My Fuji X100f shoots both, but if I want to use their "digital" focal length setting, or some other settings, it only shoots in JPG. I usually shoot DNG+JPG, but if it's images I don't care much about, only JPG. .....and sometimes a mix.
I guess what I'm getting at, is I'd like to use PM as a tool to get images into LR, along with all the bonus features from PM, but at the end of the day, I don't plan to keep the folders that I used for ingesting the images; they will be deleted.
Kirk Baker:
Mike,
--- Quote from: mikemyers on November 27, 2018, 07:21:43 PM ---So far, very good! That's what I hoped for, but someone in these forums was saying the PM data got over-written by Lightroom, or vice versa....
So, please confirm. When I ingest a photo into PM, fill out all the labels and data I want, including the stationery, then import the image into LR where it will remain, someplace within the LR folders, the PM keywords will remain with the photo.
--- End quote ---
That is correct.
--- Quote from: mikemyers on November 27, 2018, 07:21:43 PM ---If I then add yet more keywords, using LR, they will be added to the PM keywords.
--- End quote ---
You need to force Lr to write its changes out to the files. Otherwise the changes are only in its database. You can do this from the Metadata menu manually, but I believe there is a setting to force it to always update the files somewhere in the preferences in Lr.
--- Quote from: mikemyers on November 27, 2018, 07:21:43 PM ---So if I later search for an image in LR using a keyword, LR will find any keywords that have been entered with either program. That's what I am hoping for.
--- End quote ---
If you make changes with PM to an image that has already been imported into Lr, then you need to make Lr read the updated metadata. But yes, once that is done then Lr will find images that have been edited both by PM and by Lr.
--- Quote from: mikemyers on November 27, 2018, 07:21:43 PM ---Follow-up - does the "stationery" data stay either inside the image, or attached to the image? If I shot in RAW + JPG, and later delete all the JPG files from LR (not really needed), does all this data remain somehow?
--- End quote ---
Yes. The metadata for RAW files will in general be written to XMP sidecar files and Lr can read the changes when you direct it to do so.
--- Quote from: mikemyers on November 27, 2018, 07:21:43 PM ---.......and for that matter, can I tell PM when it's ingesting images, to ingest only DNG (raw) images, unless there is a JPG image without a corresponding DNG image?
--- End quote ---
No.
--- Quote from: mikemyers on November 27, 2018, 07:21:43 PM ---I guess what I'm getting at, is I'd like to use PM as a tool to get images into LR, along with all the bonus features from PM, but at the end of the day, I don't plan to keep the folders that I used for ingesting the images; they will be deleted.
--- End quote ---
That is a very common workflow and PM supports Lr quite well.
-Kirk
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