How to maintain Arrangement during Copy?

[Paul Skelcher]

I have a folder with 644 raw images shot chronologically, ie by filename, now arranged by location and edited to 361 selected images.
On copying these selects to a new folder, the sort order has defaulted to filename-which is chronological, and does not change when I click on Arrangement.

How do I preserve the Arrangement sort order in the new folder?

I realize I could rename the images prior to Copy, but I want to maintain the original filenames until a couple of steps further on in my workflow.

Thanks
Paul

[Kirk Baker]

Paul,

I have a folder with 644 raw images shot chronologically, ie by filename, now arranged by location and edited to 361 selected images.
On copying these selects to a new folder, the sort order has defaulted to filename-which is chronological, and does not change when I click on Arrangement.

How do I preserve the Arrangement sort order in the new folder?

I realize I could rename the images prior to Copy, but I want to maintain the original filenames until a couple of steps further on in my workflow.

The arrangement data is a simple text file that is stored in the folder of the contact sheet.  It doesn't get copied to the destination folder along with the images.

If renaming during the copy is not something you want to do, you could always use the IPTC Stationery Pad to put the {sequence} number (start it out with 0001) in some unused field.  Then at the destination, you could create a custom sort that sorts based on the variable for that field.  The custom sort will put your images back in their arranged sequence.  Then you could make an arrangement from that.

Sounds very cumbersome in practice though.  But those steps are the only thing I could think of at this time.

-Kirk

[Paul Skelcher]

Good enough,
Thank you
Paul

[Paul Skelcher]

Perfect.  Quick and simple.
As I do not enter IPTC info till the renaming stage in my workflow, it took no more than a couple of minutes to enter {seqn} in the Stationery Pad caption field, apply to all images of source folder, then sort on that field in the destination folder after copying.
Paul

[Simon DTW]

Ecited about being able to do this but so far doesn't work for me. I created an IPTC Template called Sequence and made all IPTC fields blank except for 'Sublocation' in which {sequence} is present,  I applied this stationary to my arrangement of files, once copied to another location and sorted by sequence the first image is number 0010 instead of 0001, what am  I doing wrong?

Best

Simon

[Kirk Baker]

Simon,

Ecited about being able to do this but so far doesn't work for me. I created an IPTC Template called Sequence and made all IPTC fields blank except for 'Sublocation' in which {sequence} is present,  I applied this stationary to my arrangement of files, once copied to another location and sorted by sequence the first image is number 0010 instead of 0001, what am  I doing wrong?

Your custom sort would need to sort on {locationtaken} and not {sequence}.

-Kirk

[Simon DTW]

Thanks Kirk, I took your 'in some unused field' literally and chose sublocation randomly,  I never use that field. What would be a safe field to use that will work?

Simon

[Kirk Baker]

Simon,

Thanks Kirk, I took your 'in some unused field' literally and chose sublocation randomly,  I never use that field. What would be a safe field to use that will work?

That should be a safe field, but you have to use the proper variable for the field in order to sort on it.

-Kirk

[Simon DTW]

Right, thanks OK let me put it another way, which fields can I put {sequence} in and expect it to sort?

[Paul Skelcher]

Simon,

I changed my seqn field to Supp Cat 3, a field I won't be using any time soon.

You need to be sure that your initial Arrangement order in source folder is the one you will keep during editing. Although you can set a seqn on that folder to preserve the order in the destination folder, you can not then re-arrange the images.  If you click Arrangement, the sort order defaults to Filename, negating the purpose of your custom sort order.

In my case, once I have star or color rated my final selects, I will rename them, apply IPTC info, run them through LightRoom and PhotoShop for finished 8 bit tiffs.  Now I no longer need the seqn numbers unless I need to match up a finished tiff with its raw original.

Paul

[Kirk Baker]

Simon,

Right, thanks OK let me put it another way, which fields can I put {sequence} in and expect it to sort?

You can put the sequence variable in any field that has a variable assigned to it that you can then use to make your custom sort.  So like Paul says, you can use Supplemental Category 3, putting {seqn} in it and applying the IPTC Stationery Pad to the selected photos in your arrangement.  Then make a custom sort that uses {suppcat3} for the primary sort.

If you want, you can do the IPTC Stationery Pad application during the Copy operation so that your original files remain untouched.

-Kirk

[Simon DTW]

Thanks guys I THINK (!) I've got it now, have tested and appears to behave as expected

cheers

Simon