RAW previews not updating in contact sheet

[sharonfullerton]

Sorry if this has been asked multiple times.  I've read many support posts but still cannot figure it out and need some hand-holding.
I am running a trial version of Photo Mechanic Version 6.0, build 3331 (38ae33c) and I run Mac OS Sierra 10.12.6, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7 with 32G of memory

I'm coming from Adobe Bridge, where changes to my RAW file via ACR are updated in the that software's version of the contact sheet and preview.
However I cannot figure out how to get updated previews in my contact sheet of PM after I edit the CR2 in ACR. 

I have tried multiple configurations in the preferences.  I've enabled RAW rendering and I've disabled RAW rendering.
I've combined RAW+JPGs in a single thumbnail and I've unchecked that option.
I've changed my ACR settings to provide full size previews.
I do have Adobe's DNG converter installed and the path is correct in my PM preferences.  (Do I not need the DNG converter if I'm using ACR?)
I've upped my cache rendering size  (maybe it's still not enough?)

I've seen supports posts where this issue has been fixed, so I'm confident that I'm missing an obvious setting -- although I can't wrap my head around the process enough to figure it out on my own.

Here is a sample of a thumbnail in my contact sheet that is not updated, although I can see the bounding box of the crop I created in ACR.

Thanks in advance for walking me through this.
Sharon

[Kirk Baker]

Sharon,

Sorry if this has been asked multiple times.  I've read many support posts but still cannot figure it out and need some hand-holding.
I am running a trial version of Photo Mechanic Version 6.0, build 3331 (38ae33c) and I run Mac OS Sierra 10.12.6, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7 with 32G of memory

I'm coming from Adobe Bridge, where changes to my RAW file via ACR are updated in the that software's version of the contact sheet and preview.
However I cannot figure out how to get updated previews in my contact sheet of PM after I edit the CR2 in ACR. 

I have tried multiple configurations in the preferences.  I've enabled RAW rendering and I've disabled RAW rendering.
I've combined RAW+JPGs in a single thumbnail and I've unchecked that option.
I've changed my ACR settings to provide full size previews.
I do have Adobe's DNG converter installed and the path is correct in my PM preferences.  (Do I not need the DNG converter if I'm using ACR?)
I've upped my cache rendering size  (maybe it's still not enough?)

I've seen supports posts where this issue has been fixed, so I'm confident that I'm missing an obvious setting -- although I can't wrap my head around the process enough to figure it out on my own.

Here is a sample of a thumbnail in my contact sheet that is not updated, although I can see the bounding box of the crop I created in ACR.

Is it possible that you could share a RAW file and the XMP sidecar file with me that you have adjusted?  It could be some shot of a wall if you don't want to send a real image.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[Hayo Baan]

@Sharon, I think you means to say that the edits made in LR/ACR are not visible in PM, right?

This is correct and is something that won't change; PM shows the embedded preview and LR/ACR don't update that when you perform edits. Turning on PM's raw rendering does not change this since what happens in that case is that PM calls Adobe's DNG converter to create a DNG of your raw file and uses the embedded preview from that. This preview won't, however, reflect the edits you made either.
Note that while PM does not know about how LR/ACR perform their raw rendering, it does know about the crops, hence the visibility of the crop box.

The only solution to this (and is what I do) is to convert your raw files to DNG and have LR and ACR update the preview in those after you made your edits. If you use ACR this is an automatic process (just make sure you turn this feature on in the ACR preferences and have ACR generate full size previews). In LR you need to manually do this, but there it's just a right click away: select the image(s) you just edited, right click, choose Metadata | Update DNG Preview & Metadata.

Hope this helps,
Hayo

[Kirk Baker]

Hayo,

@Sharon, I think you means to say that the edits made in LR/ACR are not visible in PM, right?

This is correct and is something that won't change; PM shows the embedded preview and LR/ACR don't update that when you perform edits. Turning on PM's raw rendering does not change this since what happens in that case is that PM calls Adobe's DNG converter to create a DNG of your raw file and uses the embedded preview from that. This preview won't, however, reflect the edits you made either.

It should in this case now have the edits if the XMP sidecar file for the image has the LR/ACR edits saved into it.  This is the intention of the feature. What is supposed to happen when RAW rendering is enabled and a suitable Adobe DNG Converter is provided is that PM will launch the DNG Converter on a given image, the DNG Converter will generate a DNG to PM's cache, PM will extract the preview from that file, store it in the "Render Cache" and then delete the DNG file that was produced.  Then for as long as the preview is available and the Camera RAW settings (crss namespace in XMP) don't change, then PM will use that preview for all visualization purposes (thumbnails, previews, save-as, printing, etc.)

If this isn't working then either the feature is broken (entirely possible), or the image's XMP sidecar file does not have the Camera RAW settings saved into it.

-Kirk

[Hayo Baan]

It should in this case now have the edits if the XMP sidecar file for the image has the LR/ACR edits saved into it.  This is the intention of the feature. What is supposed to happen when RAW rendering is enabled and a suitable Adobe DNG Converter is provided is that PM will launch the DNG Converter on a given image, the DNG Converter will generate a DNG to PM's cache, PM will extract the preview from that file, store it in the "Render Cache" and then delete the DNG file that was produced.  Then for as long as the preview is available and the Camera RAW settings (crss namespace in XMP) don't change, then PM will use that preview for all visualization purposes (thumbnails, previews, save-as, printing, etc.)

If this isn't working then either the feature is broken (entirely possible), or the image's XMP sidecar file does not have the Camera RAW settings saved into it.

Hi Kirk, are you saying that when you convert a raw file with a .xmp, Adbobe's DNG converter applies the edits mentioned inside the .xmp? I did not know that! If that's the case, turning on RAW rendering should indeed work (assuming the .xmps indeed contain the edits, LR requires a change of settings/manual upcate in this case, but ACR does this automatically).

[Kirk Baker]

Hayo,

It should in this case now have the edits if the XMP sidecar file for the image has the LR/ACR edits saved into it.  This is the intention of the feature. What is supposed to happen when RAW rendering is enabled and a suitable Adobe DNG Converter is provided is that PM will launch the DNG Converter on a given image, the DNG Converter will generate a DNG to PM's cache, PM will extract the preview from that file, store it in the "Render Cache" and then delete the DNG file that was produced.  Then for as long as the preview is available and the Camera RAW settings (crss namespace in XMP) don't change, then PM will use that preview for all visualization purposes (thumbnails, previews, save-as, printing, etc.)

If this isn't working then either the feature is broken (entirely possible), or the image's XMP sidecar file does not have the Camera RAW settings saved into it.

Hi Kirk, are you saying that when you convert a raw file with a .xmp, Adbobe's DNG converter applies the edits mentioned inside the .xmp? I did not know that! If that's the case, turning on RAW rendering should indeed work (assuming the .xmps indeed contain the edits, LR requires a change of settings/manual upcate in this case, but ACR does this automatically).

Yes. So in order to get to the bottom of the issue, I'd like a RAW file and its corresponding XMP sidecar file for my testing.

-Kirk

[sharonfullerton]

Kirk, Thank you very much.   Had to reshoot it as a small RAW because I was getting errors about the upload size. Here's the RAW and XMP sidecar file.


Sharon

Sharon,

Is it possible that you could share a RAW file and the XMP sidecar file with me that you have adjusted?  It could be some shot of a wall if you don't want to send a real image.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[Kirk Baker]

Thanks for the sample files, Sharon.

Do you have the latest Adobe DNG Converter that will run on your system?  I'm on macOS 10.11.6 but the latest Adobe DNG Converter (11.4) won't run on macOS 10.11 and as such, your image won't render for me either.  The converter I have is too old (9.6) to handle images from your camera.

It may be that your Adobe DNG Converter app is also too old to convert your images to DNG.  You can test this theory by dragging and dropping one of your CR2 files onto the app and try to convert it.  If it gets an error, then your app is too old and you'll need to get a newer Adobe DNG Converter.

HTH,

-Kirk

[sharonfullerton]

If it gets an error, then your app is too old and you'll need to get a newer Adobe DNG Converter.

HTH,

-Kirk

Thanks.   Indeed my DNG converter was older so I updated to 11.4.    Unfortunately it didn't change anything about the preview, despite restarting both ACR and photo mechanic.  I was hoping that it would magically fix the issue.  I'm looking over my PM preferences again to see if I've switched something in the umpteen times I've played with this to get it to update previews.

Any follow up ideas? 

[Kirk Baker]

Sharon,

If it gets an error, then your app is too old and you'll need to get a newer Adobe DNG Converter.

Thanks.   Indeed my DNG converter was older so I updated to 11.4.    Unfortunately it didn't change anything about the preview, despite restarting both ACR and photo mechanic.  I was hoping that it would magically fix the issue.  I'm looking over my PM preferences again to see if I've switched something in the umpteen times I've played with this to get it to update previews.

Any follow up ideas?

I'll have to test on a newer OS and updated Adobe DNG Converter and get back to you.  Just to set your expectations, the Adobe DNG Converter is extremely slow (takes about three to four seconds for each image) so performance is quite bad.  If you want the best experience and updated previews you may consider converting your CR2 images to DNG files which PM can access the previews nearly instantaneously.

Did you try using the Adobe DNG Converter directly to see if it will in fact convert your CR2 images to DNG format without error?

-Kirk

[sharonfullerton]

Sharon,


Did you try using the Adobe DNG Converter directly to see if it will in fact convert your CR2 images to DNG format without error?

-Kirk

I did use the Adobe DNG converter directly and it does convert my CR2 images to DNG without error.   However the amount of time it takes to convert the files isn't realistic in my workflow.  I'm hoping this isn't a deal breaker for me using this software.  I'm so happy with the PM trial - if I can just figure out the previews.    - Sharon

[Kirk Baker]

Sharon,

Did you try using the Adobe DNG Converter directly to see if it will in fact convert your CR2 images to DNG format without error?

I did use the Adobe DNG converter directly and it does convert my CR2 images to DNG without error.   However the amount of time it takes to convert the files isn't realistic in my workflow.  I'm hoping this isn't a deal breaker for me using this software.  I'm so happy with the PM trial - if I can just figure out the previews.

The only other recourse then is to use DNG files instead of CR2 files.  Adobe does not offer a library of code that will render RAW images according to their proprietary technology and we can't reverse-engineer it.  So we use the Adobe DNG Converter to do this rendering for PM, but it is painfully slow.  If you use DNG files, the previews in the DNG files will contain the updated previews which PM can utilize and it will be fast.

-Kirk

[sharonfullerton]

Unfortunately converting my CR2 files to DNG isn't an option because of the time it takes.  I need to load my pictures and view the catalog.  I can wait a few minutes, but not hours.   My event this weekend was 9+ hours with 2 photographers. Can you imagine how long it would take to convert 2000 photos just so I could look at them ... let alone cull them?

Kirk - can you answer me this ... is it impossible to see updated CR2 previews in the contact sheet?  Or is this a specific issue with my software configuration?   

Thanks,
Sharon

[Kirk Baker]

Sharon,

Unfortunately converting my CR2 files to DNG isn't an option because of the time it takes.  I need to load my pictures and view the catalog.  I can wait a few minutes, but not hours.   My event this weekend was 9+ hours with 2 photographers. Can you imagine how long it would take to convert 2000 photos just so I could look at them ... let alone cull them?

Kirk - can you answer me this ... is it impossible to see updated CR2 previews in the contact sheet?  Or is this a specific issue with my software configuration?   

It is not possible to see the adjustments you make to CR2 files with Adobe products inside PM without using the Adobe DNG Converter.

-Kirk

[Odd Skjaeveland]

...is it impossible to see updated CR2 previews in the contact sheet?  Or is this a specific issue with my software configuration?

Alas, no it isn't. Raw files have become "don't touch" items, they will eventually end with their Read Only flag up.

Did you try to export jpegs from your image processor (ACR/PS/LR or other) to the raw file folder just for PM contact sheets? PM may then show Raw+Jpeg-as-exported. That may be faster than the DNG Converter route.

I don't shoot raw+jpeg, so I would probably do a PM ingest to the raw image folder followed by Tools->Extract JPG Previews... with Extract to source folder ticked. I would then have 3 files per image; raw+xmp+jpg. Then, when it is time, select processed images in the image processor and export to JPEG in the source folder, effectively overwriting extracted previews, and head back to PM.