How to work with more than one computer without having to transfer files

[rbuchner]

Hi,

I have PM installed at the studio and home.
Both PCs have the same files, for backup purposes.

On evenings, I open a contact sheet, lets say, of a wedding (around 3.000 images), and start tagging my pics.
On the next morning, I want to update my studio PC, so I can see all my picks from last night.

But I dont want to keep carrying the files back and forth (I tried it, but so far didnt work). See what I did:

I copied all my sellects to a portable HD, and copied to my studio PC. All files now are duplicated with the capital letter A after the filename.

My questions:

1 - Is there a way I can get rid of the duplicates, while keeping my selections? I mean, I dont want the "A" files, but want to know the ones I selected (which are the A ones!)

2- Is there a way I can make those selections (between home and studio) without having to move the files around? EDIT: I noticed I made this question before, and Kirk answered I had to copy the files and overwriting them using the same folder. But its not overwritting, but creating a duplicate.

Thanks!

[JAS Photo]

You should use something like SyncToy to backup all the files to an external drive - bring that home then sync it (it will only make changes to changed files) the do any work sync and return. or (BETTER)  do all work on the external and sync to each (home & office ) as backup. Syncs will be very fast since only changed files are synced.
Or you could set up a VPN between the 2 places but that may be too slow.

[rbuchner]

Thanks JAS.

This is a good solution if I start using it from the scratch. I will do that on the next one.

Now I have to do some damage control, I mean, I have 2 PCs that are not synch'd. Some work was done on one, that havent been done in the other. So if I synch it now, the work done in one of then will be erased/undone.

Is there a way that I can erase the capital "A" from the duplicated filenames, and command the software (PM, bridge, or else) to replace the older files with the same name?

Thank you!

[Kirk Baker]

Is there a way that I can erase the capital "A" from the duplicated filenames, and command the software (PM, bridge, or else) to replace the older files with the same name?

You could create a custom sort so that all of the images that end in 'A' will sort at one end of the contact sheet and all other images will sort to the other end.  You would then delete the non-'A' images and rename the 'A' images to no longer end in 'A'.

If you already know how to do this then give it a try.  If you don't, then let me know and I will write up detailed instructions on how to achieve this.

In the future I recommend using Joe's suggestion and getting an external drive to do your work on and you can simply keep just one copy and take it with you when you need to.

-Kirk

[rbuchner]

Hi, Kirk

Could you please explain the process in details?

Thanks!

[Kirk Baker]

Could you please explain the process in details?

Sure.  First create a custom sort by choosing "Edit Custom..." from the Sort popup menu in the toolbar of the contact sheet window.  Choose a sort to edit that you don't use by clicking in the 'Edit item:' popup.  Give your new sort a name by entering a name in the 'Name:' field, how about 'Sort by last letter' ?

In the Primary sort field enter:

{filenamebase:-1}

Leave the Secondary field blank.

Then open up your folders that contain duplicates.  The sorting of photos will now take much longer since the metadata of each file has to be obtained before the sort can complete.

Find the group of images that don't end in 'A'.  Select them and delete them.  (NOTE: you need to make sure that your images that don't end in 'A' are really duplicated and are not unique photos.  This is up to you.  There is no way in Photo Mechanic to automate this process.)

Now select the photos that end in 'A' and rename them with the Rename Photos command.  Use this as your renaming string:

{filenamebase:0,-1}

The 'A' will be removed.

HTH,

-Kirk

[holthaus]

Use Live Sync from Microsoft.
google "live sync" 
was called FolderShare at one time.

This is private P2P....so both PC's or Mac's need to be on and it will move the files back and forth.  Now...one issue...better have good bandwidth to pull this off. 
I currently use this with a laptop and the desktop but I usually bring the laptop home and let it rip at home.

Microsoft also overs Live Mesh which puts a folder out on the internet and acts as a go between for all PC's and Mac's Involved.

Don't Like microsoft....use BeInsync
Never mind...just did a search and they were bought out and I think the product is dead now.


also, look into syncback
this will let you do FTP sites and if you had a VPN....you could pull this off.  I would venture to guess this would be faster than using Live Sync since that is P2P with overhead.
I use Syncbak to mac double backups of some directories

[ron_hiner]

There is a brilliant product (sadly only available for PC platform) called Beyond Compare from http://scootersoftware.com/    It quicky compares folders on the same machine, same machine to portable drive, ftp site, whatever.      Then it manages the consolidation based on rules you choose.  You can even set it up to run in the background on a schedule, so every hour, say, it will copy any New/changed files from point a to point B.   It would be great if you had drives at both your office and studio --   it would keep them in sync  (of course you'll have to sort out the related network issues, like a FTP server at one end or the other)

Mac people have Deltawalker... I'll call it a distant cousin to Beyond Compare.   Not nearly as elegant, but identical in purpose.

[rbuchner]

Thanks for the tip!

[vAfotoriporter]

I use DropBox to sync my files. You need to install a small program that checks its given folder and any changes are uploaded to the DropBox server and synced with any number of machines set up with the same account. With 5GB of server space it is free, if you need more then you have to pay for it.
Well I mostly don't use it with my image files as I rather store them on HDs and I prefer not to move gigs of RAW photos in the air.

My workflow for only sorting out images not to edit them is to ingest with a basic IPTC set, then extract the embeded JPGs and use them to set IPTC, ratings, color classes. They also work fine for web galleries or to show them if needed, but have a small file size so they are easy to transfer (compared to the RAW originals).
Once all data is set on these JPGs they can be updated to the RAW files (Update IPTC/XMP option in Tools menu, just watch out to use the proper direction of the data sync: JPG->RAW or RAW->JPG. Mixing them up can cause trouble).

[mbbphoto]

Along these lines....
Can anyone recommend a good file synch program for Mac.
Finder based , not internet based....
TX
Marc

[ron_hiner]

As I said above, Deltawalker is available.  It works pretty well.

[vAfotoriporter]

Along these lines....
Can anyone recommend a good file synch program for Mac.
Finder based , not internet based....
TX
Marc

I use ForkLift's Sync options but it is more of an FTP client and a two pane file manager designed to support the Finder interface.