Software for editing

[geogphotos]

Editing as in selecting which pics to process from a batch of similars.

 

Is there a piece of software that allows you to move thumbnails around into order, to select and reject, to mix and sort them , to compare one with another close up - software to reduce say 50 pictures down to the best 5.

 

Edited March 25 by geogphotos

[Brian Yarvin]

Photo Mechanic and Breeze Browser both do this (and far more). 

 

What I don't know is if there's an open source equivalent. 

[geogphotos]

Thanks Brian. 

[M.Chapman]

I use XnViewMP. Highly customisable (possibly overly so), fast with accurate colour rendering of sRGB and aRGB thumbnails, works on Windows, Mac, Linux. Also handles importing with customisable renaming and folder structure. Looks great on 5K iMac screen after some tweaks (background and font colours and info being displayed under each thumbnail) https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/ Also good for tagging and captioning. Also (a key point for me) although it has a catalog, it self updates if you make changes elsewhere (e.g. in Finder or PS etc.). Why oh why doesn't LR do this? It's not rocket science.

 

I used to use BreezeBrowser but there's no Mac Version

 

Mark

Edited March 25 by M.Chapman

[geogphotos]

Thanks Mark. 

[MDM]

1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

Why oh why doesn't LR do this? It's not rocket science.

 

 

We've beaten this to death and back on previous occasions and the answer remains the same as before. It's because Lightroom is not a file browser so it doesn't have to be connected to the original images for database and even editing purposes. It is a trivial matter to reconnect images that show as offlne and Lightroom is extremely good at reconnecting. I do this regularly with my main catalog of around 100,000 images. I have several other Lighroom catalogs that get moved around and reconnection is not a problem ever.

 

There are distinct advantages to the Lightroom model including being able to work when the original images are offline and speed of searching no matter how many images are in a catalog. Bridge is Adobe's version of a file browser with database capabilities but it is way less efficient than Lightroom.

 

In fact Lightroom can do everything asked in the oriiginal question and do it really well. I think the main advantage of using Photomechanic is speed. I've never used it but is has a reputation of being incredibly fast, as well as having some distinct advangtages in what can be done with metadata, so is very useful for news, sports and events photographers etc where speed is essential. Where speed is not of the essence, Lightroom does an amazingly good job and has the distinct advantage of everything being in the one place for data management and image editing. 

Edited March 25 by MDM

[geogphotos]

Thanks all the same.

 

I have zero interest in using Lightroom. 

 

Can we stop it just there please? 

 

 

Edited March 25 by geogphotos

[M.Chapman]

53 minutes ago, MDM said:

 

In fact Lightroom can do everything asked in the oriiginal question and do it really well.

I find LR much too slow for initial culling. OK it's partly due to my older hardware (2017 iMac), but the import and preview creation slows it down. I also find synchronised pan and zoom on multiple images (up to 4) available in other packages a great help. Once I've done my initial cull, I then import the remainder into LR for batch application of presets and exporting. But then I delete them from the catalogue ready for the next batch, (the edits are still stored in sidecar files). I know you find locating missing images/folders in LR easy, but I don't and I often give up.

 

 Mark

Edited March 25 by M.Chapman

[geogphotos]

Please please not more to and fro about Lightroom.........

[M.Chapman]

1 minute ago, geogphotos said:

Thanks all the same.

 

I have zero interest in using Lightroom. 

 

Can we stop it just there please? 

 

Yes please...

 

Mark

[Harry Harrison]

Now, about Lightroom, where was I.....

[Martin L]

Ian, I think in the past you said you use a Canon 5d.

Have you tried the free Canon software DPP.

I used to use it for culling before I moved to Unix.

Culling is pretty good, give each image a star rating then filter and cull on that. You can look at images side by side etc to compare.

It's pretty easy to use.

You can also use it for processing but it's not particularly sophisticated 

 

PS. Actually now noticed it is supposedly supported on Unix as well

Edited March 25 by Martin L
Added info

[geogphotos]

Thanks Martin. I haven't looked at that for a while.

 

I don't normally have a lot of pics on the same subject. Actually, I'll probably end up doing quite a few of these as there is nothing of this 2023 built ship on Alamy.

 

A sequence each at the quayside, tugs arriving, departure, tugs at work, off she goes.........next stop Gdansk (won't have pictures of that!)

 

https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/details/9908140

Edited March 25 by geogphotos

[Martin L]

It would work pretty well for just the odd occasion. It's pretty lightweight and there is no importing into a catalogue/database so it's just a 'viewer'.

It has come on quite a lot since the original versions

[geogphotos]

5 minutes ago, Martin L said:

It would work pretty well for just the odd occasion. It's pretty lightweight and there is no importing into a catalogue/database so it's just a 'viewer'.

It has come on quite a lot since the original versions

 

 

👍

[spacecadet]

3 hours ago, geogphotos said:

Is there a piece of software  apart from Lightroom that allows you to move thumbnails around into order, to select and reject, to mix and sort them , to compare one with another close up - software to reduce say 50 pictures down to the best 5

So your question could have said this😉

Though I tend to agree that moving to LR from scratch with 80k images would be a bit of a job. I started when I only had a few thousand, and most of those I never imported.

Edited March 25 by spacecadet

[geogphotos]

🏳️White flag 

 

I give up.....😵‍💫

Edited March 25 by geogphotos

[GP Essex]

17 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

I use XnViewMP. Highly customisable (possibly overly so), fast with accurate colour rendering of sRGB and aRGB thumbnails, works on Windows, Mac, Linux. Also handles importing with customisable renaming and folder structure. Looks great on 5K iMac screen after some tweaks (background and font colours and info being displayed under each thumbnail) https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/ Also good for tagging and captioning. Also (a key point for me) although it has a catalog, it self updates if you make changes elsewhere (e.g. in Finder or PS etc.). Why oh why doesn't LR do this? It's not rocket science.

 

I used to use BreezeBrowser but there's no Mac Version

 

Mark

I've recently started using XnViewMP for adding IPTC captions for news & magazine images. Really quick and easy to use, clear & simple. Though I do most of my actual photo editing with Faststone. 

[Phil]

22 hours ago, Brian Yarvin said:

Photo Mechanic and Breeze Browser both do this (and far more).

 

I've used Photo Mechanic for a number of years. 

 

However, be aware - Photo Mechanic is going down the subscription path  😯

 

https://home.camerabits.com/2023/11/12/changes-coming-to-photo-mechanic/

 

 

[Chuck Nacke]

All of the "Professionals" I know well use Photo Mechanic, I don't.

 

Selecting images is a skill that can only come or be developed from experience.

 

Keeping in mind that I am a something of a "dinosaur" and still working on a PC.

My current workflow is to view RAW images in Bridge and move my selections to another folder before going into LR

for color, spotting and final corrections.  From LR my selects become 16bit aRGB TIFFs for final touches and then back to

Bridge to make final selections.  Lastly back to PS to drop down to 8bit JPEGs in aRGB and to do the captions and keywords.

 

That is just the way I do it and not the only way to do "Editing." 

 

I do miss the days of film when I had a bar next door to my film processing lab in San Francisco, CA.  I had a light table at the bar and the lab

would bring my processed chromes to the bar.  With my light table on the bar and a dry vodka martini in my right hand I

could edit, sleeve and caption, handwritten on agency envelopes, my shoot. Next door to the bar was FEDex (Federal Express back then)

and off my film would go.  The lab, the bar and film are gone.  I do not drink alcohol anymore and I've gotten a few decades older.

 

Lastly since another thread has been closed, Monday I had a wonderful day of skiing in the sun and discovered that I'm too old to

ski the steep bumps all day.......

 

Chuck

[Betty LaRue]

52 minutes ago, Chuck Nacke said:

All of the "Professionals" I know well use Photo Mechanic, I don't.

 

Selecting images is a skill that can only come or be developed from experience.

 

Keeping in mind that I am a something of a "dinosaur" and still working on a PC.

My current workflow is to view RAW images in Bridge and move my selections to another folder before going into LR

for color, spotting and final corrections.  From LR my selects become 16bit aRGB TIFFs for final touches and then back to

Bridge to make final selections.  Lastly back to PS to drop down to 8bit JPEGs in aRGB and to do the captions and keywords.

 

That is just the way I do it and not the only way to do "Editing." 

 

I do miss the days of film when I had a bar next door to my film processing lab in San Francisco, CA.  I had a light table at the bar and the lab

would bring my processed chromes to the bar.  With my light table on the bar and a dry vodka martini in my right hand I

could edit, sleeve and caption, handwritten on agency envelopes, my shoot. Next door to the bar was FEDex (Federal Express back then)

and off my film would go.  The lab, the bar and film are gone.  I do not drink alcohol anymore and I've gotten a few decades older.

 

Lastly since another thread has been closed, Monday I had a wonderful day of skiing in the sun and discovered that I'm too old to

ski the steep bumps all day.......

 

Chuck

So sorry to hear about the Bridge collapse in Boston overnight. Loss of life is small, thank heavens, but this will only add to traffic woes for a long time.

[Brian Yarvin]

I'm watching the subscription thing very carefully! At the moment all that keeps me in Windows is my legacy copy of Capture1. When its no longer useable - probably  because of equipment upgrades - I'll go Linux.

 

In any case, I'll withdraw my endorsement of Photo Mechanic (and Capture1) because of this subscription business. My monthly bills are enough as it is.

[John Mitchell]

16 minutes ago, Brian Yarvin said:

I'm watching the subscription thing very carefully! At the moment all that keeps me in Windows is my legacy copy of Capture1. When its no longer useable - probably  because of equipment upgrades - I'll go Linux.

 

In any case, I'll withdraw my endorsement of Photo Mechanic (and Capture1) because of this subscription business. My monthly bills are enough as it is.

 

I have an ancient version of Photo Mechanic that I use all the time for captioning and keywording. When I switched from Windows 7 to Windows 10, I had a lot of trouble installing PM. Somehow I eventually got the program up and running. However, it isn't totally compatible with Windows 10, and some features no longer work. You can still buy stand-alone versions of PM. The "standard" edition costs about $420 CAN, which is more than I'm willing to pay. I certainly wouldn't pay for a subscription either, so I'll be looking for an alternative at some point. .

[Brian Yarvin]

John, I'm only one step away from being fully open source. There's no way I'm going to spring for anything in the Windows ecosystem at this moment. Every time I boot up my computer, I can hear my motherboard crying "why do you keep doing this to me?"

[John Mitchell]

1 hour ago, Brian Yarvin said:

John, I'm only one step away from being fully open source. There's no way I'm going to spring for anything in the Windows ecosystem at this moment. Every time I boot up my computer, I can hear my motherboard crying "why do you keep doing this to me?"

 

Yup. I spend as little as possible (or preferably nothing at all) these days.