Ingest locked/unlocked control request

[ycjphoto]

I'd like to see Primary and Secondary Destinations have separate "locked/unlocked files" controls.

While there is some use in being able to ingest duplicate copies, it would be far more useful to be able to have the ingest put the full take in one location and locked "selects" in a second.

The practical use is that more and more of my clients are looking for images immediately for social media use while I'm still shooting an event. In some cases, transmitting files directly from my camera works fine, but in others that just isn't practical.

If I want to consistently rename my files, I need to do a full ingest, then go in and select locked files then copy those to a network location.

The other choice is to do one ingest of locked files directly to a client accessible location, then a second later manual copy of all files off of the cards.

Being able to set the primary to my computer and a the secondary to a Box/Dropbox type folder, and have the secondary only get the locked files, would really be a quality of life improvement with where my clients are pushing me.

[MNeipris]

While this is not exactly the specific functionality, you can use the {tag} variable in the Folder Name field to have Photo Mechanic create a sub-folder for locked files and a sub-folder for unlocked files.

The "Copy Photos:" dropdown can be set to "into folder with name" or "into dated folder then folder with name" to make the "Folder Name:" field usable.

In the "Folder Name:" field, you can have something like:

Event_Name/{tag}

{tag} will evaluate to "1" for locked files and "0" for unlocked files, so the resulting sub-folders will be "1" and "0" respectively.

The Event_Name/{tag} folder structure will be used for both the Primary and Secondary destination paths, and the filenames will be consistent as well.

This way, you could share only the "1" subfolder with whoever needs access to it.

You can also make the folder names more readable by setting up a Code Replacement.

For example:

Folder Name:
Event_Name/=Tag{tag}=

and in a plain text tab-separated text file have:

Tag0-tab-Unlocked
Tag1-tab-Locked

The sub-folders will then be called "Unlocked" instead of "0" and "Locked" instead of "1".

[ycjphoto]

This would not have helped me in the situation I experienced.

Yeah, I'm looking for an ingest solution. Last weekend I was shooting an NCAA Championship and weather kept me from keeping my laptop with me - and the cell network didn't allow me to send directly from my cameras.

My solution was to set up my laptop for the client to have someone run cards. This is not a photo editor, and I doubt they had ever seen PhotoMechanic or anything like it. I configured my laptop to just read locked files to a Dropbox folder they had access to. The client never had to touch the keyboard or keypad. Kudos to how seamless PhotoMechanic works in this situation where anyone can just insert a card, wait for the ingest dialog to show green in the status window, then pull the card.

It really would've been helpful to have it simultaneously read all the files and put them on my laptop's internal drive for me to pull outtakes from later - with a consistent filename system. As it was, later, I needed to disable ingesting and manually read all the cards I'd used.

The added benefit of being able to do a "hands free" ingest to two locations with different locked/unlocked settings is having consistent filenames and speed post-shoot processing by not having to read the cards a second time.

[Kirk Baker]

I'm not sure that what you're wanting can be done in its entirety.  Unless all of the files are handled consistently across all destinations, the file naming won't be consistent.  If you're not renaming with a sequence then the handling consistency wouldn't matter.

-Kirk

[ycjphoto]

Sure they would. All files are ingested and named sequentially. All files moved to one destination, locked ones to both. Same filename - two locations.

[Kirk Baker]

Sure they would. All files are ingested and named sequentially. All files moved to one destination, locked ones to both. Same filename - two locations.

Files:

DSC_1000.JPG (locked)
DSC_1001.JPG (unlocked)
DSC_1002.JPG (locked)
DSC_1003.JPG (unlocked)

Sequence is 0001, naming is event_{seqn}

Destination #1 is set to copy only locked photos.
Destination #2 is set to copy both locked and unlocked photos.

Two ways to process: sequential and parallel.

Sequential:
If all of the photos are processed and destination #1 only copies as quickly as destination #2 allows then there is no speed gain by skipping the unlocked photos for destination #1, but the naming will be consistent

Destination 1:
event_0001.JPG (was DSC_1000.JPG)
[event_0002.JPG omitted]
event_0003.JPG  (was DSC_1002.JPG)
[event_0004.JPG omitted]

Destination 2:
event_0001.JPG (was DSC_1000.JPG)
event_0002.JPG  (was DSC_1001.JPG)
event_0003.JPG (was DSC_1002.JPG)
event_0004.JPG  (was DSC_1003.JPG)

Parallel:
If the two copies were to happen in parallel and each were to have its own copy of the sequence, destination #1 would have different filenames than destination #2 but would complete the operation in about half the time as destination #2.

Destination 1:
event_0001.JPG (was DSC_1000.JPG)
event_0002.JPG  (was DSC_1002.JPG)

Destination 2:
event_0001.JPG (was DSC_1000.JPG)
event_0002.JPG  (was DSC_1001.JPG)
event_0003.JPG (was DSC_1002.JPG)
event_0004.JPG  (was DSC_1003.JPG)

[naming is inconsistent]

Given that you were pressed for time, I had expected that you would want the locked files to be processed as quickly as possible and all of the files would be processed separately.  If you don't mind that destination #1 'pauses' while unlocked photos in between each locked photo(s) then the naming would be consistent.

I understand now that you're wanting to reduce tedium and not have ultimate performance of the client receiving the locked files as quickly as possible.

-Kirk