Rename photos in Photo Mechanic with Stream Deck buttons?

[username]

Hi.

I'm running a Mac. Not a PC. Not Windows.

I own a Stream Deck. It is a physical device with programmable buttons. Each button contains a small LCD screen. Web page: https://www.elgato.com/us/en/s/welcome-to-stream-deck

I'd like to be able to press a pre-defined Stream Deck button while an image is selected (in list or in preview) in Photo Mechanic and have that apply a renaming rule to that image. Just like I had pressed "M" in Photo Mechanic and typed in a name pattern. The reason this is useful is a have several name patterns I use and I don't want to have to re-type them over and over every time I cull a set of photos.

Has anybody done this? It'd be great to follow someone who has already taped the path here. I don't know what kind of functionality would work for defining and executing the rename function on a Stream Deck button to then interact suitably with Photo Mechanic.

[Max Lemesh]

Maybe an app called Keyboard Maestro could be of use?

[ahoward]

Before I get to how the stream deck device might useful...

The reason this is useful is a have several name patterns I use and I don't want to have to re-type them over and over

It sounds like you may not yet be familiar with Snapshots. If you type your rename string the way you want it, and then click the lightning bolt, you can save that rename string and it will always be accessible from that lightning bolt menu.

You could also rename your images on Ingest with the appropriate string, delete the bad ones, and then essentially just have Photo Mechanic re-number the remaining images, without having to type the string that you used on Ingest (which you can also load from a snapshot of the Ingest window). If you're interested in that I'd be happy to talk about how to set that up.



Now with regard to the Deck. I've never used this device, but I watched their intro video and I can see how it could be useful. When you open the rename window, the text in the field is highlighted. So set a shortcut to Command+M, and then set one of the other shortcuts to paste the relevant text. Make sure that text is followed up by the Sequence Variable and you should be good to go. Map another key to the Return key and in 3 keyboards presses your images are renamed. I didn't see if this was possible but if you can program one button to multiple shortcuts in sequence, then that could cut that down to 1 button press, but that might be tricky, because if you have a large number images selected for renaming, it may need to gather their metadata for a moment before it brings up the Rename window.

Let us know how it goes.

[username]

Maybe an app called Keyboard Maestro could be of use?

I own, use, and love Keyboard Maestro. Thank you.

[username]

Before I get to how the stream deck device might useful...

The reason this is useful is a have several name patterns I use and I don't want to have to re-type them over and over

It sounds like you may not yet be familiar with Snapshots. If you type your rename string the way you want it, and then click the lightning bolt, you can save that rename string and it will always be accessible from that lightning bolt menu.

Thank you. I will try the lightning bolt button. It seems like that'll require more clicks than I want, but it's a helpful suggestion. It is very appropriate.

You could also rename your images on Ingest with the appropriate string, delete the bad ones, and then essentially just have Photo Mechanic re-number the remaining images, without having to type the string that you used on Ingest (which you can also load from a snapshot of the Ingest window). If you're interested in that I'd be happy to talk about how to set that up.

Thanks. I don't ingest and I don't delete and I rarely rename multiple images at once, so this one won't help me, but it's obviously relevant to some workflows and I appreciate you suggesting it.

Now with regard to the Deck. I've never used this device, but I watched their intro video and I can see how it could be useful. When you open the rename window, the text in the field is highlighted. So set a shortcut to Command+M, and then set one of the other shortcuts to paste the relevant text. Make sure that text is followed up by the Sequence Variable and you should be good to go. Map another key to the Return key and in 3 keyboards presses your images are renamed. I didn't see if this was possible but if you can program one button to multiple shortcuts in sequence, then that could cut that down to 1 button press, but that might be tricky, because if you have a large number images selected for renaming, it may need to gather their metadata for a moment before it brings up the Rename window.

Let us know how it goes.

Thank you. I'm hoping a combination of Stream Deck and Keyboard Maestro macOS software may be able to get this down to one Stream Deck button press per rename, one image at a time. Click. Done. Click. Done. Beautiful, I hope.

Note: I do have multiple consecutive images of the same athletes. But I only rename the keepers, which is rarely consecutive images. And even if there are some consecutive ones, it's rare enough that I rename them individually now anyway. No athlete name in file name = unremarkable photo. The unnamed photos just go into an archive, remaining anonymous, and they may never be looked at again. After I do my renaming, I then grab all the named images from my directory, reduce their resolution with a macOS Automator automation, and share those. The athletes are my child's teammates. I send the named images to their parents. And that's the end of my Photo Mechanic workflow.

Thank you for your help!

[Eric]

I just picked up a Stream Deck and have started to configurate it for my workflow. It's been quite easy to setup. It sounds like you would need to setup one button as a hotkey ^M and then multiple buttons with the text you want to past into the rename dialog box. I don't know if it will show up but I am attaching a photo of how I am setting mine up.

-Eric

[bradg]

Before I get to how the stream deck device might useful...

The reason this is useful is a have several name patterns I use and I don't want to have to re-type them over and over

... I didn't see if this was possible but if you can program one button to multiple shortcuts in sequence, then that could cut that down to 1 button press, but that might be tricky, because if you have a large number images selected for renaming, it may need to gather their metadata for a moment before it brings up the Rename window.

Keyboard Maestro should be able to handle any delay. I'm pretty sure you can have it wait until it finds the window on the screen (I think you provide a screenshot of what it looks like to the script). Then calling the window, pasting the desired text, and closing the window should be handled in one script, which you could assign to one Stream Deck window.