Workflow

[fourdogslong]

Hi,
I recently bought PM Plus, still learning it but so far so good.

I'm also a Capture One user, I've used it to import my images from my SD card since the beginning. I like the way sessions work with C1, put everything in a capture folder, do my selection and move those to the select folder, do my edits and then export the final jpeg to the export (or is it called output by default?) folder.

I'm a Sony user so the RAW previews in PM are pretty small and not great to evaluate the quality of a shot so I'm not sure I'll be using it to do my selections. But, what I like about PM is it's metadata, I really like that I can put all the metadata I want before I even import the pictures.
So basically I like things about both softwares and I'm wondering what is your workflow. I'll eventually find what works for me but I'm curious to hear about your way of doing things, see if I can grab a tip or two.

Thanks

[Soizic]

 Hello
Like you Sony, PM and Capture one.

I load the cards with PM using the metadata automatically. I sort very summarily and then work with Capture one.
I end up with two JPEG photos, one small part in a tree shared with my MacBook and iPad, the other remains next to the corresponding RAW file. The catalog that contains the RAW and JPEGs displays the processed photos very well thanks to the "VIEW combines" option.

[PauloBMB]

I am not a sony user (Nikon here ), but I am in the same situation you are, trying to work a good workflow.
This is what I am doing so far:
My first step when getting home from a shoot is creating the new Session, I have a preset for my Session that creates my base folder structure.
After that I use PM to ingest from my cards. I use Hot Codes (Code Replacement) to copy files into specific folders inside the capture folder of capture one based on camera Serial Number. That way every camera has its owned folder.  The same Hot Code creates metadata information like the right photographer name and credit etc.
I do have it set to copy images to a secondary location on backup harddrive.
So in one move, using snapshots and Code replacement I have folder structure, primary backup and basic metadata taken care of. I do not rename may files until I am finished editing yet.
Then I open my session and all my files are there ready to be used.  I have to point out that all my folders names are already set as favorites in my session, so when I click on it files show up. If you have subfolders in your capture folders files will not show when you click on the capture folder. You have to add them as favorites first. Easier on a mac because you can drag and drop... I am still editing on capture one did not get the hang of PM for that yet...
This is all new for me too, so I would love to rear everyone's thought and suggestions.

Regards

Paulo

[fourdogslong]

Hello
Like you Sony, PM and Capture one.

I load the cards with PM using the metadata automatically. I sort very summarily and then work with Capture one.
I end up with two JPEG photos, one small part in a tree shared with my MacBook and iPad, the other remains next to the corresponding RAW file. The catalog that contains the RAW and JPEGs displays the processed photos very well thanks to the "VIEW combines" option.

Are you saying you write metadata to the pictures directly on your SD card without ingesting them?

[Soizic]

Hello

No I never write on the cards.
When I upload photos I activate "Apply Metadata Template to photos" button.
I add the words later (with PM) when the treatments are finished.

[SteveMattan]

My workflow is as follows.

1. Copy the images from the camera card to a folder on my hard drive.
2. Use Photo Mechanic to quickly go through the images, making my first culls (obviously bad images).
3. Use Photo Mechanic to ingest to a folder just for this photo shoot. As part of the ingest I add my standard metadata.
4. Use Photo Mechanic to add keywords.
5. Second pass through the images to determine which to process.
6. Process select images by launching Photoshop from Photo Mechanic. I generally save processed images as TIFFs from which I make JPEGs for distribution.
7. Once I've completed any processing of the image set I move the folder created in Step 3 to my archive hard drive (the TIFFs and JPEGs are saved to the archive hard drive as they are created).*
8. Update my image catalog with the images added to the archive hard drive (back in the day this was automatic with Media Pro; it would be nice to have such an option with Photo Mechanic Plus).
9. I use Chronosync (macOS) to automatically backup my archive hard drive to a second hard drive.
10. I also use Back Blaze to automatically create an offsite backup of the archive hard drive.

* I actually have separate archive hard drives for originals and derivatives, and corresponding backup drives, thus four drives in all.

I hope this helps.

SteveM

[fourdogslong]

Hello

No I never write on the cards.
When I upload photos I activate "Apply Metadata Template to photos" button.
I add the words later (with PM) when the treatments are finished.

Ok I see, that's what I've been doing too.

[fourdogslong]

I end up with two JPEG photos, one small part in a tree shared with my MacBook and iPad, the other remains next to the corresponding RAW file. The catalog that contains the RAW and JPEGs displays the processed photos very well thanks to the "VIEW combines" option.

So you don't use capture one's folders? (Capture/selects/output)
I like the combine option in PM as well but I also like C1's folders.
I don't always process all of my "selects" so in PM if I put a filter to only see my outputs it cleans up things pretty nice.
But, at the same time, if I import my phone's photos they never end up in the output folder since I don't edit them, so my output filter in that case doesn't include these memories.

Since I only do photos as a hobby I have a mix of studio photo and everyday photos and I'm still trying to figure out how to organize it all.

[Soizic]

You could make a catalog with only the photos of the iPhone. PM allows you to see the photos of all checked catalogs.

[fourdogslong]

You could make a catalog with only the photos of the iPhone. PM allows you to see the photos of all checked catalogs.

Good idea.
I thought about it after I posted and I could also add more restrictions via filters to also see those probably.
There are a lot of ways to search in PM Plus that's what I love about it.

[Piermario]

I have recently been using PM with Capture one and my current workflow is:
1) Pm ingest and first evaluation
2) Pm metadata keywords tag etc ..
3) edit in capture one session then post production
4) export in dedicated folder according to needs
5) Addition to the Pm catalog of both the Nef originals and the outputs organized by type (I shoot naturalistic and macro photos)
Eh it would be nice if Pm had the possibility to have some sort of intelligent folders in the catalog like the ones I find in capture one.
Ah, I use two folders that I created by assigning the capture and output function so that the capture one session always remains empty at the end of the job. For now I only have about 10,000 photos cataloged and it seems to me that it also works at the research level.