Workflow question

[sgbotsford]

The workflow model I see about PM is "ingest, cull and rate, keyword, move on."

My head doesn't work like that.  I will be working on a picture, and another hatful of keywords will occur to me.  It runs in projects.  This month, I'm catching up on species and cultivars for my tree farm so I can rewrite my web pages with better pictures.

I'm currently making a pass through my collection adding weather and sky keywords.  In general I work a facet at a time.  I'm still adding keywords to pictures I shot 15 years ago.

I can see the merit in splitting the notion of cataloging and editing.    You may edit everything in photoshop.  John may prefer lightroom.  I may want to use Affinity.

Is there a way to use PM differently?

*  I want it to work with an established library. 
*  Add/modify/delete metadata for those pictures
*  Rate/delete pictures.

I think this means that there must be a single program that handles metadata and the library, or there has to be a common messaging protocol between the two, so that the library isn't surprised when the metadata program culls a photo.

I keep seeing "PM is not a cataloging program"  What does a cataloging program do that PM does not.

[Kirk Baker]

The workflow model I see about PM is "ingest, cull and rate, keyword, move on."

My head doesn't work like that.  I will be working on a picture, and another hatful of keywords will occur to me.  It runs in projects.  This month, I'm catching up on species and cultivars for my tree farm so I can rewrite my web pages with better pictures.

I'm currently making a pass through my collection adding weather and sky keywords.  In general I work a facet at a time.  I'm still adding keywords to pictures I shot 15 years ago.

I can see the merit in splitting the notion of cataloging and editing.    You may edit everything in photoshop.  John may prefer lightroom.  I may want to use Affinity.

Is there a way to use PM differently?

PM does not impose any particular workflow on the user.  You can revisit photos and work on them however you like.

*  I want it to work with an established library. 
*  Add/modify/delete metadata for those pictures
*  Rate/delete pictures.

I think this means that there must be a single program that handles metadata and the library, or there has to be a common messaging protocol between the two, so that the library isn't surprised when the metadata program culls a photo.

I keep seeing "PM is not a cataloging program"  What does a cataloging program do that PM does not.

It keeps the metadata of all cataloged images in a database for fast searching.  PM5 is a browser and does not keep track of your metadata in a database.

-Kirk

[Hayo Baan]

It keeps the metadata of all cataloged images in a database for fast searching.  PM5 is a browser and does not keep track of your metadata in a database.

Just to make sure you understand: Even though PM doesn't keep track of the metadata in a database, it does store them in the image files (or, for raw files, and when you have enabled that option, .xmp sidecar files).

Hope that clarifies things,
Hayo

[sgbotsford]

Can PM be told:  Do all metadata in sidecar files, and where possible, in the file too?

Can PM do complex searches:  Find all shots with a time stamp between 4 and 6 p.m. shot during November or February between 2005 and 2012 that have the keyword sunset.

Suppose I use an external editor duplicate an image, and give in a derivitve name.  (E.g.  the original is 2011-10-03_10-52-04.nef and the derivative is 2011-10-03_10-52-04-cropped-for-the-NYtimes.jpg) will it recognize that there is a new image on the block, and offer to add metadata for it?

(Alternately, are there external programs that can maintain data integrity for deriviative files?)

[Kirk Baker]

Can PM be told:  Do all metadata in sidecar files, and where possible, in the file too?

PM can write metadata to most RAW formats and keep XMP sidecar files in sync too.

Can PM do complex searches:  Find all shots with a time stamp between 4 and 6 p.m. shot during November or February between 2005 and 2012 that have the keyword sunset.

PM5 cannot do complex searches.

Suppose I use an external editor duplicate an image, and give in a derivitve name.  (E.g.  the original is 2011-10-03_10-52-04.nef and the derivative is 2011-10-03_10-52-04-cropped-for-the-NYtimes.jpg) will it recognize that there is a new image on the block, and offer to add metadata for it?

The program that let you save the NEF as a JPEG should do that.  If you're using PM, then it will happen automatically.

(Alternately, are there external programs that can maintain data integrity for deriviative files?)

Photoshop does as well as many other image editing applications that also work with metadata.

-Kirk

[baxterbradford]

I agree that the process is not necessarily linear and that revisiting is necessary. I find that as time moves on I'm better able to be objective about which images to keep and therefore those upon which to invest time keywording and captioning. It seems very inefficient use of time to do all of this work at the outset even if copying pasting much of it and then cull images. Also I find that sometimes my brain is better suited to tasks such as keywording/captioning and best to apportion time doing this for least pain....!

I use both Capture One Pro v9 and LR 6 (nonCC) to edit my images.

Could someone please advise me what settings I should use in both PM and LR to enable me to be able to Keyword & Caption images, so that I do not come up against the LR prompt:
'The metadata for this photo has been changed by another application. Should Lightroom import settings from disk or overwrite disk settings with those from the catalog?'
If not, is there any way of avoiding the 'reset' in the develop module so that I have to manually go through and go back one stage?

Capture One seems to not mind me keywording afterwards, but wanted to declare whole scenario. I'm using C1 less and less since it doesn't work with Fuji X-trans files nearly as well as LR does, but that's another can of worms and why I've not bought C1Pro v10!

If it's relevant I'm using Nikon D800 and Fuji X-Pro 2 & X-T1 so it's NEF and RAF files which are current priority, but confession time, do have Phase One P45+ files as well as those scanned from film which need keywording and captioning.

I've done quite a few searches in this forum , google & LR to seek out the answers, meaning my head is swimming with XMP & sidecars, but haven't found how to achieve this.

Many thanks
Baxter

[Kirk Baker]

Baxter,

I agree that the process is not necessarily linear and that revisiting is necessary. I find that as time moves on I'm better able to be objective about which images to keep and therefore those upon which to invest time keywording and captioning. It seems very inefficient use of time to do all of this work at the outset even if copying pasting much of it and then cull images. Also I find that sometimes my brain is better suited to tasks such as keywording/captioning and best to apportion time doing this for least pain....!

I use both Capture One Pro v9 and LR 6 (nonCC) to edit my images.

Could someone please advise me what settings I should use in both PM and LR to enable me to be able to Keyword & Caption images, so that I do not come up against the LR prompt:
'The metadata for this photo has been changed by another application. Should Lightroom import settings from disk or overwrite disk settings with those from the catalog?'
If not, is there any way of avoiding the 'reset' in the develop module so that I have to manually go through and go back one stage?

You need to make sure that Lr updates the XMP sidecar files after you have changed metadata or made adjustments to the images.  PM will preserve those changes when it makes metadata changes.  When you return to Lr, you will want Lr to update from the XMP sidecars (from disk) instead of overwriting those changes from its database.

-Kirk

[baxterbradford]

Thanks Kirk, that's worked really well. I've found it can also import from disk for several at once which is a great relief.

I'd prepared about 50 snapshots a year or so ago to enable rapid keywording, but more frequent use of the Fuji cameras with LR has deterred me. I can now bite that bullet and get cracking, I have no excuses!