Add Images to Collection

[syncrasy]

Mark,

It sounds like the 'dot' is just a fancy check box.  Correct?

Kirk, you might be correct. (The dots turn orange when selected.) In Media Pro I can select dots to display images for one or more Catalog Sets/Collections (using CMD-click) and then single click to highlight or manipulate an entirely different Collection name in the list while keeping my original (dot) selection intact. The dots allow the user to use single click to either view images or manipulate the Collection list. Like I say, the best of both worlds. A contextual menu, opened from an icon at the top of the panel, allows you to change the dot behavior by toggling between "Union" (OR-style filtering) and "Intersection" (AND style). [Edited for clarity/accuracy.]

Media Pro uses this functionality for each of the catalog fields/metadata terms in its Organize panel (Catalog Sets, keywords, label, rating, etc.). I believe this design essentially allows for browsing and simple filtering without the need for separate Browse or Filter panels. More advanced filtering/searching across metadata fields is done with the Find tool. [Edited for clarity/accuracy.]

Oh, and the contextual menu for a Media Pro collection is opened by right clicking or Ctrl-clicking the Collection/Catalog Set name on the left (not the image). The concept is to add (or remove) the Collection/Catalog Set "term" to (or from) selected image(s).

[Kirk Baker]

Mark,

It sounds like the 'dot' is just a fancy check box.  Correct?

Kirk, you might be correct. (The dots turn orange when selected.) In Media Pro I can select dots to display images for one or more Catalog Sets/Collections (using CMD-click) and then single click to highlight or manipulate an entirely different Collection name in the list while keeping my original (dot) selection intact. They allow the user to use single click to either view images or manipulate the Collection list. Like I say, the best of both worlds.

Media Pro uses this functionality for the entire UI for its Organize panel (catalog folders, catalog fields, and hierarchical keywords). I believe this design essentially allows for browsing and filtering without the need for separate Browse or Filter panels. (Media Pro does not even use the words "browse" or "filter".)

I take it that you can then only broaden results and not narrow them?  Each selected item is an OR with the others instead of an AND?

Oh, and the contextual menu for a Media Pro collection is opened by right clicking or Ctrl-clicking the Collection/Catalog Set name on the left (not the image). The concept is to add (or remove) the Collection/Catalog Set "term" to (or from) selected image(s).

In what metadata field do these terms go?  Or is this metadata that is only stored in the database?

-Kirk

[syncrasy]

Mark,

It sounds like the 'dot' is just a fancy check box.  Correct?

Kirk, you might be correct. (The dots turn orange when selected.) In Media Pro I can select dots to display images for one or more Catalog Sets/Collections (using CMD-click) and then single click to highlight or manipulate an entirely different Collection name in the list while keeping my original (dot) selection intact. They allow the user to use single click to either view images or manipulate the Collection list. Like I say, the best of both worlds.

Media Pro uses this functionality for the entire UI for its Organize panel (catalog folders, catalog fields, and hierarchical keywords). I believe this design essentially allows for browsing and filtering without the need for separate Browse or Filter panels. (Media Pro does not even use the words "browse" or "filter".)

I take it that you can then only broaden results and not narrow them?  Each selected item is an OR with the others instead of an AND?

Actually, I neglected to mention that there's a contextual menu, opened from an icon at the top of the panel, that allows you to change the dot behavior by toggling between "Union" (OR-style filtering) and "Intersection" (AND style) for that particular metadata field/term. More advanced filtering/searching across metadata fields is done with the Find tool. (I edited my post and added new screenshots to show the Union/Intersection menu and Find dialog.)

A separate Union/Intersection menu is available for the hierarchical keywords panel, but I think it might be buggy. (It appears to perform only Union filtering despite the menu selection.)

Oh, and the contextual menu for a Media Pro collection is opened by right clicking or Ctrl-clicking the Collection/Catalog Set name on the left (not the image). The concept is to add (or remove) the Collection/Catalog Set "term" to (or from) selected image(s).

In what metadata field do these terms go?  Or is this metadata that is only stored in the database?

I've always assumed that Catalog Set is a proprietary "catalog-only" term stored in the database. (Media Pro provides the option to embed Catalog Sets and custom fields into derived JPEGs a and TIFFs, but frankly I don't know where it would be stored in that scenario. I can't see Media Pro's Catalog Sets in Photoshop IPTC fields, for example.) in any case, I assume that Media Pro users transitioning to PM+ will have to temporarily "convert" their Catalog Set terms to unique keywords beforehand, and then recreate them as Collections in PM+, as well as recreate the Collection hierarchy (unless Camera Bits provides a script that will read/convert them).

[bcarlsonphoto]

Is Camera Bits planning on offering any sort of script for what @syncrasy said in his last paragraph. Doing this without a script will take a lot of time, particularly on my 125k+ images.

@syncrasy, in case they do not offer a script, what do you think is the best way to write catalog sets to keywords so they can be used in Photo Mechanic? Like you, I rely heavily on catalog sets for organizing and it would be good to carry that over to Photo Mechanic.

[Kirk Baker]

Is Camera Bits planning on offering any sort of script for what @syncrasy said in his last paragraph. Doing this without a script will take a lot of time, particularly on my 125k+ images.

It's not on our roadmap at this time.  Is there some way to export the catalog set information to something hierarchical like XML?  If so then we would consider adding such an import script.  If not, then I doubt we'll have the time to reverse-engineer their proprietary database.

-Kirk

[bcarlsonphoto]

Indeed you can export the catalog information to XML. I'm assuming you can't say for sure but do you know if/when you all would roll out an import script? I don't mind waiting but I'm running High Sierra and can't update to Mojave because Media Pro runs 32-bit. So I'm biting my nails looking for a solution.

[Hayo Baan]

You can upgrade to Mojave just fine. Just not to Catalina since that version no longer supports 32-bit applications.

[Kirk Baker]

Indeed you can export the catalog information to XML. I'm assuming you can't say for sure but do you know if/when you all would roll out an import script? I don't mind waiting but I'm running High Sierra and can't update to Mojave because Media Pro runs 32-bit. So I'm biting my nails looking for a solution.

It will depend on demand, but likely not until after release of Photo Mechanic Plus.

-Kirk

[syncrasy]

@syncrasy, in case they do not offer a script, what do you think is the best way to write catalog sets to keywords so they can be used in Photo Mechanic? Like you, I rely heavily on catalog sets for organizing and it would be good to carry that over to Photo Mechanic.

I don't know what I'll do yet. Here's the general advice of Robert E.:

For better or worse iView MediaPro/ Expression Media/ Media Pro offers several exit strategies. The easiest is to write metadata (Export Annotations) to the file or XMP sidecar file. Any decent DAM app will read the metadata. Export to XML is more difficult but does let you edit fields (search and replace) to match the new app.

If you use Media Pro [Catalog] Sets it's best to move that info to Keywords or Hierarchical Keywords then Export Annotations. There are scripts to do that, or if you only have few dozen [Catalog] Sets drag and drop works too.

Before converting our nested Catalog Sets to (temporary) hierarchical keywords, I imagine it will be necessary to first add a special suffix, e.g., "CS-catalog set name," to distinguish the new temporary keywords from existing keywords that have the same name. Then export the annotations to the images (or sidecars). Then, in PM+, we would manually recreate our Catalog Sets as Collections one by one, based on the temporary hierarchical keywords (to be deleted when no longer needed). But, without a script, I imagine this task will require many hours of work for those of us with hundreds of Catalog Sets.

Of course, if PM+ doesn't allow manual ordering of Collections, sub-Collections and Collection contents, then we won't be able to recreate our Sets exactly as they were in Media Pro. I'm hoping PM+ will have such capability, if not when the software is first released, then very shortly thereafter. Apple will drop support of High Sierra in late 2020, so next year could be tumultuous for those of us on older Macs who want to use a supported OS (we'll be forced to buy new computers and abandon Media Pro entirely).

[bcarlsonphoto]

Indeed you can export the catalog information to XML. I'm assuming you can't say for sure but do you know if/when you all would roll out an import script? I don't mind waiting but I'm running High Sierra and can't update to Mojave because Media Pro runs 32-bit. So I'm biting my nails looking for a solution.

It will depend on demand, but likely not until after release of Photo Mechanic Plus.

-Kirk

I understand. This would be a huge help for me and fellow MP users who would otherwise need to do it all by hand. This as well as manual control over collections and the ability to quickly see which image belongs to which collection would be helpful.