I'm not sure what you mean by the "winner and its opposite in preview"?
I'm referring to the "+"/"-" icons on the toolbar, their keyboard shortcuts being "w"/"d". I seem to remember from documentation that "w" stands for "winner".
There are keys to add and dismiss photos from the selected set (W) and (D) and you could use that selected set to either delete your rejects or tag them all at once (or rate/color label them) for later winnowing.
Is the "selected set" the selection I can make in the contact sheet with mousclick (single image), then add with ctrl-click (add one more image) and shift-Click (add range of images)?
If so, then I can't use it for this. I definitly need something "persistent", something that doesn't vanish if I accidently select another image using the mouse.
Hmm. 'T' for toggling the tag is on the left side of the keyboard and seems like it would meet your layout requirements.
No in two ways:
a) It's in the middle of the keyboard. I have to consciously "aim" for it to hit it. The "x" key for example is about the rim of the keyboard where I can "feel" it next to the big keys like space and ALT, and I can rest my other fingers on the table instead of having to hold the hand suspended over the keyboard like I had to do with "t". When typing, there's no problem, but when going through 900 images it's not comfortable not being able to rest your hand on something.
b) I definitly want the delta-plus (only activate, do not deactivate) function key. If I'm not sure I hit the key correctly, I hit it again. If the first hit actually did take, I'm would disable the tag again if using the toggle key.
... yes, I'm aware that these differences are subtle. I understand if someone calls this nitpicking. But PM is explicitly about speed, and when I'm uncomfortable in the handling it's not going to be speedy.
Yes. You can tag and advance in the Contact sheet by pressing 'T' and using the arrow keys when a single item is selected. And you can move in all four directions in the Contact Sheet, tagging the keepers (or as your rejects) as you go.
But there is no auto-advance possible as there is in preview when performing the same action? You always need to press one arrow key after tag to select the next image?
As for deleting on a network volume, there is no 'Trash' or 'Recycle Bin' on networked volumes and as such, deletion requires that the actual file would be deleted. Lightroom should have the same issue if you told it to delete a file on a server.
No, not exactly: Lightroom first removes the file from its catalog. This is fast because the catalog is always stored locally. After that, you don't see it any more in library view and you don't even know that in the background Lightroom is still busy actually deleting the file.
PM doesn't have this background-mechanism. Probably, this is by design and can't be changed: PM always shows the directory contents straight. If a file is still there at this very moment, it's shown, period. There is no "view layer" like Lightrooms catalog affords.
But in effect it means I can't use DEL as a method of weeding out rejects either. (Which wouldn't have been my first choice anyway, so not a big deal.)
In any case, the UI should allow other action while waiting for the deletion to be confirmed (select next file etc.) I can't recall exactly if this already is the case or not.
True, there is no border-less full-screen mode to the Preview window.
But this is a very big deal. For me, the toolbar not only is waisted space, but highly distracting (a good portion of it certainly due to its unusal design and coloring.)
Could that capability be added? This is just about a make-or-break issue to me.
Otherwise, if you have that preference set and you have a single item selected, you should see it move around in the Contact Sheet while you move through your images in the Preview window.
Thanks, I will have to try that one again.
while in contact sheet, "Z" (zoom) had no effect. My expectation would have been that the preview window would zoom in, but that only works when the preview window is explicitly selected.
Pressing and holding the mouse button on an image with the zoom mode [...]
Ok, but I'm not usually at the mouse in this case. I need both hands on the keyboard to tag and advance. So if there already is a key for zooming, shouldn't it work for the preview window even if it isn't the currently selected window at the time?
Regards