# LR/ Photomechanic  question



## lisasouthwick (May 5, 2019)

Hi  All,
I use Photomechanic to cull my photos then drag into LR for editing.  The problem I am having is sometimes I want to drag only a portion of the pics from a certain shoot into LR and then come back later and do the rest.  The first color coded group always goes smoothly- LR opens up and I can select "import" and the color coded selections will import.  Then when I come back at a later date to drag in a second group of photos ( color coded with a different color so I dont have repeats from the first group) LR opens up but then wont generate the thumbnails or the import selection.  Can anyone help me with this problem? I can't imagine that it would be designed so that you have to do the entire group of photos all at once when going from photomechanic into LR.  Thank you-
Lisa


----------



## Dan Marchant (May 6, 2019)

The import screen has an option to "Don't import suspected duplicates" in the File Handling section. Tick that and LR will ignore images that were previously imported.


----------



## Eric Bowles (May 6, 2019)

lisasouthwick said:


> Hi  All,
> I use Photomechanic to cull my photos then drag into LR for editing.  The problem I am having is sometimes I want to drag only a portion of the pics from a certain shoot into LR and then come back later and do the rest.  The first color coded group always goes smoothly- LR opens up and I can select "import" and the color coded selections will import.  Then when I come back at a later date to drag in a second group of photos ( color coded with a different color so I dont have repeats from the first group) LR opens up but then wont generate the thumbnails or the import selection.  Can anyone help me with this problem? I can't imagine that it would be designed so that you have to do the entire group of photos all at once when going from photomechanic into LR.  Thank you-
> Lisa



I'm using a similar workflow for PhotoMechanic 6.0 and Lightroom Classic 8.2.  I'm also running the PM6.0 Catalog Beta.  But I'm on Windows 10.

I rate all my images in PM, cull deletes, apply keywords and captions, and then go through my 4 and 5 rated images to choose Selects and give them a color tag.  Then I filter the images in PM and just move the Selects - the images to be edited - into LR.  I have both windows open on my desk and simply drag the selected images to the LR Library.  The Import dialog box shows the images selected in PM have a check mark for Import,  Images already in LR are grayed out and are not imported.


----------



## Linwood Ferguson (May 7, 2019)

Also windows, and also have done imports in multiple stages (PM 5 still) and no issues.

In your description you say "LR Opens".  My suggestion is have LR and PM both open before you drag and drop, and explicitly drag and drop, do not use any of the menu options to invoke the process.


----------



## Eric Bowles (May 7, 2019)

Linwood describes the process I use.  I have both windows open side by side and move the navigation panel of the LR Library out of the way to have more space.


----------



## PhilBurton (May 7, 2019)

Eric Bowles said:


> I'm using a similar workflow for PhotoMechanic 6.0 and Lightroom Classic 8.2.  I'm also running the PM6.0 Catalog Beta.  But I'm on Windows 10.
> {stuff snipped out}


Eric,

Do you have any comments about the Catalog Beta?

Phil Burton


----------



## Eric Bowles (May 7, 2019)

PhilBurton said:


> Eric,
> 
> Do you have any comments about the Catalog Beta?
> 
> Phil Burton



Hi Phil

It looks promising right now but I'm just getting started.  I was delayed by a crash because Microsoft shoved through an Office update concurrently.   But the crash did not adversely impact creating the catalog and everything is working nicely.  System performance is fine.  I think for someone who uses PM as a front end like I do, the catalog is a good solution.  It can hold images edited by any editing tool - or unedited files.  It's easy to filter and sort.  I can use it to find multiple versions of images regardless of where they are located.  It does all the things I use in my LR catalog, but includes all images without needing to import to LR.


----------



## PhilBurton (May 9, 2019)

Eric Bowles said:


> Hi Phil
> 
> It looks promising right now but I'm just getting started.  I was delayed by a crash because Microsoft shoved through an Office update concurrently.   But the crash did not adversely impact creating the catalog and everything is working nicely.  System performance is fine.  I think for someone who uses PM as a front end like I do, the catalog is a good solution.  It can hold images edited by any editing tool - or unedited files.  It's easy to filter and sort.  I can use it to find multiple versions of images regardless of where they are located.  It does all the things I use in my LR catalog, but includes all images without needing to import to LR.


Eric,

Have you found any features in PM's catalog that you know are not in Lightroom's catalog?


----------



## Eric Bowles (May 9, 2019)

PhilBurton said:


> Eric,
> 
> Have you found any features in PM's catalog that you know are not in Lightroom's catalog?



Not yet.  PM is a lot more flexible in terms of having multiple catalogs.  PM supports Collections in a similar manner to LR including across catalogs, but I don't know the details yet.  The PM search and filtering is as good or better than LR because of the use of variables.  And the structured keyword library and code replacements make it easier to populate keyword and metadata fields.

The big front end advantage is you can query multiple catalogs and the program includes all images regardless of what editing has or has not been done - not just those that are imported to LR (meaning it is much easier to go back to old images or images processed in a different editor).  Lightroom just handles images within the one active LR catalog - and PM Catalog does not have that limitation.

Right now the product is definitely a Beta and has a ways to go.  My guess is we are talking weeks or longer before it's ready.  There are a lot of features being discussed in their Forum to make the  product better and easier to use.  It's not there yet.  Even when launched to the public, there will be a wish list of features for future updates.


----------



## PhilBurton (May 10, 2019)

Eric Bowles said:


> Not yet.  PM is a lot more flexible in terms of having multiple catalogs.  PM supports Collections in a similar manner to LR including across catalogs, but I don't know the details yet.  The PM search and filtering is as good or better than LR because of the use of variables.  And the structured keyword library and code replacements make it easier to populate keyword and metadata fields.
> 
> The big front end advantage is you can query multiple catalogs and the program includes all images regardless of what editing has or has not been done - not just those that are imported to LR (meaning it is much easier to go back to old images or images processed in a different editor).  Lightroom just handles images within the one active LR catalog - and PM Catalog does not have that limitation.
> 
> Right now the product is definitely a Beta and has a ways to go.  My guess is we are talking weeks or longer before it's ready.  There are a lot of features being discussed in their Forum to make the  product better and easier to use.  It's not there yet.  Even when launched to the public, there will be a wish list of features for future updates.


What I am curious about is if a PM or LR can import data that the other has exported, and to what benefit.  For example, how well can PM serve as the front end for my workflow to speed up LIBRARY work in LR.

Phil Burton


----------



## Linwood Ferguson (May 10, 2019)

PhilBurton said:


> What I am curious about is if a PM or LR can import data that the other has exported, and to what benefit.  For example, how well can PM serve as the front end for my workflow to speed up LIBRARY work in LR.


Well, PM without Cataloging can serve as a great front end for LR and many of us use it as such, culling, coding, cropping before it gets to lightroom at all.  It cut my post-game processing time easily in half if not more just due to its speed. 

Where PM and LR get complicate is if you try to go back and forth between them (as opposed to a one way flow through PM to LR).  They are partially compatible through the sidecar files, but there's a ton of stuff LR adds to the file PM cannot process, and I suspect a bit of vice versa. 

But note that the new cataloging feature did not really add new metadata management features for individual photos, i.e. PM has always been stellar at allowing you to metadata code images.  And LR will read almost all of that (maybe all, just hedging a bit).  So you didn't need the catalog feature to basically do all the titles, keywords, maps... really anything.  And better and much faster than LR in many ways (code replacement there is super). 

I'm not sure what kind of functionality I would expect in using the catalog feature.  Setting aside how and whether it could work, what would you want it to actually DO, with two independent catalogs?   It would be a bit like having two LR catalogs over top the same set of images.  Not saying there's some clever way to use it, just not seeing it myself.  If you elaborate on what you want, someone can probably tell you if it is possible.


----------

