@BHAYT Very strange! I have just tested with PM and it also behaves as expected for me with a single External Selection with my photos included in it.
In the Assign specific editing applications for each file type: I have left them all the the default editor.
I would ask for help on the PM forums. Kirk is very responsive and is sure to help you.
I’m sure I’ve said this before in these forums. I don’t delete images. Well, I think I may have deleted maybe a dozen which were either purely test shots of the mess in my study, or an accidental shutter release when pointed at concrete or grass. That’s a dozen in 17 years of digital photography.
Why? Because:
I take it the other way around, I keep everything and ‘pick’ the best to publish. But I also often go back to old photos and ‘reject’ (unpublish) some and ‘pick’ some more. I’ve gone back and re-evaluated photos I took up to 13 years ago because I have newer software, better skills, and in some cases a deeper appreciation of the subject matter.
I’m sure there have been famous examples but I cannot point to any specific ones, but you just need to see the stories in the mainstream news where someone is reported missing or tragically killed and the picture used is of terrible quality. If you delete images, you may throw away some that later prove to have a significance you cannot predict.
Using year/month folders none of mine have more than 999 images, most are much smaller. Even if I took twice the number of frames I still wouldn’t delete a single one. If I took 10 times the number… I’d start thinking about a different way of organising them. I still wouldn’t delete any. I might start thinking seriously about why I take so many frames.
@KeithRJ I must apologise I was using an old copy of PM and when I went looking for the details of the latest release I failed to locate the screen with the latest release number 6.0(Build 6097) (which I located first time today - put that down to having to keep one 3 year old and one 7 year old amused at the same time and today my oldest son is due down with his wife, and two “children” a boy of 11 and a girl of 13 oh boy!! )which was not what I was running!!
The photo above shows yesterday versus today and it also shows what @George says about IrfanView is spot on and it can also “launch” PL5 with multiple photos.
@zkarj I tend not delete any of my photos as a I stated above but I do use FRV to move any real mistakes or duplicates etc (burst mode) to an ‘Other’ directory and these will be the first for the chop when space gets really tight. Q4 is typically a really light month for me and is currently running at 5,500 and it is not over yet!
Doing it the same way. Only delete if its blurry, to much over or underexposed, a.s.o… Like you I sometimes go back and voilà, there is the one, I missed on the first, or second view. And also when PL offers new features, like now with the control line tool, I start to edit photos again.
I would agree with others that 10,000 is a lot for one dir.
Apart from the delay of producing thumbnails etc., If your running Windows, the operating system directories will be taking strain and slowing things down…
Linux is happy with huge directories, so it may be that Apple is too but I don’t have a mac to test it on.
Some tests with External Selections (on Win 10):-
One additional note with respect to the use of ‘External Selections’, with software able to pass multiple photos (or just one) to PL5 and not trigger a full directory read ( be that a small, medium or large directory) processing images within that ‘External Selection’ is fine but any exports from those photos are not part of that original external selection and will not suddenly pop up in the display in PL5 when the export completes (it would normally only if exported to the same directory)!
XnViewMP can tag files in different directories and these tagged images can be sent to PL5 in a single pass. In the example used 3 were from one directory, 3 from another and an odd one from the “megatest” directory (of 11,000+ photos).
Any exports after editing will follow the normal rules of the export options and be placed appropriately, in the same directory (of the original photo), in a subdirectory (of the original photo), in a designated directory etc. etc. but none will be visible within the ‘Export Selection’ (because they were not part of that selection).
Three options are then available
’Load original image directory’ my normal approach but could be a “problem” (slow process) with a large directory. You can always return to the ‘External Selection’ later via the PL PhotoLibrary.
’Show Output file(s) in Windows Explorer’ shows the exported file and its location and allows that file to be loaded in Windows Explorer along with the rest of any photos in that directory. Selecting all of the files only displays the details of the last in the selection. If you are not “playing games” with files from a number of directories that would be O.K.
’Open output images with’ provides a launch capability for output images from PL5. Selecting multiple images from the same directory launches but only selects the first image (expected really). Selecting two that are in different directories only selects the first. However, the behaviour may differ depending on the target application (tested with FastStone)!?
PL5 remembers the various applications selected and adds them to the menu
Great the issue has been resolved!
Thanks for your help and forbearance.
I might be a hoarder but certainly do not keep all images, the particular day I put the original question on the forum I was searching for a work related image which was taken at a particular site and particular project but within the overall folder for that job which has lasted many years. Photomechanic found it instantly as I had suitable keywords/location/description etc but at that time I could not get it into DXO, I have subsequently (with the help of the forum) found out how to do this although still not perfect. The work in this instance was not photography, instead it was more about documenting what is going on in the ecosystem or how the scientists are working there, it is not about fantastic shots as many of the subjects and weather conditions are not suitable. It is about using photography as documentation, very often the images are not used until years later when people want to look back and see what things were like, very often do not know what areas or images will be of value. The main thing is to get rid of any obviously bad ones or duplicates and to well document the rest.
@md999 I am sorry if my initial reaction was even the slightest bit condemnatory it should have only been one of surprise! Thank you for sharing your reasons for such a large directory with the forum, since I have installed the latest version of Photo Mechanic passing photos to and from PL5 has been relatively straightforward.
The observations in my post just above should indicate that ‘External Selections’ are very useful but “eyeballing” the exported results in PL5 is less easy. However the ‘Open output images with’ can take you back to PM or onto IrfanView which will display the exported image full screen and any other exported images (i.e. if more than one is selected) are available on a next/next basis.
The slightly trickier bit might be what happens if you want to view more than one export of the same photo with various editing options selected! The answer is that with IrfanView in particular there is no problem at least for two exports of the MegaTest image! The same applies to XnViewMP!
EDIT:
FastRawViewer copes with the large directory well enough, it renders what it needs for display as it goes and is well suited to handling multiple export versions of the same file (my edits are deliberately extreme so that I can tell one from the other when testing).
This whole Windows/Mac difference thing has got way out of control. Here’s what I get on the Mac context menu…
The Export item then opens the following sub-menu…
Agreed. But it is still different, not only in appearance but also in functionality.
The keywords where probably already loaded in a database. When you use PL5 it will go fast to, after you have loaded them in the database.
George
In English we have the full (right mouse click) menu
Customise:-
PhotoLibrary:-
@Joanna If there are any more detailed snapshots that you want then don’t hesitate to ask.
EDIT:-
and you have ‘Finder’ options!!
I haven’t experienced any problems at all since Camerabits fixed the problems they had with “Edit”. Be sure to use the right “Edit”. There is one option that only opens one image at the time!
I have asked them why they have several “Edit”-options but I haven’t got a plausible explanation so far. Even be aware of that this funktion can be configured in “References” as so many other things in PM Plus. I guess that is a performance thing.
I use the Windows version. The Mac-version might have it’s own problems.
I have personally had a discussion with Kirk at Camera Bits and he sent me a testversion to verify the problem was solved and when I confirmed he wrote that this fix will be included in all future upgrades and so far they have done so. They have even fixed the problem with the integration between DxO PureRaw and PMPlus.
I also wrote about this in DXO Forums because I really thought that the integration between PMPlus and PL got so much more useful after they fixed the problem. So don’t stick with old versions where the problem is still present. Upgrade to the latest version!
Here you have the lik to what I wrote in this forum after we had solved the problem with importing more than one image at the time from PM Plus to PL4 (last summer)
Here you have a link to the support discussion I had with Kirk Baker at Camera Bits. Below a quote of Kirks answer from June 21 2021. So you need a build number >=5998. Lower numbers has still the problem.
Your fix in build 5998 seem to work fine and solve the problem where only one image earlier could be transfered to Photolab 4 at the time using the “Edit”-function.
DxO PhotoLab and Photo Mechanic Plus (camerabits.com)
« Reply #16 on: June 21, 2021, 03:42:54 PM »
Stenis,
Quote from: Stenis on June 21, 2021, 03:35:01 PM
Your fix in build 5998 seem to work fine and solve the problem where only one image earlier could be transfered to Photolab 4 at the time using the “Edit”-function.
- If I just select one image in PMPlus only the Edit alternatives for one image occurs in two version though (maybee one is specified under preferences and the other works through Windows fileattributes I dont know.
Result: In both cases only one image is imported and that’s fine and expected.
- If I select five images I see both the choises for single image import (“Edit Photo” and “Edit Photo with DxO.Photolab.exe”) and the choises for multiimage import (“Edit selected photos” and “Edit selected photos with DxO.Photolab.exe”
With five images the multi Edit imports the pictures right away in Photolab.
From six images and up there is a dialog displayed saying “Do you really want to edit all of the selected photos” with two choises: Yes and No.
If I chose “Y” the selected number of images are imported ti Photolab. That’s also fine and expectedSo it definitely works but do we really need four different “Edit”-variants?
Maybee max two are needed “Edit selected Photo/Photos” (Windows file suffix triggered) and/or “Edit selected Photo/Photos with DxO.Photolab.exe”
Both these last funktions can handle both a single selection image import and and a multi selection import.… and do we really need the dialog? Doesn’t it just slow down the workflow?
… but this is just a suggestion
Please see this documentation which should help you with your concerns:
Quote from: Stenis on June 21, 2021, 03:35:01 PM
The important thing was that you actually listend and fixed it and made the integration a lot better and more seamless between Photolab 4 and PM Plus 6 than before! Thank’s a lot! Hope this will be part of a new release soon.
Yes, it will be in all builds released from now on.
-Kirk
If I hadn´t got so uninspired of the antiintellectual and unconstructive tone in the beginning of this tread you could all have saved you the effort of writing say 90 massages or so in this tread discussing the issue of “Open individual file rather than directory - impossible?” .
The problems some has experienced with transferring more than one file at the time were solved in June 21 by Camera Bits and the eminent Kirk Baker after I posted a request in one of Camera Bits forums and as you can see above I also wrote about it here in DXO Forums under Photolab.
Some also had problems with my texts because they had too few question marks. I can assure you there has been many question marks in many posts both from me and others in the discussions at Camera Bits and here at DXO Forums when we in joint efforts have tried to build a common “best practice” when it comes to both metadata issues and interoperability between Photolab 5 and Photo Mechanic and whatever other products people fancy to use to solve exactly tihs question that has been discussed in this tread.
For a happier and more constructive New Year
Stenis
@Stenis I was also using an out of date version of Photo Mechanic which prolonged the agony somewhat, sorry. However, the tests showed that not all programs are created equal!
The “books” I wrote “only” earned me my salary but started with my degree thesis and went on to 5 years preparing lecture notes, then 36 years of writing/answering proposals, writing and giving courses, producing operational manuals, site audits, performance audits, system & program documentation, test & acceptance plans, monthly reports etc., the paraphernalia of a career in I.T.
In all cases the audience was demanding and paying “big bucks” for the systems I worked on, but perhaps only a little more demanding than the audience for this forum!
Happy New Year.
