Normally you will be doing all the processing yourself and would not have to worry about that. You can create a virtual copy of an edited file and work on the copy separately. Initially a virtual copy is identical to the version from which it was copied. You can then change any of the settings in your virtual copy or your original version without the other copy be affected. Virtual copy edits are all stored in the same .dop file regardless of the number of virtual copies you make.
With regard to your current situation I would suggest making a subfolder under the current one and copy your DNG file to it as well as my .dop file. You would then have another copy of the DNG file with your dop file in the main folder.
In normal usage, you only have one dop file which can contain multiple virtual copies. It is only when you start āborrowingā one that someone else has played with that youāre going to get this kind of problem.
One answer could be to put a copy of the RAW file in another folder temporarily, together with the āguestā dop file, open that in PL, copy the adjustments from it, then move to the āoriginalā file, create a new virtual copy and paste the corrections into that. Then you can delete the āguestā files
Let me start to say i donāt know photomechanic or any other dedicated DAM software.
If i take my personal apps out the route of workflow and just name the function that it contains and use the name to point to a function.
1 sd card in reader and copy files in a new import folder in shotdate named folders.
2 place all oocjpegs siblings in a subfolder (is my maybe i like to see whatās came out the camera engine.)
3 open in my case window explorer on largest thumbnail view. Throw away all mishits which are visible in this thumbnail modes.
4 and now i started to use FRV for itās special on viewing and checking/valuate of rawfiles made toolset. A ādeleteā moves it towards a reject folder and not the ābinā.
Why? Which parameters do you want to check when composition is ok?
exposure level.
shadow and highlight recovering posibility.
is my DoF and thus focusplane in the image where i need it?
does my subject be sharp in detail?
less interesting but still usefull WB check.
These things are only sensible if you do this on a actual rawfile and not a jpeg in any way.
Comparing of composition can be done on a application like faststone image viewer, 4 in one view.
( like when a burst is used, picking the best and delete the others)
Then the initial culling is done.
Next, how do you want to add keywords or tags or iptc data?
I gues in your case Photomechanic. One thing needs to be considerd, if you like to use search functions in PhotoLab with keywords you need to have xmp like sidecars which PL can read to copy in itās database.
From here PL js the core:
Make projects and start editing the files in a way you like it. Again and again if you like.
Inhere you can select, search, edit, make virtual copies as all kinds of ideaās of results.
Export again and again when you need.
Create projects for testing, learning, delete projects you donāt need anymore. (images arnāt deleted!)
I use PhotoMechanic Plus and it works great with PL. You can use the PhotoMechanic for this too.
Use PM to ingest (copy files) to my HD from camera card and at the same time assign appropriate IPTC data.
Cull and assign star ratings to files I want to work with in PM.
Assign keywords and/or hierarchical keywords in PM.
In PL go to the folders you copied your photos to and set the filter to the star rating you want to work with.
PL recognises star ratings and all keywords defined by PM which are stored on .xmp files by PM and read by PL. Best not to mix normal keywords with hierarchical keywords as PL may get confused!
I have used the above management method extensively and it works very well.
I built an Automator script to copy my files from the SD card to a new folder, adding the date to the filename on the way, it even ejects the SD Card when done.
But donāt do what I did, I moved and renamed folders outside PL and now when I search I have multiple āThe image cannot be processed since the source file could not be foundā
I would like to clear the database down and start again, just waiting on DXO to tell me the best way to do it - I suspect de-install and re-install PL.
Or you could simply close PL and delete the database files, then restart. PL will rebuild it for you. But, if you use projects or keywords, you will lose all of those.
CAUTION: Depending on how you set sidecar management (settings: last tab), images return to their last edited state or adopt the default preset. Proceed at your own risk of losing all previous edits.
Files that have an associated .dop sidecar should suffer no loss - except for keywords and history.
For a new start of with a clean database, do the following (on Mac)
navigate PhotoLab to an empty folder
open PhotoLab settings (last tab) and delete the cache
quit PhotoLab 4
delete the /Users/ā¦/Library/DxO\ PhotoLab\ v4/DOPDatabaseV4.* files (up to 3 files)
Start PhotoLab, check settings and make sure that the default preset of your choice is selected.
Quit PhotoLab and reopen it after a few seconds.
Point PhotoLab to a folder that contains (a few) photos and start working.
Thanks for all your replies and there was me hoping it would be easy, but as I use collections and keywords, I guess I will have to live with itā¦! Thanks again all and wish you all a very merry Christmas.
You wrote: āI moved and renamed folders outside PL and now when I search I have multiple āThe image cannot be processed since the source file could not be foundāā
Since you are seeing this inside PL, why not remove from PL anything creating that error message, then add those files again, with the proper location?
Before I run into the same situation, is it safe to move around any files that are being managed by PL, providing I make the changes while within the PL program? Thatās what Lightroom requires. If I want to move or delete files, or rename them, or whatever, I always needed to do this from within Lightroom.
With one small exception, what you wrote is exactly what Iāve been trying to do. PhotoMechanic Plus puts the files in place, and allows me to delete āgarbageā files. To be truthful, I used to delete all files except my ākeepersā.
Thanks to Joanna and others here, Iāve decided to only delete the obviously bad images, because I think Iām better off using RawFileViewer to select the better images. I still need to track down if the images Iām viewing in PhotoMechanic are based on the raw file, or the embedded jpg. I hope to find that out today.
Bottom line, I will continue to do what youāve just described, but until I learn RFV well enough to do that work on my own, I will continue to use RFV to learn and understand.
Mike: My work flow for the last 6 months was to import to a folder, edit/delete my images in PL and then outside of PL (canāt do it within PL) move the images into new folders within existing landscape/seascape/food/etc. folders. Not knowing that PL was indexing them each time, so each image has been doubled up in the PL database.
I might have to bite the bullet and create a new database.
Hi Mike,
this was a message to JohnGrindle assuming he is on Windows, but beeing in a hurry didnāt mention or ask further questions ā¦ and I dontāt know about Mac OSās structure ā¦ sorry for that.
so long, Wolfgang
On my Win 10 system I use a little program called PhotoMove 2.5 to intelligently copy files from my SD cards to a hierarchical folder structure based on date taken. I then cull and index from within DxO.
I donāt take huge volumes of photos on any particular day and that approach works well for me. PhotoMechanic etc are overkill for my needs. I have learnt a lot from FastRawViewer.
Support from the author is very good.You can even run it as a batch process.
