Find photos selecting photo losing all selected results after culling one photo

[ybp]

This is a feature request, but perhaps actually a bug?

I have a job where I look at photos from large folders containing many screenshots (PNGs) and many JPEGs (real photos).

My task is to cull the JPEGs, which are in the midst of the PNGs throughout them all, making it very slow and cumbersome.

Photomechanic makes this quicker but is still much slower than it could be for two reasons:

1) loading all the PNGs takes much longer than loading the JPEGs. It would be nice to be able to ignore them through some sort of "file type JPEG" checkbox at the top of the open gallery window.
2) since I cannot ignore the non-JPEG images, my only workable option is to do Command F and find in filename "JPG" for example.
3) this instantly selects the results and I can choose to view selected images only... perfect!
4) however, after I click on one of the selected images in the culling process, about every other image it will select only that image and therefore it will only show that image when I go back to the gallery to continue culling with the next image… which isn't there because it's only showing me the one selected image.
5) so then I have to go back to viewing all, then do command F, then type "JPG" and then selected images, then find my place again.

It's an absolute nightmare!

If anyone has any suggested settings changes to enable Photomechanic to instantly show just the JPEG images within a folder (must be as quick as doing command F, and must not interfere with sorting files by name), and then to continue viewing only those JPEG images until the culling process is finished, I would be so happy.

Thank you!

[Kirk Baker]

You could create a custom sort using the {type} variable.  Then all of your JPEGs would be grouped together and all of the PNGs would be grouped together.

Ignore the PNG group.

http://wiki.camerabits.com/en/index.php?title=User_Manual_Flat_View#Sorting

HTH,

-Kirk

[ybp]

I tried that right now, and all of the available options access data within the files so it goes super slow.

I'm attaching a screenshot of my Find command which runs in about a tenth of a second within a folder of 8117 files including 576 JPEG images. The reason it goes so fast is because I am just searching the file name not any IPTC or EXIF data. Essentially all the JPEG images are instantly selected, but as I mentioned there is no way of keeping them together once I start culling them because when I change "All" to "Selected" it works fine until the selection changes to one file (which happens as soon as I start culling) and then all the others are lost. I can tag the selected images to enable me to view only "tagged" images, but tagging also takes forever, and the whole point is that I don't want them to be tagged because I want to either rate or tag only while I'm culling them.

I'm also attaching a screenshot of the idea that you suggested which might work except it doesn't give a way to sort by file extension, only by file name including extension, which takes me right back to the default view.

Note also that I still need the results to be sorted by file name, not just by extension. So what I really need is a filter like Command F, one that can search only the file name so that it doesn't take forever to search through EXIF data, and which also will allow me to keep the results together even while I'm culling them.

I'm sure there is already a way to instantly filter down (or sort as you suggested) the contact sheet to show only JPEG images or to bring them together without needing to slowly search through metadata, while also enabling the results to be kept together while culling rather than falling apart as soon as one of them is selected rather than all of them (which is what happens when I try to keep the Find results together by changing "All" to "Selected").

As of right now, typing Command F and entering JPG and searching only the file name, then choosing "Selected" rather than "All" does EXACTLY what I need, i.e., instant super fast display of only JPEG images together, EXCEPT for the fact that as soon as I start culling the selection changes to only one image and all the others disappear since they're not and then I can't cull anymore.

Nothing else works fast. I've even tried the spotlight search results option. I've even looked for an "Ignore" to "Show only" option for image types in preferences, but there's not one. I think I've tried everything by now.

What am I missing?

[Kirk Baker]

I have no other solution for you at this time.

-Kirk

[Graham1]

I hope I have not misunderstood this, but maybe this is a solution.  Run your Find command to select your jpg files.  Then select all, so that all the jpg files are selected, but nothing else.  Then press, for example, Ctrl-1 to change the colour class of all your selected jpg files to red (or whatever colour you want), then sort your files by colour class.  Of course, if you are already using colour classes for something else, then this might mess up your workflow, but in that case you might be able to do the same thing by rating your jpg files globally to a particular rating and then sorting by rating.  Would this work for you?  I have not tried this on a large selection of files, so cannot confirm how fast (or otherwise) this would be compared to what you have been doing. 

Graham

[ybp]

Thank you!

I appreciate your honesty. PM is still an awesome and helpful tool. I look forward to seeing your future updates.