Creating dng not imported to catalog?

[stefan]

My second step to rid myself from Lightroom is to replace the initial raw handling with Topaz denoise, the first step was getting PM+, and I'm trying to find an effective workflow without too many new steps.
As I under no circumstances will allow that the original raw files are changed I have resorted to creating dng files for Topaz denoise via Tools -> Convert RAW to DNG but I find no way to automatically import them to the current catalog. Instead I have to open the directory in the file system, find the newly created dng files and import them manually. I would very much like to avoid the last step if possible.
Is there an option somewhere that I haven't found?

[ahoward]

It really depends on what your definition of "Automatic" is. If you mean that you want an item to be added to the catalog the moment file is created, Photo Mechanic Plus will not do that. If you are creating the file in a folder that is already part of your Photo Mechanic catalog, doing a Catalog Sync would likely be the solution you are looking for.

[stefan]

The dng files are created in the same directory as each raw file, with the same filename but with different extensions.
Thanks for your answer I will try that. That is hopefully faster than opening the folder, do a search and manually add them.
Ideally what I would like to see is an option in the dng creation dialog to add the dng files to the catalog, and hopefully in the future also stack it with the original raw file. I think that an important part of the catalog functionality is to be able to automatically add files created within PM or by something called from PM.

[ahoward]

Okay so my previous reply doesn't really change much, but I will say that I misunderstood what you were doing, as I thought you were simply creating DNG files with Topaz. I didn't realize that setting Topaz as your DNG converter in the "Convert RAW to DNG" would actually work, I've only ever tried it with Adobe DNG converter since that's what the interface specifies. Do all the checkboxes work (such as choosing the Preview size)? I'll have to see if I can get a copy of Topaz and try this out. 

[stefan]

No not exactly, I create the dng files with Tools->Convert RAW to DNG using Adobe DNG Converter and I want those files to be visible in the catalog along the raw files immediatly on creation.

I have set up Topaz denoise as an editor for .dng files. To process the dng files I select them and choose Edit with->Topaz denoise on the right-click menu. The dng files then gets imported to Lightroom for further processing.
In the end PM+ is the only catalog and LR only sees dng files. I hope to be able to use PM as the central hub where all processing is initiated from, but that depends on that I don't have to jump through too many unneccessary hoops to work around PM shortcomings. In the end I plan to replace Lightroom with Capture One in the future and I guess that I could use Adobe Camera RAW instead of LR already.

Test Topaz denoise I was pretty blown away with how good it could remove noise and preserve details. If it gives artifacts increase Recover original detail to remove them. Personally I think that ON1 seems even better but requires a somewhat modern graphics card and mine is ancient.