Photo Mechanic > General Discussion

Previews and Metadata

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louismccullagh:
Hi
When I adjust a RAW image in photoshop should  that change the image I see in the contact sheet or do I need to set an option in the preferences. If yes do I need to close the contact sheet to get the preview to change.

I am working my way through 10's of thousands of images and I am a bit unsure about metadata. I am a long time user but just ignored this aspect!  Are keywords info that goes into the metadata and is the best way to update theses by using the keywords panel.

How do I look at all the metadata of an image?

Many thanks from a longtoothed metadata 'newbie'.

Odd Skjaeveland:

--- Quote from: louismccullagh on November 03, 2023, 05:48:51 AM ---...should  that change the image I see in the contact sheet...

--- End quote ---

The simple answer is no, PM will not show the edited image. (I wish you had spelled out the type of RAW-image, all RAW-files are not created equal)

A typical image file contains more than one set of pixel data, and sets may even be different image formats.
RAW is ambiguous these days, some people tend to think a  DNG-file is always also a RAW-file.

A typical RAW-file contains multiple sets of "preview" images in addition to the raw image. PM displays preview images embedded in the raw file. PM can not display the raw image data. Well, PM could, but you would not see what you expected. Raw pixel data must be "developed" into a viewable image. PM does not do that, and there is no need as the camera already did and embedded the results in the RAW-file.

To make edits visible to PM, your image edit software would have to replace the embedded preview images. My old trusty Nikon Capture-NX2 actually did that, and Nikon was peppered with comments on slow software. Today's software take pride in never changing the RAW-file. It is the non-destructive-edit paradigm.  If the RAW-file never changes, you will always see the same previews in PM, right?

DNG-files make the exception. Some RAW-file processors allow you to update embedded previews in DNG-files.

If your RAW-files are not DNGs, your best option is to save a jpeg file that reflects your edits and put it along the RAW-file. Make sure the name of each jpeg file matches the name of the corresponding RAW-file, except for the file name extension. PM recognizes image file pairs of one RAW-file and one JPG-file and lets you decide if the contact sheet should display the RAW-files (embedded preview), the JPG-files (with your edits) or both.

I hope this helps.
   

louismccullagh:
Thank you.
I used Canon for years but now Fuji.

Stenis:
A RAW is a RAW but you can get changes made to DNG-, JPEG-, TIFF-files appear in PM too but in order to make that happen you have to rescan that folder containing these updated images with "Scan to catalog". It is a manual operation and nothing automatic. Other DAM-systems might make that happen automatically but PM Plus is not one of them yet.

ahoward:

--- Quote from: Stenis on November 26, 2023, 05:06:49 AM ---A RAW is a RAW but you can get changes made to DNG-, JPEG-, TIFF-files appear in PM too but in order to make that happen you have to rescan that folder containing these updated images with "Scan to catalog". It is a manual operation and nothing automatic. Other DAM-systems might make that happen automatically but PM Plus is not one of them yet.

--- End quote ---
This is not really correct. If you edit a JPEG or TIFF, or a DNG with your editing software set to update the embedded JPEG, Photo Mechanic will see this the next time the Contact Sheet is scanned. Re-scanning can be manually initiated (command+/ or ctrl+/), or an automatic operation that occurs every time you switch back to Photo Mechanic from another application.

However, the proxy stored in the catalog (for use when the source image is not available) does not get updated when the source image is updated, but that doesn't actually get updated when you do a Scan to Catalog of the folder either, so I'm not sure what Scan to Catalog would do here. Perhaps you mean Rescan from the View menu?

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