I'm experiencing involuntary batch processing & exporting

DxO PhotoLab
1

Hi Folks:

I am not a techie but I have used PL2,3 and now 4. This issue is undoubtedly operator error but I haven’t found a way around a sudden change in its operation, probably from an inadvertent setting selection.

When I import a file of raw images from my SD card slot on my Imac into PL4 I can begin editing but:

  1. The view has changed…I don’t see all the other images waiting below, just one image that can be edited. I can go back and forth docking and undocking the browser and see the other images I imported but not the editable and waiting images at the same time.

  2. Worse, when I edit the single image it looks fine but then when I look at the waiting images it’s clear that my changes to the first edited image have been applied to ALL of the imported images. And if I export the edited image, ALL the images are exported and have been turned into jpegs, not just the edited single raw image I was trying to export. It’s like I am involuntarily doing a batch edit and export.

I assume the problem is with either the presets or the options under view but it’s apparently over my head.

2

Can I start by clarifying the terminology for getting images from your camera into PhotoLab?

When you put your SD card into the slot on the iMac, you then use Finder to create a folder usually, but not necessarily, under the Pictures folder of your user account. Then you drag the files from the folder on the card into the newly created folder on your disk.

There is no such thing as importing files into PhotoLab - PL simply reads your files from your hard disk. When you make changes to an image, PL then creates a DOP sidecar file, which is saved in the same folder, alongside the original image file.

If you are in the PhotoLibrary view, you get to see all the images from the currently selected folder in the tree view on the left side. Is this what you are calling the “browser”?

In the PhotoLibrary view, you can change what you see in the main window by sliding the divider towards the top or bottom:

Slider at the top…

Capture d’écran 2022-05-02 à 09.52.55
Capture d’écran 2022-05-02 à 09.52.551442×1045 299 KB

Slider part way down…

Capture d’écran 2022-05-02 à 09.53.51
Capture d’écran 2022-05-02 à 09.53.511442×1045 266 KB

Because you usually only need a full size view of the image in the Customize view, you can simply leave the slider at the top and just have all thumbnails.

If you select one or more thumbnails in the PhotoLibrary view and double-click, the main view will switch to the Customize view and you will usually see one large image and a row of thumbnails along the bottom…

Capture d’écran 2022-05-02 à 10.02.14
Capture d’écran 2022-05-02 à 10.02.141398×1001 240 KB

If you don’t see the thumbnails on the bottom, there is a slider on the very bottom of the window that you can move upwards until the thumbnails become visible.

Selected thumbnails appear with a slightly lighter grey background and there is a title at the top of the thumbnail bar that shows how many of the thumbnails are selected. In my example screenshot, there are 30 images in the folder, of which one is selected.

If more than one is selected, then any changes you make in the palettes on the right will affect all of the selected images simultaneously, but you will only see one of them in the main image view.

Somehow, it would seem that you are selecting all images in a chosen folder, so you need to check that before editing. The Cmd-A shortcut will select all images and it may be that you are accidentally pressing that.