Sorting photos for HDR and focus stacking processing

[vigneshsekar]

Hello All,
I've been using Photomechanic for the past 5 months and still learning the capabilities. I just came back from a landscape photo trip and shot many compositions with HDR and focus stacking processing options. I would like these images to go through Aurora HDR for HDR and Helicon focus for focus stacking processing before sending to Lightroom. Ideally I would like to be able to save only these photos in a separate folder so it is easier to identify and load in the specific tools like Aurora HDR.

I was thinking of colour coding these photos in contact sheet for example red for focus stacking and purple for HDR. But I'm lost how to save these images in a separate folder. I would like these images to be in same format as shot which is RAW in my case. I will be grateful for suggestions to handle this efficiently.

Regards,
Vignesh

[jwvaughn]

HI Vignesh,

I don't know of an automated way to do it but.  I start with what you suggest and mark my HDR and panoramas with different colors.  I then create sub folders named HDR and/or Panorama. Next I turn off all the colors (lower right corner of PM) leaving only one color selected. Then I select all the photos and move them to the correct sub folder. Repeat with a different color selected as required.

My folder arrangement is
  201811102 Description ->photos for that date with a short description
      Original -> all my raw images are loaded here
      HDR -> all the HDR raw images and the HDR images
      Panorama -> all the panorama raw images and the panoramas
      Working -> all the images that I am working one, ususally PSDs in my case

Hope this gives you some ideas,
Jerry

[vigneshsekar]

Many thanks for sharing your workflow Jerry. I will give this a try. Certainly this gives me a better workflow but I do wish PM developers introduce some level of automation on this.

Cheers,
Vignesh

[Kirk Baker]

Vignesh,

Many thanks for sharing your workflow Jerry. I will give this a try. Certainly this gives me a better workflow but I do wish PM developers introduce some level of automation on this.

What would this automation do?

-Kirk

[vigneshsekar]

Kirk,

HDR is quite a common technique to shoot but is a nightmare in terms of time to sort. But from the data files, it isn't difficult to identify the photos shot with different exposures. For example, shots done through auto exposure bracketing could be identified through coding and if this built in the form of automation, it becomes a huge benefit to sort photos and save HDR workflow separately.

Focus staking is lot more difficult to identify but I would find it helpful to be able to save the images shot for focus staking in a separate folder for processing. Hope this helps.

Vignesh

[Kirk Baker]

Vignesh,

HDR is quite a common technique to shoot but is a nightmare in terms of time to sort. But from the data files, it isn't difficult to identify the photos shot with different exposures. For example, shots done through auto exposure bracketing could be identified through coding and if this built in the form of automation, it becomes a huge benefit to sort photos and save HDR workflow separately.

Focus staking is lot more difficult to identify but I would find it helpful to be able to save the images shot for focus staking in a separate folder for processing. Hope this helps.

Without some concrete example names it would be difficult for me to create a feature that would help you.  You'll need to give me some examples.

-Kirk

[vigneshsekar]

Kirk - Happy to share examples. Will it be helpful if I capture as a video and send the link or should I send files / screen shot. Let me know your preference.

Thanks.

[Kirk Baker]

Kirk - Happy to share examples. Will it be helpful if I capture as a video and send the link or should I send files / screen shot. Let me know your preference.

It could be a list of filenames that should be grouped together.  But I'm willing to look at whatever you provide that you think will best get the point across.

-Kirk