Author Topic: Show rating counts scoreboard in Preview screen  (Read 4039 times)

Offline ron_hiner

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Show rating counts scoreboard in Preview screen
« on: October 04, 2011, 07:26:36 PM »
It's typical for me to come back from a game having shot 800-1000 frames. 

My workflow is this.  (And it takes a couple hours)
1) Using preview dialog, quickly flip through all frames, and tag any that are out of focus, or just not ever worth looking at again.   This will tag about 1/3 to 1/2 of the frames, and it will allow me to see what I've got for later rating.   I color code any that I think should get to the paper right away and those get fast tracked on their own.
2) Back to the contact sheet, I select all tagged frames and delete them.
3) Then it gets hard.   I return to the preview screen either tagging, one star, or two star each frame (with a rare 3 star).  Hopefully, I'll end up with only a few one-stars... One star means I'm keeping the image for some reason, but it won't get published or printed.     These are often good shots, but I have better ones.   Tagged means I'll delete it when I get back to the contact sheet.  I will also crop at this point.
4) I repeat until I have only about 50 frames marked with two stars.   50 is more than enough for any one game.   No one wants to wade through more than that.   The trouble is, it really take a lot of time to get there.   And the closer I get to 50, the longer it takes.   I'll often drop into the 'set preview mode'  (I'm sure I'm the only one that calls it that.)   I select a dozen or so similar frame from the contact sheet and go into preview with just those.    Typically one-starring the lesser ones, then D to drop them from the preview -- until I have the one best frame in a set.   
5) Once I'm down to 50, I caption them.   First all the saved frames (one and two star) using Apply Stationery Pad, then using the IPTC dialog, I add players names and sometimes write individual captions where appropriate to the two-star frames.  Since the one-stars dont ever leave my computer, they just get the bulk caption.


Here is the enhancement request:  While I'm in Preview,  I'd to see a scoreboard of my progress.   Simply counts of the number of frames tagged, and the number of each star rating.    For those that have a similar workflow based on colors, they may want to see counts by color.    This should be very small, perhaps on the title bar.  It might look like this   "T: 72  0: 823 1: 258  2: 34....  etc."  This would signify that I have 72 frames tagged, 823 of them have no star rating.   258 are rated with 1 star, and 34 have two stars. 

Truth be told, this probably wouldn't make this job any faster, but at least I'd know where I am in the process.

Thanks!

Offline Kirk Baker

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Re: Show rating counts scoreboard in Preview screen
« Reply #1 on: October 04, 2011, 07:51:55 PM »
Ron,

It's typical for me to come back from a game having shot 800-1000 frames. 

My workflow is this.  (And it takes a couple hours)
1) Using preview dialog, quickly flip through all frames, and tag any that are out of focus, or just not ever worth looking at again.   This will tag about 1/3 to 1/2 of the frames, and it will allow me to see what I've got for later rating.   I color code any that I think should get to the paper right away and those get fast tracked on their own.
2) Back to the contact sheet, I select all tagged frames and delete them.
3) Then it gets hard.   I return to the preview screen either tagging, one star, or two star each frame (with a rare 3 star).  Hopefully, I'll end up with only a few one-stars... One star means I'm keeping the image for some reason, but it won't get published or printed.     These are often good shots, but I have better ones.   Tagged means I'll delete it when I get back to the contact sheet.  I will also crop at this point.
4) I repeat until I have only about 50 frames marked with two stars.   50 is more than enough for any one game.   No one wants to wade through more than that.   The trouble is, it really take a lot of time to get there.   And the closer I get to 50, the longer it takes.   I'll often drop into the 'set preview mode'  (I'm sure I'm the only one that calls it that.)   I select a dozen or so similar frame from the contact sheet and go into preview with just those.    Typically one-starring the lesser ones, then D to drop them from the preview -- until I have the one best frame in a set.   
5) Once I'm down to 50, I caption them.   First all the saved frames (one and two star) using Apply Stationery Pad, then using the IPTC dialog, I add players names and sometimes write individual captions where appropriate to the two-star frames.  Since the one-stars dont ever leave my computer, they just get the bulk caption.


Here is the enhancement request:  While I'm in Preview,  I'd to see a scoreboard of my progress.   Simply counts of the number of frames tagged, and the number of each star rating.    For those that have a similar workflow based on colors, they may want to see counts by color.    This should be very small, perhaps on the title bar.  It might look like this   "T: 72  0: 823 1: 258  2: 34....  etc."  This would signify that I have 72 frames tagged, 823 of them have no star rating.   258 are rated with 1 star, and 34 have two stars. 

Truth be told, this probably wouldn't make this job any faster, but at least I'd know where I am in the process.

It may make your job slower.  If PM had to scan for all of that information in order to display it, it may add up to some unresponsiveness in PM.  If you didn't care if it were absolutely accurate 100% of the time, then it could be implemented in such a way that it wouldn't have much penalty.

I think your other suggestion of having a feature where sharpness could be judged would be a more effective tool in your workflow.

-Kirk

Offline ron_hiner

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Re: Show rating counts scoreboard in Preview screen
« Reply #2 on: October 04, 2011, 08:39:16 PM »
Ron,


It may make your job slower.  If PM had to scan for all of that information in order to display it, it may add up to some unresponsiveness in PM.  If you didn't care if it were absolutely accurate 100% of the time, then it could be implemented in such a way that it wouldn't have much penalty.

I think your other suggestion of having a feature where sharpness could be judged would be a more effective tool in your workflow.

-Kirk

yes, I hadn't thought about the fact that you have to open and read 1000 files in order to update the counts of my 1000 frames.   Jeesh.  I see the problem. If only there were some kind of database... oh nevermind  ;)

The sharpness preview feature would be really useful in sports, but I really want that for portrait and landscape work where sharpness is more critical.   For my sports stuff sharpness is important, but ultimately it gets printed on newsprint, or de-rezzed to a website.   In sports, at least in my world, capturing the moment is more critical than technical perfection.   But you are right -- it would be great to have.

Offline Kirk Baker

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Re: Show rating counts scoreboard in Preview screen
« Reply #3 on: October 04, 2011, 09:10:15 PM »
Ron,

It may make your job slower.  If PM had to scan for all of that information in order to display it, it may add up to some unresponsiveness in PM.  If you didn't care if it were absolutely accurate 100% of the time, then it could be implemented in such a way that it wouldn't have much penalty.

I think your other suggestion of having a feature where sharpness could be judged would be a more effective tool in your workflow.

yes, I hadn't thought about the fact that you have to open and read 1000 files in order to update the counts of my 1000 frames.   Jeesh.  I see the problem. If only there were some kind of database... oh nevermind  ;)

And please understand that it even takes time to create the information in the database.  There is no such thing as a free lunch.  But if you Ingest with PM then during the Ingest, the data will be cached and subsequent operations will be fast, and the penalty during Ingest is very minor.  And, as long as you don't move folders around or rename files without PM's knowledge, things will continue to be fast.

-Kirk

Offline Luiz Muzzi

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Re: Show rating counts scoreboard in Preview screen
« Reply #4 on: October 06, 2011, 11:00:06 AM »
Although I understand it would take time for PM to count the colored photos, the star rated, etc. I think it would be a useful feature.
The user would decide it if and when he/she wants to use this feature.
I myself sometimes need to know how many photos there are marked with each color (at least the three colors that I use the most), for instance, I have to deselect the other colors, then tell PM to select all pictures, so that I can see the number of them...
Regards,

-Luiz Muzzi