Yet another PS and Lightroom question...

[andy@damroundup.com]

Hi.. as I think more and more about my cataloging/keywording... I think I would like to give the combo of Idimager and LR a solid try again. My concerns are as follows:
a) I would use the following scenario
1 - import from memory card to temp location on hard drive using LR (auto-rename files, apply basic metadata (copyright))
2 - Make edits in LR to all images (or just those that need it)
3- Export images from LR to temp subfolder - ensure metadata settings are setup to include XMP data
4 - import from temp subfolder to perm hard drive using Supreme
5 - Delete temp location on hard drive
6 - Apply keywords, rotate images as needed, delete/cull in Supreme - auto sync metadata to images as they are added to the catalog
7 - re-import all images into LR which should bring in all XMP keyword data and original LR edit data but with new location

Sigh - seem like a backwards kinda workflow.... I guess I have 2 major issues to overcome
a) ensure I can use see all edits in Idimager to my images (these can be JPG/TIFF or DNG files)
b) ensure I can go back to make tweaks to the images in LR

I really wish LR would just allow the original images to be overwritten instead of forcing you to export them to new files... it really makes things much more difficult than it needs to be. I'm sure I'm going about this all wrong... but I really like to use LR as an editor for both JPG and RAW files.. but like using supreme as my DAM... the sticky point is ensuring that the images I see in Supreme contain all edits from LR since that would be the primary tool used to view/search images. In the past, I've converted all images to DNG and updated previews in LR to accomplish this in idimager - but the result was far from perfect and frustrating. Perhaps I am using the wrong tool and should move to something else... but LR provides such a quick and easy method for me to edit my style of image taking...

Anyway.. thoughts?

[Mike Buckley]

Andy,

Your questions make me think that one of us is misunderstanding something.

I don't understand the need in Step 3 to export to a temporary folder. Why not export to the permanent folder and save the step of having to delete the temporary folder?

Similarly, why bother with Step 7? When you do occasionally need to attend to an image a second time in Lightroom, simply import that image, make the additional edits, export it, delete the first image from your system and rename the exported image to be what the imported image had been. That's what I do and it works like a charm.

I wonder if the reason my system works for me is that I use Lightroom so rarely that when I export an image, I export it as a JPEG. I'm not sure my system would work for you if you export any other file format, as I have not thought that thoroughly through.

[george]

In the past, I've converted all images to DNG and updated previews in LR to accomplish this in idimager - but the result was far from perfect and frustrating.

Hi Andy. This is what I'm still doing with Idimager. I mirror all the originals in case I ever have to go back to them (very rare that I do) and work exclusively on the DNGs. What have you found that's not working?

[andy@damroundup.com]

Andy,

Your questions make me think that one of us is misunderstanding something.

I don't understand the need in Step 3 to export to a temporary folder. Why not export to the permanent folder and save the step of having to delete the temporary folder?

Similarly, why bother with Step 7? When you do occasionally need to attend to an image a second time in Lightroom, simply import that image, make the additional edits, export it, delete the first image from your system and rename the exported image to be what the imported image had been. That's what I do and it works like a charm.

I wonder if the reason my system works for me is that I use Lightroom so rarely that when I export an image, I export it as a JPEG. I'm not sure my system would work for you if you export any other file format, as I have not thought that thoroughly through.

Hi Mike... perhaps I am missing a feature/setting - but I believe #3 is needed because LR prevents you from ever overwriting the same image upon export - you MUST export to a new file that is not the original you imported (well for JPG/TIFF anyway though I think this holds true for RAW files too). This was the main reason I started using DNG originally because I really wanted Idimager to respect all LR previews after edit and LR can easily update the DNG preview file without the need to export to a new version. This worked well about 70% of the time - the other 30%, Idi wouldn't auto-sync nor update the thumbs/previews on my system though LR, windows and many other programs could see the updated files just fine (not sure if you remember all those discussions!).

I think you are correct about #7 - no need to re-import unless the need arises to re-edit because LR is just the editor.. good point!

Thanks for helping think through this... going to load v2 today so I figured I'd try to tie it all together again and see what happens! - Andy.

[andy@damroundup.com]

In the past, I've converted all images to DNG and updated previews in LR to accomplish this in idimager - but the result was far from perfect and frustrating.

Hi Andy. This is what I'm still doing with Idimager. I mirror all the originals in case I ever have to go back to them (very rare that I do) and work exclusively on the DNGs. What have you found that's not working?

Hi George - it was a long and lengthy discussion that goes back a few years now to Idimager 4/5 - but I was running into some unexplained failures when using auto-sync and updating the DNG previews/metadata in LR - the edits and changes would appear just great in LR and any other DAM program I used (I once did a test with 4 other DAM programs all running along side Idimager for a few days) - but idi would randomly fail to auto-update the thumbs and previews. Long discussion strings were created but eventually, I just gave up and started using LR more and more.

With v2, I want to jump back in and see if I can get this going again - probably should just try the DNG route again and see how it works out. I have a brand new system now as well so any chance that the issues I had were system based and not software related (a certain possibility) should be relieved with the new hardware. Certainly a lot easier to go this route than my workflow below.... Guess I could give it a whirl and see what happens!

Thx again - Andy.

[george]

I was running into some unexplained failures when using auto-sync and updating the DNG previews/metadata in LR - the edits and changes would appear just great in LR and any other DAM program I used (I once did a test with 4 other DAM programs all running along side Idimager for a few days) - but idi would randomly fail to auto-update the thumbs and previews.

The only thing I'm doing differently is that I've not been using auto-sync. I wonder if that's the problem. I do have a vague recollection of the discussion you're referring to--I may have been a participant as well.

[Mike Buckley]

Hi Mike... perhaps I am missing a feature/setting - but I believe #3 is needed because LR prevents you from ever overwriting the same image upon export - you MUST export to a new file that is not the original you imported

You are correct about that, Andy, but that point was not at the heart of my question. Instead, I'm asking why you don't export the newly created file to its final resting place rather than to a temporary folder? Doing so would prevent you from having to create the temp folder, having to then move the newly created files to a permanent location, and perhaps having to delete the temporary folder if you don't regularly use it.

[andy@damroundup.com]

Hi Mike... perhaps I am missing a feature/setting - but I believe #3 is needed because LR prevents you from ever overwriting the same image upon export - you MUST export to a new file that is not the original you imported

You are correct about that, Andy, but that point was not at the heart of my question. Instead, I'm asking why you don't export the newly created file to its final resting place rather than to a temporary folder? Doing so would prevent you from having to create the temp folder, having to then move the newly created files to a permanent location, and perhaps having to delete the temporary folder if you don't regularly use it.

Aha.. yes indeed - that would make sense wouldn't it! See... that's why I needn't to ask! Thx Mike..

[andy@damroundup.com]

I was running into some unexplained failures when using auto-sync and updating the DNG previews/metadata in LR - the edits and changes would appear just great in LR and any other DAM program I used (I once did a test with 4 other DAM programs all running along side Idimager for a few days) - but idi would randomly fail to auto-update the thumbs and previews.

The only thing I'm doing differently is that I've not been using auto-sync. I wonder if that's the problem. I do have a vague recollection of the discussion you're referring to--I may have been a participant as well.

Yes - I think that is our only difference and I have believed all along that the auto-sync was the culprit... to me, having the auto sync feature to ensure my catalog and images match was a huge deal in v5... for whatever reason, I always think I had a system / software issue where one wasn't always cooperating with the other. While I still feel it is vital to have all my metadata embedded inside my images as well as my catalog - I think it might be a better process for me to just force the sync manually... guess it depends upon how I am managing the catalog... and then remembering to sync.

[Tom]

Andy, even that I do not understand what was your initial question, I agree with what Mike said But I would go further with my question. Because I, too, use the Supreme-LR combination, and I also have sync problems and workflow issues in this case. But here comes my question:

Why do you -- in your workflow -- start from LR, not from Supreme? In my experience, Supreme is the DAM, and LR is the image-developing tool. Why do you do your DAM work twice, first on LR and then on Supreme? Wouldn't it be more logical to import from camera to Supreme, make all the metadata and keywording there, all done on the permanent location already. And then import into LR for image developing.

Regards
Toomas

[andy@damroundup.com]

Hi Toomas - thanks for joining the discussion...!

In a nutshell - I do the import first in LR because I cannot overwrite these images in LR after making the edits. LR forces me to make duplicate copies in order to see the edits (unless using DNG - and as discussed above - that has been complicated with issues of syching in Idi in the past). If I did the Idi import first (which I agree makes the most sense), my workflow would require either versioning the original import image with the new LR export image (master and display) and keeping extra images around or re-importing the new images back into Idi after editing (which is basically the same as I do afterwards anyway). In either case, it requires jumping through hoops back in Idi after exporting the images in LR so I decided to just import once and not have to deal with the duplicate images.

Ideally, LR would update its software to allow me to overwrite my original images upon export - I understand from their perspective why this is stupid and probably will never get implemented (defeats the whole catalog/non-destructive nature of the software) - but when using LR only as an editor and not as a DAM - this feature would be ideal. As it stands, converting everything to DNG is the only easy solution to importing into Idi first and then working with LR as an editor... as a test, I should play around with this for a few weeks to see if this works better now in Supreme as it would certainly streamline things quite a bit.

Hope this helps shed some light on my workflow and the reasons for starting in LR vs Idi... believe me... it is ALL very confusing!

[dickl]

Late to this discussion, but I used to have the same problems...

I use DNG. All my imports and initial metadata are processed with Photo Supreme. On chaining to Lightroom, metadata created in PSu are read into the LR catalog on import. After my image edits are finished in Lightroom, I "Update DNG and Metadata" and my changes are written to the image file. Both Lightroom and Photo Supreme are capable of detecting any changes in metadata, and will alert you to refresh your image info. Lightroom shows a "!" on the thumbnail and Photo Supreme will update on opening.

Ok for DNG's but what about other RAW files? Perhaps this might be useful? Lightroom can refresh metadata on raw files too. It's a simple setting in the Catalog Settings:

http://improvephotography.com/12010/imp ... m-setting/

I've not tried it, but it appears to me a solution to your problem of synchronizing Lightroom and Photo Supreme metadata when using both programs?

Dick

[andy@damroundup.com]

Hi Dick - indeed, if I knew for sure that LR and Supreme would play nice together all the time with DNG files, I would bite the bullet and just convert everything to DNG and proceed in that fashion... as mentioned, that was how I originally proceeded in v5 but had issues with the auto-sync in Idi missing updates and never updating the previews and thumbs - this happened whether idi was open or closed. To me, it was critical that any edit to a DNG file in LR was reflected in both the preview and thumbnail in Idi without me having to do any manual measures... the auto sync process should have taken care of this - but didn't work for me on many occasions (I wasn't alone in this but won't place the blame with anyone because it could still have been 100% with my system/hard drive/etc).

Since this is the easiest method to keep both products in sync - I am going to give it a shot again for some sample photos and a sample database... here will be my testing steps:

1 - import from memory card to P:\Photo drive using Supreme (auto-rename files, apply basic metadata (copyright), convert to DNG) - auto=sync will be on as well.
2 - Cull, Keyword, catalog, GPS, etc in Idimager - with auto sync on, all items should write to catalog and image XMP block automatically.
3 - Import group of images into LR, edit the images and then Update DNG Preview and Metadata - this should update the previews and Superme should recognize the changes, update the previews in the catalog and update the thumbnails of all the DNG files.

I will report back here once I have completed a solid test of 50-100 images across a few different sessions. Stay tuned... and thanks!

[dickl]

Look forward to your results! It worked for me when I was using Idimager, but have not tested that with Photo Supreme.

Am now using DxO Optics Pro more and more now. DxO does not read DNG files created by Adobe DNG Converter. Fortunately my Pentax K5 can export DNG files directly from the camera, so I can now edit in both Lightroom and DxO at will.

>2 - Cull, Keyword, catalog, GPS, etc in Idimager - with auto sync on, all items should write to catalog and image XMP block automatically.

Did you really mean Cull in Idimager? or Supreme? I don't think the databases are the same are they? Can you use Idimager on a PSu database?

Dick

[dickl]

Hi Andy.

Decided to run another test with lightroom 5.3 (LR) and Photo Supreme (PSu)...

Opened PSu, and navigated to a folder on a DNG created by my Pentax K5. Found a candidate image to test.

Opened LR, and navigated to the same folder. Opened the image, and converted to black and white as a quick and easy test. Updated DNG and updated metadata in LR.

Then I switched to PSu.

No change! Cmd F12 Autosync - No change! Double clicked on the thumbnail, and the image opened in Black and White!!! Wait a minute!

Back to LR, reset B&W to restore the color image and update DNG and metadata. Back to PSu - Thumb is in color (it never changed!) But double click on the thumb, and there it is back in color.

Repeat.

LR, set to B&W, Update DNG. PSu, thumb is color. sync nothing, just double click on thumb, and the image is in B&W!

Not going to pursue this to much further, but on the basis of this test - PSu auto sync appears to work fine. Thumbnail is not updated, and even refresh thumbnail does not seem to work on my Macbook Pro... Will repeat on my Windows 8.1 desktop later to confirm.

Dick