Confused about how to sync PM and Bridge CS4

[blainef]

OSX 10.5.6
PM 4.5.4

I'm a new user of PM. I purchased it for the speed of editing through my thousands of Canon CR2 files.

When I view the CR2 files in Bridge, they are rotated, color labeled, and star rated. None of that is showing up in PM. How can I get these settings to transfer to be viewable in PM so they sync properly?
**Correction**: Star ratings are showing up, but the rotations and colors are not.

Advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks,
Blaine

[Kirk Baker]

Blaine,

OSX 10.5.6
PM 4.5.4

I'm a new user of PM. I purchased it for the speed of editing through my thousands of Canon CR2 files.

When I view the CR2 files in Bridge, they are rotated, color labeled, and star rated. None of that is showing up in PM. How can I get these settings to transfer to be viewable in PM so they sync properly?
**Correction**: Star ratings are showing up, but the rotations and colors are not.

Advice would be much appreciated!

First make sure you set Photo Mechanic's Color Class names and colors to be the same as what you use in Bridge (or change Bridge's values to match Photo Mechanic.)  Then make sure you set Photo Mechanic to "Add tag, color class, and rating to IPTC/XMP" for all photos (Files tab.)  Also, make sure that you have PM set to prefer XMP sidecar files over embedded metadata.  The following screen shot is how I recommend Adobe software users configure PM.

-Kirk


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[blainef]

Hi Kirk,
Thanks for the help. I've done everything you mentioned and it's still not working ideally. The star ratings transfer over perfectly. The color labels don't seem to be working right even though I made them to mark the "same colors" in PM in Bridge. Is there a special way of doing this so it's exact? It seems like when I label red in PM, it shows up as grey in Bridge.

Also, rotating is funky too. When I rotate in Bridge, it will create a sidecar XMP file with the rotate settings in it, but PM isn't recognizing the rotate done in Bridge. When I rotate in PM, it does not create an XMP sidecar file, but for some reason the rotate will then be read in Bridge.

Seems like I've still got something set wrong. Or, is this the best they will communicate?

Thanks for the help... I relly appreciate it.

[Kirk Baker]

Thanks for the help. I've done everything you mentioned and it's still not working ideally. The star ratings transfer over perfectly. The color labels don't seem to be working right even though I made them to mark the "same colors" in PM in Bridge. Is there a special way of doing this so it's exact? It seems like when I label red in PM, it shows up as grey in Bridge.

The color "names", the textual part has to match.  Do you have the same names in both applications?

Also, rotating is funky too. When I rotate in Bridge, it will create a sidecar XMP file with the rotate settings in it, but PM isn't recognizing the rotate done in Bridge. When I rotate in PM, it does not create an XMP sidecar file, but for some reason the rotate will then be read in Bridge.

We don't look for rotation data in XMP files.  We look at the EXIF orientation tag in the EXIF data.  Apparently Bridge is using it as well but is not updating the EXIF orientation tag as well.

-Kirk