Export Portfollios, collections to lightroom

[ssahm]

Hi,

I assigned my photos to collections in PSU, but when I open these photos (DNG) in lightroom the collection/portfolio information seems to be lost.

Do you have an idea? Is LR4 the problem?

Best regards
stevy1st

[Mike Buckley]

I think that's because Supreme's Portfolio system is proprietary, so it can't be read by other software. I believe that's true of any software's Portfolio system.

[Hert]

Photo Supreme writes the collection info to metadata when the ICS is switched ON, but Lightroom doesn't read it. And a.f.a.i.k the Lightroom collections aren't written to metadata. "Collections" aren't an exchangeable concept.

[PhilBurton]

Photo Supreme writes the collection info to metadata when the ICS is switched ON, but Lightroom doesn't read it. And a.f.a.i.k the Lightroom collections aren't written to metadata. "Collections" aren't an exchangeable concept.

To the real database gurus on this list:

Is there any way to read the lrcat file with a third-party sql-lite utility to extract the Ligthtroom collections or smart collection information in a human-readable manner?

To the Lightroom plug-in gurus on this list (if any):

Can someone write a plug-in that would read the ICS metadata and create the equivalent Lightroom collection?

Yes, I know both of these ideas are one-way

Phil

[tstoddard]

Phil,

While you're waiting for the gurus to complete their tasks, you may want to try to come up with an easy workaround. I would suggest using a standard metadata tag that both PSU and Lightroom can read and write and can use to select or group files. I don't use Lightroom so I don't know which fields it does recognize but let's say that it will allow you to search for all files with a specific value written to the Job ID field in the photoshop xmp namespace. If you selected all images in a collection and you assigned a unique Job ID to that collection of files in either PSU or Lightroom, you should be able to isolate those files in the other software. It may not be as elegant a solution as you'd like but it could be functional. You could use keywords but I thought it might be better not to crowd your keyword fields with information that isn't necessarily appropriate for that field.

[PhilBurton]

Phil,

While you're waiting for the gurus to complete their tasks, you may want to try to come up with an easy workaround. I would suggest using a standard metadata tag that both PSU and Lightroom can read and write and can use to select or group files. I don't use Lightroom so I don't know which fields it does recognize but let's say that it will allow you to search for all files with a specific value written to the Job ID field in the photoshop xmp namespace. If you selected all images in a collection and you assigned a unique Job ID to that collection of files in either PSU or Lightroom, you should be able to isolate those files in the other software. It may not be as elegant a solution as you'd like but it could be functional. You could use keywords but I thought it might be better not to crowd your keyword fields with information that isn't necessarily appropriate for that field.

Todd

Thanks. There is no guarantee that the "gurus" will ever "complete their tasks," but your suggestion sounds doable and practical. I have been reluctant to do portfolios and collections because of the lack of interoperable data. I guess the real long-term solution, but who know if when, ever, is adding the appropriate fields to XMP metadata.

Phil

[sanphotgn]

The Job ID field is available in Lightroom.

[tstoddard]

It may be of interest to the group to know that the Metadata Working Group, in version 2 of their proposed standards, proposes fields precisely for the purpose of identifying collections. That proposed standard and be found here:

http://www.metadataworkinggroup.org/pdf ... idance.pdf

You can find the section on Collections starting on page 62. (Correction: page 65)

[ssahm]

Hi tstoddard,

thank for your idea with the workaround. I'll work with it.

The most significant disadvantage it the static character of the job ID.
When I remove or add a photo in PSU from/to a portfolio, I have to change the job ID manuallyto get the change in LR

stevy1st

[Mike Buckley]

Considering that you can open any image in LR directly from within Supreme, why is this issue important? Why not simply use Supreme as your DAM and use LR as your photo-editing tool, keeping the two functions completely separate?

[ssahm]

Hi Mike,

I'm usually working with DNG. The size/quality of the JPEG-export (by LR) depends of the portofolio (sub-portfolio).

"selection" - small
"best of" (a sub portfolio of "selection") - max. size

[PhilBurton]

Considering that you can open any image in LR directly from within Supreme, why is this issue important? Why not simply use Supreme as your DAM and use LR as your photo-editing tool, keeping the two functions completely separate?

Mike,

When I want to send images to someone, I first organize them in a collection, so i know which ones I need to Develop and then Export. If I didn't need to Develop RAW (NEF) files, then I might not need LR collections.

Fortunately, we have XMP, so we can do bi-directional updates of metadata.

[Mike Buckley]

This seems to be an example of software not being able to accommodate every conceivable desire of users, at least not for now. As an example, I shoot RAW files exclusively and use only Supreme's collections on a regular basis. I currently have about 65 collections. Yet others with different workflows have different desires.

[PhilBurton]

This seems to be an example of software not being able to accommodate every conceivable desire of users, at least not for now. As an example, I shoot RAW files exclusively and use only Supreme's collections on a regular basis. I currently have about 65 collections. Yet others with different workflows have different desires.

Mike,

I agree. I'll bet a lot of discussions about the "need" or the "value" of a proposed feature revolve around the workflows of the people involved in the discussion.

As for software not doing "everything," we don't need that as much if we have standardized, interoperable data. And perhaps APIs to allow plug-ins for ambitious programs like Lightroom or Photoshop. Or Microsoft Office.

Phil

[tstoddard]

I agree with Mike also. I think all of us probably has an idea of what an ideal photo management program would be for us and it would most likely be a combination of functionality from various programs. Each of us would come up with something slightly different, I'm sure.

I belong to a local camera club consisting of mostly amateur enthusiasts, and most of them use only Lightroom and Photoshop and never comment about cataloging functionality. However, when I ask them about how they manage their metadata most of them don't. Beyond keywords, captions, and descriptions they seem not to be very concerned about it at all. I've come to the conclusion that I am very much in the minority when it comes to these things. I suppose that most users of PSU are like me in that respect. We are not like the average photo enthusiast. If everyone was like us, Hert would be able to afford to hire a huge team of developers and to add all sorts of cool features to PSU.