DxO PhotoLab and Photo Mechanic Plus

[Stenis]

Stenis,

The only thing I don't think is to my liking is that we have to remember to run a "Scan to Catalog" manually.
I'm sure quite a few users might forget to do that from time to time.

I would suggest using Catalog Sync instead of Scan to Catalog, but it also is not automatic.

-Kirk

OK point taken! :-)

[Kirk Baker]

Stenis,

Your fix i build 5998 seem to work fine and solve the problem where only one image earlier could be transfered to Photolab 4 at the time using the "Edit"-function.

- If I just select one image in PMPlus only the Edit alternatives for one image occurs in two version though (maybee one is specified under preferences and the other works through Windows fileattributes I dont know.

Result: In both cases only one image is imported and that's fine and expected.

- If I select five images I see both the choises for single image import ("Edit Photo" and "Edit Photo with DxO.Photolab.exe") and the choises for multiimage import ("Edit selected photos" and "Edit selected photos with DxO.Photolab.exe"

With five images the multi Edit imports the pictures right away in Photolab.
From six images and up there is a dialog displayed saying "Do you really want to edit all of the selected photos" with two choises: Yes and No.
If I chose "Y" the selected number of images are imported ti Photolab. That's also fine and expected

So it definitely works but do we really need four different "Edit"-variants?
Maybee max two are needed "Edit selected Photo/Photos" (Windows file suffix triggered) and/or  "Edit selected Photo/Photos with DxO.Photolab.exe"
Both these last funktions can handle both a single selection image import and and a multi selection import.

.. and do we really need the dialog? Doesn't it just slow down the workflow?

... but this is just a suggestion

Please see this documentation which should help you with your concerns:

https://docs.camerabits.com/support/solutions/articles/48001145596-launching-preferences

The important thing was that you actually listend and fixed it and made the integration a lot better and more seamless between Photolab 4 and PM Plus 6 than before! Thank's a lot! Hope this will be part of a new release soon.

Yes, it will be in all builds released from now on.

-Kirk

[Stenis]

Stenis,

The only thing I don't think is to my liking is that we have to remember to run a "Scan to Catalog" manually.
I'm sure quite a few users might forget to do that from time to time.

I would suggest using Catalog Sync instead of Scan to Catalog, but it also is not automatic.

-Kirk

I don't use USB-discs with catalogs and are not intrested in getting "missing" images marked by the system - that I have to clean up manually later.
I work strictly folder oriented and prefer to reindex the entire folder content when I'm done with developing the images and the metadata editing instead.
Scan Catalog indexes the files as is and I prefer that to Sync. It might take some minute longer time to run but that time I save not have to delete the orphans.

[Stenis]

Stenis,

Your fix i build 5998 seem to work fine and solve the problem where only one image earlier could be transfered to Photolab 4 at the time using the "Edit"-function.

- If I just select one image in PMPlus only the Edit alternatives for one image occurs in two version though (maybee one is specified under preferences and the other works through Windows fileattributes I dont know.

Result: In both cases only one image is imported and that's fine and expected.

- If I select five images I see both the choises for single image import ("Edit Photo" and "Edit Photo with DxO.Photolab.exe") and the choises for multiimage import ("Edit selected photos" and "Edit selected photos with DxO.Photolab.exe"

With five images the multi Edit imports the pictures right away in Photolab.
From six images and up there is a dialog displayed saying "Do you really want to edit all of the selected photos" with two choises: Yes and No.
If I chose "Y" the selected number of images are imported ti Photolab. That's also fine and expected

So it definitely works but do we really need four different "Edit"-variants?
Maybee max two are needed "Edit selected Photo/Photos" (Windows file suffix triggered) and/or  "Edit selected Photo/Photos with DxO.Photolab.exe"
Both these last funktions can handle both a single selection image import and and a multi selection import.

.. and do we really need the dialog? Doesn't it just slow down the workflow?

... but this is just a suggestion

Please see this documentation which should help you with your concerns:

https://docs.camerabits.com/support/solutions/articles/48001145596-launching-preferences

The important thing was that you actually listend and fixed it and made the integration a lot better and more seamless between Photolab 4 and PM Plus 6 than before! Thank's a lot! Hope this will be part of a new release soon.

Yes, it will be in all builds released from now on.

-Kirk

Thanks for the link. It helps when it comes to the "5 image limit" I saw but still I think it would be better with only one instans (for all selections) of the "Edit"-function, now I see four if I select more than one image and if I select only one image. I tested to increase the limit to 15 and then I don't need to se the dialog so often.

[Kirk Baker]

Stenis,

Your fix i build 5998 seem to work fine and solve the problem where only one image earlier could be transfered to Photolab 4 at the time using the "Edit"-function.

- If I just select one image in PMPlus only the Edit alternatives for one image occurs in two version though (maybee one is specified under preferences and the other works through Windows fileattributes I dont know.

Result: In both cases only one image is imported and that's fine and expected.

- If I select five images I see both the choises for single image import ("Edit Photo" and "Edit Photo with DxO.Photolab.exe") and the choises for multiimage import ("Edit selected photos" and "Edit selected photos with DxO.Photolab.exe"

With five images the multi Edit imports the pictures right away in Photolab.
From six images and up there is a dialog displayed saying "Do you really want to edit all of the selected photos" with two choises: Yes and No.
If I chose "Y" the selected number of images are imported ti Photolab. That's also fine and expected

So it definitely works but do we really need four different "Edit"-variants?
Maybee max two are needed "Edit selected Photo/Photos" (Windows file suffix triggered) and/or  "Edit selected Photo/Photos with DxO.Photolab.exe"
Both these last funktions can handle both a single selection image import and and a multi selection import.

.. and do we really need the dialog? Doesn't it just slow down the workflow?

... but this is just a suggestion

Please see this documentation which should help you with your concerns:

https://docs.camerabits.com/support/solutions/articles/48001145596-launching-preferences

The important thing was that you actually listend and fixed it and made the integration a lot better and more seamless between Photolab 4 and PM Plus 6 than before! Thank's a lot! Hope this will be part of a new release soon.

Yes, it will be in all builds released from now on.

Thanks for the link. It helps when it comes to the "5 image limit" I saw but still I think it would be better with only one instans (for all selections) of the "Edit"-function, now I see four if I select more than one image and if I select only one image. I tested to increase the limit to 15 and then I don't need to se the dialog so often.

The additional submenus are so you can use any editor listed instead of the one that corresponds to the editor you have chosen for a specific image type.

-Kirk

[Stenis]

The additional submenus are so you can use any editor listed instead of the one that corresponds to the editor you have chosen for a specific image type.

-Kirk

Ok, I just reacted on the fact that I saw four Edit-options, when I had selected more that one image  -  also the ones that just concerns the transfer of a single image. Is it necessary to have different options depending of how many images we select? Have I misunderstood something? I understand some has a need to integrate with more than one software even if I'm not one of them.

Anyway this fix made a huge difference to the work flow between Photolab 4 and Photomechanic Plus. This combo might for the moment be the best alternative we have seen to Lightroom. Photolab 4 with Deep Prime  just give us so much better image quality compared to LR and on top of that PMPlus gives so much better scalability and flexibility and it feels a lot safer storing the metadata distributed in many XMP-files than a "single point of failure" - metadatadatabase. If the PM Plus catalog gets corrupted it's just to reindex. If a LR catalog gets corrupted you have to pray for a backup that is possible to restore. DAM-systems for images has been around for some time now but few of them exept LR have been available for the awerage photographer. Either they have been far to expensive for a mass market or they have had a learning curve that has been hard to handle for all but skilled specialists . PMPlus is definitely more demanding than LR but many users will hopefully find the effort wortwhile.

[Kirk Baker]

Stenis,

The additional submenus are so you can use any editor listed instead of the one that corresponds to the editor you have chosen for a specific image type.

Ok, I just reacted on the fact that I saw four Edit-options, when I had selected more that one image  -  also the ones that just concerns the transfer of a single image. Is it necessary to have different options depending of how many images we select? Have I misunderstood something? I understand some has a need to integrate with more than one software even if I'm not one of them.

The single photo options are so you don't have to worry about whether the image you right-clicked on is selected or not.  You'll only edit that one photo.

Anyway this fix made a huge difference to the work flow between Photolab 4 and Photomechanic Plus. This combo might for the moment be the best alternative we have seen to Lightroom. Photolab 4 with Deep Prime  just give us so much better image quality compared to LR and on top of that PMPlus gives so much better scalability and flexibility and it feels a lot safer storing the metadata distributed in many XMP-files than a "single point of failure" - metadatadatabase. If the PM Plus catalog gets corrupted it's just to reindex. If a LR catalog gets corrupted you have to pray for a backup that is possible to restore. DAM-systems for images has been around for some time now but few of them exept LR have been available for the awerage photographer. Either they have been far to expensive for a mass market or they have had a learning curve that has been hard to handle for all but skilled specialists . PMPlus is definitely more demanding than LR but many users will hopefully find the effort wortwhile.

Good to hear.  Thanks!

-Kirk

[Stenis]

Stenis,

The additional submenus are so you can use any editor listed instead of the one that corresponds to the editor you have chosen for a specific image type.

The single photo options are so you don't have to worry about whether the image you right-clicked on is selected or not.  You'll only edit that one

-Kirk

It confused me a bit first but is nothing I can't live with when I know how it works. The important thing is that the main issue is solved in a very good way. I'm very satisfied with that. Bye!

Stenis