Workflow - Moving folders within PMP catalog?

[timsphoto]

Hi there,
I'm looking for a bit of advice on the best way to manage moving images around within a PM Plus catalog.

I keep images in two places - folders on my Mac's internal disk while I'm editing them (Capture One if it makes a difference) and once finished/delivered, I then move those images off to folders on my NAS for archival.

I've indexed the archives on the NAS using PM Plus (which is working brilliantly!) and currently have the local "in work" images in the catalog too, but am a bit stuck as to how best to handle moving images from the local folders to the NAS while hopefully avoiding needing to reindex them in PM Plus. In Lightroom or CaptureOne I can simply move the relevant files/folders on disk & then "relocate" the images in LR/C1 after they've moved to the NAS.. avoiding needing to rescan or reindex everything.

How can I achieve this or similar with PM Plus? At the moment I'm rescanning all my archive folders on the NAS or running a Sync - both of which take 3-4 hours to complete.  Am I missing some option to move a folder from one location to another, updating the images...?

Thanks!
Tim

[Kirk Baker]

I'm looking for a bit of advice on the best way to manage moving images around within a PM Plus catalog.

I keep images in two places - folders on my Mac's internal disk while I'm editing them (Capture One if it makes a difference) and once finished/delivered, I then move those images off to folders on my NAS for archival.

I've indexed the archives on the NAS using PM Plus (which is working brilliantly!) and currently have the local "in work" images in the catalog too, but am a bit stuck as to how best to handle moving images from the local folders to the NAS while hopefully avoiding needing to reindex them in PM Plus. In Lightroom or CaptureOne I can simply move the relevant files/folders on disk & then "relocate" the images in LR/C1 after they've moved to the NAS.. avoiding needing to rescan or reindex everything.

How can I achieve this or similar with PM Plus? At the moment I'm rescanning all my archive folders on the NAS or running a Sync - both of which take 3-4 hours to complete.  Am I missing some option to move a folder from one location to another, updating the images...?

If you use the Favorites and/or Navigator within Photo Mechanic Plus to move the folders then the new location will be updated in the catalog directly.  Moving the images outside of the application increases complication because there is currently no way to "inform" Photo Mechanic Plus that you've moved a folder containing images or individual images to a new location.

We will likely add the ability to change a folder location from the Folder Path section of the Browse tree by right-clicking on a folder and choosing "Locate new folder" which will update the location in the catalog.

-Kirk

[timsphoto]

Many thanks Kirk - will give that a go.

Adding the ability to change a folder location sounds like the perfect answer though

Tim

[Kirk Baker]

Tim,

Here is a build that has preliminary support for indicating a new location for a folder that has been relocated outside of Photo Mechanic Plus:

macOS:

https://www.camerabits.com/download/PhotoMechanicPlusR5270_d54d1cde.dmg

Windows:

https://www.camerabits.com/download/PMPlusSetupR5270_d54d1cde.msi

Here's how it works: Select the Browse tab in the Organizer.  Expand the "Folder Path" section of the tree and find the folder that you moved.  Right-click on it and a contextual menu will appear with a single menu item on it: "Choose new location...".  Select that menu item.  A folder chooser dialog will appear.  Navigate to the new location for that folder and choose it.  The Catalog will be updated to reflect the new location.

NOTE: if you have any Contact Sheet tabs open that have items that were in that missing path, you'll have to reissue the query that produced it.  For instance, if you had opened that old path from the Browse tree then you'll have to open it again, simply rescanning (View->Rescan) won't return the correct results since the old path no longer exists and it's in the query that produced that Contact Sheet.

NOTE: the counts of parent items will likely be incorrect.  We'll get that fixed at some point.  If it bothers you too much, a restart of the application will correct that cosmetic issue.

Please give it a try.  We've tested moving a folder around on the same disk and moving a folder to an entirely different disk.  Both operations, minus the caveats above, worked fine.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[timsphoto]

Hi Kirk,

So sorry for not getting back to you sooner! Have been testing out the "choose new location" feature extensively over the last few days and am pleased to be able to say it works perfectly with successful moves across local, external & network attached disks on my Mac. Zero issues!

If there was just one more tweak, it would have to be the ability to right click a folder and initiate a rescan/resync of just that folder + subfolders; picking up any deletes/moves/additions/metadata changes etc.

Then, PMP seems to be pretty much perfect !

Many thanks
Tim

[KeithRJ]

Tim, the ability to scan a folder from the context menu already exists. I can't remember if it is available everywhere but is definately there.

[Kirk Baker]

Tim, the ability to scan a folder from the context menu already exists. I can't remember if it is available everywhere but is definately there.

It's available in the Favorites and Navigator, but not in the Folder Paths of the Browse tree.  Perhaps it should be added there too as a convenience.

-Kirk

[Soizic]

Not really convenient !
 You have to go to the favorites, choose the folder, you find "include when scanning'", you start the scan, and restart a "new".

[timsphoto]

Tim, the ability to scan a folder from the context menu already exists. I can't remember if it is available everywhere but is definately there.

It's available in the Favorites and Navigator, but not in the Folder Paths of the Browse tree.  Perhaps it should be added there too as a convenience.

-Kirk

Ah, that explains it!
As Soizic's commented, it's not really obvious. Would be much faster & more comparable to other workflow tools to be able to right click a folder in the browse tree & initiate an immediate rescan of that folder. Needing to add it via favourites, including while scanning, starting a scan etc... not quite the same.

[Kirk Baker]

Tim,

Tim, the ability to scan a folder from the context menu already exists. I can't remember if it is available everywhere but is definately there.

It's available in the Favorites and Navigator, but not in the Folder Paths of the Browse tree.  Perhaps it should be added there too as a convenience.

Ah, that explains it!
As Soizic's commented, it's not really obvious. Would be much faster & more comparable to other workflow tools to be able to right click a folder in the browse tree & initiate an immediate rescan of that folder. Needing to add it via favourites, including while scanning, starting a scan etc... not quite the same.

We can certainly add a contextual menu item to add that folder to scan, but you'll still have to use the Scan to Catalog to scan again.  In this case it sounds like what you're really wanting to do is synchronize your folder(s) and your catalog and for that purpose the Catalog Sync tool (Catalog->Sync Catalogs...) would be much more automated.

-Kirk

[timsphoto]

We can certainly add a contextual menu item to add that folder to scan, but you'll still have to use the Scan to Catalog to scan again.  In this case it sounds like what you're really wanting to do is synchronize your folder(s) and your catalog and for that purpose the Catalog Sync tool (Catalog->Sync Catalogs...) would be much more automated.

Thanks Kirk - just looking for a quicker way to pick up any changes to files on disk, preferably without needing to initiate a multi-hour scan of our complete image library. If a context menu item could trigger the folder to scan and open up the Sync Catalogs tool, well that would be a great start :-)

Tim