Author Topic: 'Remove' images from Photo Mechanic  (Read 9478 times)

Offline John Haines

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'Remove' images from Photo Mechanic
« on: January 25, 2018, 07:11:45 AM »
Latest Photo Mechanic, Build 5 19094 (trial) & running Windows 10
I'm sure I'm missing something here, but I do not seem able to 'remove' images from Photo Mechanic?
"Close" of course 'only' "closes" them & I do not want the 'reviewed' images in Photo Mechanic any longer, (for at least some images).
I do not want to "Delete" as this also deletes them from the stored originals.

In fact, the situation just got worse than I described above! My "Navigator" 'starts' at "Desktop", ( & I cannot get to "Pictures" which I will get back to) but I must have accidentally "Ingested" what was on my Desktop. Disaster, as I now have PDF's, 'Links' & Word docs etc 'IN' Photo Mechanic.
So, I obviously want to get rid of these, (similar but much more important to do so than with the images as related above.
Incidentally, cannot get the "Navigator" to not start at Desktop. Starting there would be fine, if I could let it access "Pictures".
Any help with that would be additionally appreciated.
Thank you.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2018, 07:45:29 AM by John Haines »

Offline Mick O (Camera Bits)

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Re: 'Remove' images from Photo Mechanic
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2018, 08:24:09 AM »
Hi John,

Photo Mechanic does not place photos into any sort of database. It views folders of images where they are on your computer. When you are looking at a Contact Sheet in Photo Mechanic (The window with thumbnails), you're looking at a folder on your computer. Most basically, to remove a photo from what you see, you would remove it from that folder.  When Photo Mechanic uses the term "Ingest" it generally means copying from a memory card to a folder on your computer. You can think of "Ingest" as a fancy word for "copy" (most often from memory card.) It is possible to "Ingest" from folders already on your computer, but what would be happening in that case is that they are being copied from that folder to wherever you have told Photo Mechanic to browse.

For your situation, there are a number of ways to work that could be helpful.

A) You could either select & move the "keepers" to their own folder and view them there, or you could select and move the non keepers into an "Alternates" folder.

B) You can rate all your photos with color classes or stars and use the filters at the bottom of the Contact Sheet to only show highly rated images.

Ctrl-y (The keyboard shortcut for copy/move) is your friend here. And there is an option in that dialog to automatically create a subfolder in whatever folder you're currently looking at. 

There are other options as well, but those are common places to start

Now for your Desktop problem, if you are looking at your desktop folder in Photo Mechanic, you will see all the files there. They are not ingested into Photo Mechanic, but simply shown when you look at the Desktop.  If you have images that are on your Desktop, you can choose to sort by filetype to see them together. I would personally recommend selecting the images and moving them to your Pictures folder which you can do with drag and drop. 

In your Photo Mechanic Preferences (ctrl-comma) under General, you can specify what Photo Mechanic does on startup. Right now it sounds as if it is set to "Open last contact sheet" which would be the Desktop if that is the last place you viewed.  One thing I would also suggest is going to the Navigator, navigating to your Pictures folder, then dragging the Pictures folder from the Navigator into Favorites so that you can get to it quickly no matter how you start PM.

I hope this gives you a good place to start as you figure out the workflow that works for you. (And I hope the way I have tried to explain it has not made things worse :-)

Let me know if you have any follow-ups and we'll do our best to clear things up.

-Mick
« Last Edit: January 25, 2018, 08:28:53 AM by MickO »
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Offline John Haines

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Re: 'Remove' images from Photo Mechanic
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2018, 12:11:11 AM »
Thank you.
Well, 'somehow', the previous images, (& most importantly, the PDF's etc that it 'picked up' from Desktop) have 'disappeared.
Can not even bring them up when going to "recent". That's good!
Somehow managed to get 'Navigator' to go to 'Pictures'. 

Is there a way to have P.M. open a particular program re "Edit Photo"? It currenty merely goes to Window's "Photos". I would like it to go to something like "Capture One Pro for Sony", or perhaps, "Zonar Photo Studio". I note the same very limited selection when using "Edit Photo in External Editor".
Thanks for the assistance, as IF I can get my very old head around this program, I believe I will find it very useful.
 
« Last Edit: January 26, 2018, 07:10:59 AM by John Haines »

Offline John Haines

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Re: 'Remove' images from Photo Mechanic
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2018, 05:15:30 AM »
Thank you.
OK, basically the previous 'overcome' as to the images & the PDF's etc that were 'picked up' from the desktop have all 'disappeared'.
If I understand anything, you basically indicate that the images are just 'referenced', (my wording/interpretation) from the originals.
But when I "Delete" an 'image', in P.M. it still actually DELETES the original image.  Lucky I checked. ;)

No doubt the previous will be answered as to being able to have P.M. open a specific program to edit the image.
Thanks again!
« Last Edit: January 26, 2018, 05:22:48 AM by John Haines »

Offline Kirk Baker

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Re: 'Remove' images from Photo Mechanic
« Reply #4 on: January 26, 2018, 08:00:37 AM »
Is there a way to have P.M. open a particular program re "Edit Photo"? It currenty merely goes to Window's "Photos". I would like it to go to something like "Capture One Pro for Sony", or perhaps, "Zonar Photo Studio". I note the same very limited selection when using "Edit Photo in External Editor".
Thanks for the assistance, as IF I can get my very old head around this program, I believe I will find it very useful.

Yes, Please see here: http://wiki.camerabits.com/en/index.php/User_Manual_Flat_View#Launching_Preferences

-Kirk

Offline John Haines

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Re: 'Remove' images from Photo Mechanic
« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2018, 05:49:30 PM »
Very helpful, --- thank you. I guess it had to be there somewhere!
I have another matter that is a complete mystery to me. That being when I connect my camera & go to 'Local Disks,' as well as the 'normal' available, it  shows "PM HOME (H:)". The others show as Drive or Disk, but this, (that just  happens to  be "H") only shows as indicated. It incictes 416KB of 4.98MB.
How can this occur? It appears that PM has 'inserted' this 416KB location on the SD card of the camera,
OK, I'm about to 'Reformat' the  Card, & I'm pretty sure that it will 'disappear'. But not knowing how or why it got there, will it came back? :-\

Offline Kirk Baker

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Re: 'Remove' images from Photo Mechanic
« Reply #6 on: January 26, 2018, 08:14:14 PM »
John,

I don't know how that folder got there, but I don't think that Photo Mechanic created it.

The text "PM HOME" does not exist anywhere in the source code for Photo Mechanic.

-Kirk
« Last Edit: January 29, 2018, 07:55:37 AM by Kirk Baker »

Offline John Haines

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Re: 'Remove' images from Photo Mechanic
« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2018, 12:09:27 AM »
Thank you,
For various reasons I have 'held off' reformatting the SD card, but reckon it will 'disappear' when done. As indicated previously, was on concerned that it might occur again.
Again thanks.