pre-sales question

[ofdphoto]

hi,

i'm currently using pixort to help me cull and flag images, but am looking at photo mechanic in the hope that it will speed up the slower aspects of my wedding photography workflow.

here's what i currently do:

at wedding reception

1.) manually copy raw files off camera cards (shot on multiple cameras) into one folder
2.) use pixort to move approx. 100 images to a slideshow folder
3.) import those images into lightroom for a quick process before presenting as a slideshow

then, at the office

4.) copy photos taken at the reception into original folder
5.) use pixort to pick another 20 or so images to add to slideshow from reception
6.) import those into lightroom and process
7.) for renumbering purposes, import ALL photos from the day into lightroom and renumber them akk
8.) throw the slideshow photos into a web slideshow etc. (they need to display accurate numbers in case clients want to order prints from the slideshow)
9.) complete remaining culling and processing within lightroom

the sucky part of this is around steps 7-9. if i could complete the renumbering before images hit lightroom, i'd be laughing ... it would have the added (huge) bonus of allowing me to use a fast program for the "real" culling/flagging.

sooooo, questions before i start playing with a trial:

1.) how does ingest renumbering work when pulling images from multiple cameras, with one card reader? i want all images, from all cameras, to be numbered in sequence, as YYMMDD_NNNN. bear in mind that this renumbering needs to be performed at initial ingest, or immediately after, as i don't want to lose the initial processing i apply to the slideshow photos in lightroom because the files disappear
2.) when ingesting images after the reception, is it possible to set the start number? even better, does PM pick up where it left off for the given folder?

if PM addresses those two concerns adequately, it might be the perfect tool for me.

bear in mind that i'm not interested in using anything apart from lightroom for processing ... although it's slow and the cataloging sucks, i'm fairly good at getting the results i want out of it now...

[Kirk Baker]

1.) how does ingest renumbering work when pulling images from multiple cameras, with one card reader? i want all images, from all cameras, to be numbered in sequence, as YYMMDD_NNNN. bear in mind that this renumbering needs to be performed at initial ingest, or immediately after, as i don't want to lose the initial processing i apply to the slideshow photos in lightroom because the files disappear

The sequence number just counts up linearly: 0001, 0002, 0003, etc. as the photos are Ingested.

2.) when ingesting images after the reception, is it possible to set the start number? even better, does PM pick up where it left off for the given folder?

The sequence number continues off where it left off.  It doesn't know about what sequence was last used for a particular folder.

If you have more questions, please ask.

-Kirk

[ofdphoto]

Thanks for that ... so there is no way to re-number in order of capture time post-ingest?

[Hayo Baan]

Sure there is. Renaming is one of the many things PM excels in 

Depending on what you actually want, this is perhaps the easiest way , after the fact:
1. Open a contact sheet with all the relevant files in it (if necessary add (sub)folders to a single contact sheet)
2. Sort the files according to capture time (depending on how many images there are, this may take a few seconds)
3. Rename the files with any string you want, making use of the variables that PM provides you. In its simplest form this would be just the text {seqn} where you've set the sequence variable to the form (and start value) you want (you can do this from the file rename box).

Does this answer your question?

[ofdphoto]

i think it does

it seems like the best workflow for me will be ...

at reception

1.) ingest all photos taken so far using PM with no renaming (for extra speed i might utilise multiple card readers)
2.) use PM to renumber all images in order of capture time
3.) use PM to pick images for slideshow and move to slideshow folder

4.) import slideshow folder to lightroom and prepare photos for slideshow

after reception

5.) ingest all remaining photos using PM with no renaming
6.) use PM to renumber additional images; set starting number to next number in sequence
7.) use PM to cull / flag images in preparation for final processing

8.) import keepers into lightroom and perform final processing

i've italicised the steps i expect PM to be able to manage. if this sounds realistic, i'm all over it

thanks guys.

[Hayo Baan]

4.) import slideshow folder to lightroom and prepare photos for slideshow

4.) import slideshow folder to lightroom and prepare photos for slideshow

This one could be italicized as well as PM is very well capable of running slideshows 

Cheers

[vAfotoriporter]

4.) import slideshow folder to lightroom and prepare photos for slideshow

PM even does the Lightroom import part (well actually it only starts but you can do it right from PM launching LR for you). In preferences you can set LR as default or custom editor for your RAW files enabling you to chose from the right click menu Edit selected files with LightRoom causing the selected files to be imported into Lightroom (on Windows it is better to quit LR before and instead of Edit with drag the selected photos to the LR icon resulting the same. Win seems to have troubble LR opening multiple images for the Edit option in PM. On Mac it works flawlessly.)

I still don't understand the renaming/renumbering part. Why do you need this part so much? I use almost allways the original 4 digit numbers given by camera. Even if I am in a hurry because I don't see a point of allways renaming everithing and this way I can stay consequent to my own system all images allways having individual numbers.

I ingest only once this time I store the original (given by camera) number in a variable for later reference and I store  in the image the new filename given by my own file system rules {year2}{month0}{day0}{frame4} and I add a letter to the end of filename to show me which camera body took it and having not to worry about frame numbers from two cameras get mixed.

If I have no time for a complete ingest I still can quickly rename to the system of mine and add the original and new filename to the IPTC for later reference in no time to any image (using saved presets) this way my quick rename will still be consequent with the one later done during ingest.

Using this filenaming system it can easily happen that you have filenames that don't sort correctly but viewing images in PM enables you to do a sort by Creatin Time solving this problem. I often show my images to customers in PM having them press T key for tag images they like to order.

I only use Ligthroom for editing images to be processed, but all the selecting, sorting, culling, keywording is done in PM. If no huge corrections need to be made for a web gallery I even do the crop and gallery export as well in PM skipping the edit part in LR.

[ofdphoto]

wow, ok.

so how does PM handle the whole LR catalog thing?

and i need the renumbering to work as described because i shoot with multiple cameras and want them to appear chronologically when sorted by filename. this makes it easy to send them to online proofing and easy to deliver on disc (when required).

anyway, sounds like PM is enormously powerful

[vAfotoriporter]

anyway, sounds like PM is enormously powerful

It is in deed! I can hardly imagine to live without it any more!
,-)))

so how does PM handle the whole LR catalog thing?

You shall (or it is advised to) add/edit all your metadata in PM since it has enormous capability of using metadata variables allowing you almost anything you may imagine with them.

All communication between PM and LR is in the images and their XMP sidecar files. Once you enter captions, keywords, categories, etc in PM it shows up in LR so you can later search and filter photos for these. Color classes and star ratings also transfer from PM to LR. One thing I don't know about LR is how to have it reread metadata from the original files once the images have been imported to LR but metadata gets changed over time with an external application. (This seems a flaw in LR concept thinking noone uses any other software than LR that is meant to be used for the entire workflow. PM doesn't want to be the only tool it is designed to support using other programs like PS or PM - or any other.)
You shall search in this forum to find exact settings for enabling this. But it works. However as I said I don't use LR as catalog, only as an editor. All my file managements is done in PM.

and i need the renumbering to work as described because i shoot with multiple cameras and want them to appear chronologically when sorted by filename. this makes it easy to send them to online proofing and easy to deliver on disc (when required).

In this case you should ingest all images from both cameras into a folder at site (it may be still adviseable to store your original filenames in an unused variable for later reference). After all images are ingested sort them by capture time and rename them to your desired filename that sorts chronologically. Maybe {datesort}{timesort} should work as an easy example (assuming you don't shoot two frames in one second).
Later if you continue shooting you may ingest newer images into a different folder and repeat the same with them having the new images renamed in a continous order following the firs ingest. Then you may combine the two folders and need no renaming any time later.

And of course you may open any image from PM into LR any time, but it is suggested to do it after you renamed them to their final filename.

[Hayo Baan]

anyway, sounds like PM is enormously powerful

It is in deed! I can hardly imagine to live without it any more!
,-)))

Me too! And even if there is some functionality that makes sense but isn't there yet, just post it in the feature requests forum and it might get added soon!

and i need the renumbering to work as described because i shoot with multiple cameras and want them to appear chronologically when sorted by filename. this makes it easy to send them to online proofing and easy to deliver on disc (when required).

In this case you should ingest all images from both cameras into a folder at site (it may be still adviseable to store your original filenames in an unused variable for later reference). After all images are ingested sort them by capture time and rename them to your desired filename that sorts chronologically. Maybe {datesort}{timesort} should work as an easy example (assuming you don't shoot two frames in one second).
Later if you continue shooting you may ingest newer images into a different folder and repeat the same with them having the new images renamed in a continous order following the firs ingest. Then you may combine the two folders and need no renaming any time later.

And of course you may open any image from PM into LR any time, but it is suggested to do it after you renamed them to their final filename.

To add to szurkebarat. I always use {datesort}_{timesortlong}_{model:6} as the file renaming string. This creates chronologically sortable file names that are always unique, even when shooting with multiple cameras.

• {datesort} gives you the date (shot) of the image in YYYYMMDD format.
• {timesortlong} gives you the time of the image in HHmmSSss format (where SS is seconds and ss is 1/100 of a second for cameras that support this feature, all Nikon DSLRs support this for instance).
• {model:6} gives the name of the camera model (first 6 characters stripped). This was necessary to add as I found that even with the 1/100 seconds, I ended up with duplicate filenames. As we shoot with different camera models only, this works. If you shoot with multiple people and use cameras of the same model, you may need to find a different variable to make it unique (or rely on PM to automatically solve the conflicts by adding a single digit or letter)

Cheers