Topic: MC & Images (Read 6748 times)

johnnyboy · « **on:** May 05, 2009, 08:28:23 pm »

Think I mentioned this a while ago but I was playing with MC & with Adobe PSE7 for my photos.
I ended up going with Photoshop Elements for a few simple reasons:: ability to full screen preview two files side by side for easy comparrison and to navigate the two seperate sides backwards and forwards independantly, its toolbar when viewing images has easy tools for doing basic tasks that feel related to images, in MC it just feels like a hacked toolbar and not useful (while in full screen preview mode), ability to modify timestamps easily (move forward x minutes/days/, move to specific date, etc), its 'date view' which is very cool and easy to use and its overall feel of just being a lot more specifically designed for the task of managing photos.

What I'm finding though is that it just lacks some of the more techie features and abilities I would like so find myself looking at MC again mainly for it's DB abilities.

The thing I think I love in PSE7 though the most is the ability to right click and choose 'edit in adobe lightroom' which creates a duplicate image, sends it to lightroom and stacks the two images with the new edited one set as the top of the stack. I do this ALL the time in PSE7 and if I am going to move to MC13 instead to manage my images this is the one feature I cannot do without.
I would LOVE any/all of the above other features, but this one is a show stopper for me.

Does MC have any way I can easily click on an image and choose 'edit' or whatever and have it create a copy of that image, send the copy to another app (whether lightroom or photoshop) and put the two images into a stack with the new copy as the top of the stack?

If I can do this with it, I think I'll take the time to copy all my work over from PSE7 to MC and start using MC instead.

johnnyboy · « **Reply #1 on:** May 06, 2009, 06:40:17 pm »

Is it possible to do this at all?

Otherwise I presume you'd have to manually make a copy of the image, edit that then stack it yourself? Abit long winded for something I do for most of my pics

marko · « **Reply #2 on:** May 07, 2009, 02:13:21 am »

I have this 'semi-automatic' by way of a bat file...

I've added the bat file to MC's "Send to... > External" list using the id "Send Copy To Photoshop"

I right click an image, send to, external, send copy to photoshop.
The bat file then makes a copy of that image in the same folder, naming it [filename]_edited-1, and opens that file in photoshop for editing.
While I'm editing, MC's auto import imports the new image and reads in any tags I've saved.
When I'm done editing, auto import picks up the changes to file and updates the thumbnail.

Now, whether you're viewing by location, or by tag filters, it shouldn't matter, both files will be viewable side by side making it a simple job to manually stack them, made simpler by the fact that the file you right click on to initiate the stack will be placed on top.

Final points to note:
When you save the edited file in photoshop, it preserves the EXIF and IPTC tags, but does not preserve the proprietry MJMD tags. You get away with this because by the time you've finished editing, MC has already imported that data, but, you should be mindful that that info is now 'database only' so you might want to do an 'update tags from library' at this point too.

It's as close as I can get on my own (a couple of interactors helped with the bat file way back in MC11 days) and once you've done a few, it's actually not that bad a work around.

When files are stacked in MC, all but the top file are effectively hidden from the main database untill you expand the stack, unstack the files, or search for stack files (currently broken in MC 13)

I often found that when expanding a stack, the current view filters meant that the stack contents would often end up scattered throughout the view, rather than held together in a bounding box ala PSE...

To go some way to alleviate that little problem, I've created a couple of 'stack management' view schemes that show all stacked files regardless of their expanded/collapsed status, grouped in their stacks to keep them together.
PSE would do two different kinds of stack:
One for plain old stacks of similar images, and another they called "Version Sets" for edited files.
That's what my two view schemes try to emulate. One shows plain old stacks, and one shows only stacks of files I've edited.

If you're interested in the view schemes and the bat file (should only need the path to the executable edited for PSE) let me know and I'll put them up for you.

-marko.

johnnyboy · « **Reply #3 on:** May 07, 2009, 06:27:31 pm »

Thanks for the reply.
Definitely sounds like you've given it a lot of thought lol.
Its a bit too complex for me too be honest, I just want the simplicity and ease of PSE but with the power of MC's DB.

Any of the developers have any feedback on this and whether anything like this is likely to be included? Editing copies rather than the originals (which should preferably never be touched) is pretty much just good practise and so I'd hope it was something MC would have better support for?

leoric · « **Reply #4 on:** May 08, 2009, 01:18:53 am »

Quote from: marko on May 07, 2009, 02:13:21 am

I have this 'semi-automatic' by way of a bat file...
...
If you're interested in the view schemes and the bat file (should only need the path to the executable edited for PSE) let me know and I'll put them up for you.

Thanks marko, your information very useful and actual for me - I'm back from holidays and going to handle 1000+ shots

. Will be very grateful for your schemes and bat.

ps. It's a great pity that MC's image part isn't being developed for a long time - I'm missing many features in it too ;(

Peter_T · « **Reply #5 on:** May 08, 2009, 06:22:38 am »

I also recently switched back to PSE for photos... the feature you're talking about is a pretty important one when you're dealing with important photos. It's too easy to overwrite files in MC. I also like the UI and how photocentric it is. MC still seems to me like it's only gone part way on its photo handling interface. I'm sure that under the hood it's solid, but it doesn't feel solid to me when I use it.

But PSE is definitely dumbed down in terms of slicing & dicing. In PSE7 you can at least use smart albums - that helps - but it's still nothing compared to MC for finding a subset of well-tagged files.

Just my two cents.

dcwebman · « **Reply #6 on:** May 08, 2009, 07:20:42 am »

You all are not alone in any of this. I had all my photo albums scanned and now am just waiting for the time and right program to start importing/tagging them. I certainly don't want to do this twice. Maybe when JRiver is done with their TV additions to MC13, they can concentrate again on the images section.

cncb · « **Reply #7 on:** May 08, 2009, 07:26:16 am »

We have a slightly simpler approach. If using the PSE editor do a 'Save As...' and then tick "As a Copy" in the save dialog. Then, if you have Auto Import set up for that folder in MC hit "Refresh" and it will show up next to the image with "copy" automatically appended. You would still have to manually stack them but I think this is also the case for marko's approach?

DarkPenguin · « **Reply #8 on:** May 08, 2009, 10:10:55 am »

First off use keywords, preferably not nested if you want to tag with any photo management application and have it work with any other photo management application. It is really the only portable organizational system that pretty much everything works with.As to the work on a copy bit how do you want it to work?

Obviously create a copy. How do you want that copy created? .jpg? .tiff? .jpg (or .tiff) with MC image edits? A simple file copy? Always stacked? Always as stack top?

Should it be a memory foam dialog that has all the options? (Including recently selected applications?) Or should it be a edit copy in external app 1 with app 1 having all the check boxes above in an option?

JimH · « **Reply #9 on:** May 08, 2009, 06:04:01 pm »

We've been heads down on another project lately. Sorry. We'll get some of these image functions in the next week or two. Thanks for bringing it up.

johnnyboy · « **Reply #10 on:** May 10, 2009, 11:24:42 am »

Dark - SWEET

Thanks for the reply on this.
The way PSE works (and what I find extremely simple and easy to use) is::

1) It creates the copy in the same format as the original (just a direct file copy) and writes it as:: [filename]_edited-1.[original_file_ext]
2) It sends this copy of the file to the editor
3) it creates a stack with the new copy as the top of the stack (this makes sense seeing as you are presumably editing it because you want to improve it, the original is just kept behind as a backup of the original).

As for MC image edits, I cant really comment as I dont use MC for my image editing (and most likely wont as I use Lightroom for this).

The other things I think are important for images are:
Ability to change dates, comments etc inline when they are shown underneath images (think ratings would be important to be able to do like this too). Its a LOT more intuitive for images.

If we could have full screen preview of two images side by side as well it'd be a huge bonus as would a tool for changing image date tags forward/backward/etc

darichman · « **Reply #11 on:** May 10, 2009, 11:15:37 pm »

I've neglected my image editing and tagging for a while. To be honest, I never really developed a proper workflow for the editing part. I found it too difficult and time-consuming syncing changes in PS and LR to MC and was too afraid to commit to MC's non-destructive (but internal) editing. So now I have a backlog of photos full of red eye and colour imbalances

Without wanting to criticise the image editor in MC (I don't think it's fair comparing it to the dedicated, high end and $$$ editing programs in Adobe's creative suite) I think the following points are worth making:

1. Whatever improvements J River makes to image editor, many users will still prefer dedicated image software like PS, PSE and lightroom for editing. This isn't a reason to stop development of the image editor, but any move which removes barriers to recruiting other programs in the workflow is a good one I think. I don't see why Johnnyboy's suggestion couldn't work... create a copy from within MC, stack it and send to the external program. Next auto-import will pick up any changes.
2. The developments made last year in non-destructive editing from within MC were great. I don't think it's quite finished though. We need a few options here to cater for people's different workflows. If I edit an image I'd like a few options:
a) Save edits in tag (non-destructive - this is what's done currently AFAIK)
b) Save edits to file (replaces original file - destructive)
c) Save edits to new file (original file is preserved)
3. We need to be clear about what MC is doing when the user edits an image. This isn't the case in the current implementation. It can be confusing if the user makes a change in MC, then opens the file in explorer only to see that nothing has happened.
4. Some mention needs to be made of tags... if a new file is created, should it inherit all of the tags of the original?
5. Stacking is great. Make use of it. We need configurability here... maybe all of the ones DarkPenguin mentioned? With standard suffixes appended (_PSedit, _MCedit or whatever). Personally I'd like the edit to go on top of the stack.

Many of the suggestions offered here could work really well I think, both in terms of improving workflow with PS etc and automatic stacking of image edits made in MC.

marko · « **Reply #12 on:** May 11, 2009, 01:33:30 am »

Quote

I've neglected my image editing and tagging for a while.

You and me both!! I still have all our Christmas photos sitting in my 'incoming' folder

Quote

The developments made last year in non-destructive editing from within MC were great. I don't think it's quite finished though.

Here are some comments I made regarding MC's image editor:

"Bugs?
Any visual changes made to the image are shown in MC, very cool indeed, but if the image is resized, the new dimensions are not shown in the library. Tooltips and tag info continue to show the original image dimensions.

Click on the 'Red Eye' tool and then zoom in. The eyes are now not visible. Click on 'scroll' in the toolbar and the cursor changes, but it does not drag the image, it tries to draw a selection instead.

If you open a file that has been previously edited and had changes saved in the library, you can use undo and redo to step through the history and save the image at any stage, which is good, but, if you open an image that has been previously edited and had changes saved in the library, and then tell the editor to save the changes to the actual file, the editor does this, and retains the edit history in the library. This edit history is now useless. Undo steps back through the history list, but has no effect whatsoever. IMO, once committed to file, the [edit info] for that file should be removed, unless, a new filename was chosen.

Coolness
The changes are applied when using the Flickr uploader. This is very handy indeed. Last time I tried, a looong time ago, the changes only worked when using Pix01. Nice one.

Difficulties
After editing an image and saving the changes in the library, there is no way of knowing that any particular image in a library view has edits stored in the library. ie. what you see in MC is not what is on the disk
I see this as a potentially huge problem. I found the hidden [Edit Info] field so can knock up some expression based thumbnail text warning, but a stack-like discreet overlay would be nice, with the same option to hide in selected views.

Send to > email recipient attaches the original file without applying the changes, nor without warning that what you see in MC is not actually what will be attached.
Same applies to any drag and drop action with edited files.

Despite the coolness, the difficulties may stop me from using the editor in a wholesale fashion, which is a shame as it would be great to be get rid of all those edited versions and just let MC manage them virtually instead"

Quote

Some mention needs to be made of tags... if a new file is created, should it inherit all of the tags of the original?

For me, that's an absolute necessity.

-marko.

DarkPenguin · « **Reply #13 on:** May 12, 2009, 10:24:59 am »

Sounds like there are a couple of stack things. One is a more feature filled send to image application x feature. The other sounds like it might be more generic. A version of send to external that copies *.ext to *_SomeText.ext, stacks both files and sends the new one to the external application.

leoric · « **Reply #14 on:** May 16, 2009, 06:24:08 am »

I think MC shouldn't became a complete photo editing software - because we already have a good ones. But it has all possibilities to be a best photo organizer and I will describe one feature that will be one of the best additions to current functionality.
I use MS Expression Media 2 to select good shots to share and delete completely unsuccessful ones. This app has very handy mode called Lightbox: I can select a couple of photos (for example, a few shots of one scene with different shot settings or with slightly different content), then I press Alt+Enter and see all selected photos in succession in full-screen - this is very useful to compare them. For each photo I'm able to see short info, zoom it to full screen and back, see histogram/exp.warnings, set rating/label, delete file - and all using shortcuts.

johnnyboy · « **Reply #15 on:** May 16, 2009, 06:38:05 am »

I still find Images and Audio are treated too much alike and it makes the app very confusing.

For the last half hour I have been trying to work out why when I was in a playlist of photos I had just organised, when I would double click on an image then click next it was never going to the next picture in the playlist and was instead just randomly jumping to some photo miles away.
Have been sitting here cursing and blinding about how annoying it was and was about to rant on here going crazy and finally realised what was happening was it was throwing all the images into playing now and shuffle was on so it was then shuffling them and so showing me something random.

This is HUGELY confusing behavior and I know for a fact that no 'standard users' that I know (eg mum, friends, etc) would have been able to work out what on earth was going on.
Can image playlists please be treated just like when you double click an image inside a normal view and just ignore playing now, just show me the image full screen and backwards/forwards just take me through the playlist - nice and simple and 'normal'

johnnyboy · « **Reply #16 on:** May 16, 2009, 07:40:16 am »

When using the facebook upload, there is no status indicator anywhere I can see of what is happening so you are aware of what is going on?

johnnyboy · « **Reply #17 on:** May 16, 2009, 09:27:02 am »

If you are inside an image playlist and view an image fullscreen then hit delete it brings up the prompt to delete from the library instead of just deleting it from the playlist like it does when you are just viewing thumbnails.
This isn't consistant and doesn't make sense - it should just delete it from the playlist.

johnnyboy · « **Reply #18 on:** May 16, 2009, 10:29:02 am »

Another request (sorry, doing a LOT of photo tagging, editing, etc right now and trying to deal with 6000+ pics) - I would REALLY like an 'images' section of the options screen and I want an option that does something along the lines of 'NEVER alter original images' which would basically mean that no matter what I did inside MC, the original pics would never be effected no matter how stupid I or the current user happens to be.

leoric · « **Reply #19 on:** May 18, 2009, 03:58:04 am »

I have recollected another one very annoying imperfection. If I need to make resized or format-converted copies of images for some reason (right now I'm replying to email and need to insert low-res copies into message) - there is no simple one-step approach. Adding one simple option (save results to new file or dir if multiple images should be resized) to current Resize image function will be well enough.
Another, more complex approach - add image format converter to the Convert Format function.
Ideally, there should be an option to automatically generate image copies with given parameters on drag&drop to another app.

dcwebman · « **Reply #20 on:** May 18, 2009, 07:59:28 am »

Quote from: leoric on May 16, 2009, 06:24:08 am

I think MC shouldn't became a complete photo editing software - because we already have a good ones. But it has all possibilities to be a best photo organizer and I will describe one feature that will be one of the best additions to current functionality.

I agree with this. There are plenty of good photo editors out there, even free ones. Keep the basic functionality of the image editor but enhance on the organizing capability in MC.

pank2002 · « **Reply #21 on:** May 23, 2009, 01:24:08 am »

Okay I'll bite once more.

There are some great point in this thread. As noted above the interface would could be better if it was not a the same as the audio interface.
* A real calendar view would be nice.
* Also, a better way to handling enlargeing pictures would be nice. Display-mode is not great and neither is right clicking on the slider.
* Row of pictures should never be broken. There should not be a half image. There is some java script demo somewhere on the forum.

One of the most important features to me is that tags becomes portable like ID3 tags. I.e. if I move pictures from one computer to another tags should be preserved. I haven't tested if this works in a while so it might already be there.

DarkPenguin · « **Reply #22 on:** May 23, 2009, 02:54:48 pm »

You need to write them to the files. What tags are you using? The most portable ones I've found are keywords.

What are you looking for in a calendar view? Same question on enlarging images.

johnnyboy · « **Reply #23 on:** May 25, 2009, 03:30:48 pm »

Quote from: DarkPenguin on May 23, 2009, 02:54:48 pm

You need to write them to the files. What tags are you using? The most portable ones I've found are keywords.

What are you looking for in a calendar view? Same question on enlarging images.

PSE's calendar view is quite nice - have a look at that for ideas.

Also, I'd like a tile view so I can see the thumbnails with info next to them that I can interact with - stars, comments etc?

DarkPenguin · « **Reply #24 on:** May 26, 2009, 01:20:34 pm »

Got a screen shot?

Right now I don't like any of the calendar views I've seen.

johnnyboy · « **Reply #25 on:** May 26, 2009, 02:24:04 pm »

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6231/cal01.jpg

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6231/cal01.jpg

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6231/cal01.jpg

You can double click on any day or month in year view to go into the next view down (eg day view or month view).

Pretty straight forwards and simple but effective.
Being able to add notes for the day too is a nice touch.

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/1181/cal05n.jpg
This is PSE as well for browsing images - I can easily instantly, inline change any pics ratings, I can also right click on the green box (indicated that the picture has been added to an album) and it will display a full list of albums the picture is in and let me select any of them to instantly remove it from that album. As well as that I can click the date underneath any picture to change the pictures date using PSE's date tool which works great to adjust dates (to fixed date, backwards or forwards x hrs, etc).

If you look at MC (2nd row up from the bottom) u will notice that its not as clear to look at and when the pictures are rating, the number for the rating just looks like its a part of the date pretty much.

Nice to know you're working on the images section of MC

robydago · « **Reply #26 on:** May 26, 2009, 05:44:51 pm »

if you have time to spend on improving mc image handling, please have a look at faststone image viewer (http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm)

that software is free and has one of the best interfaces for cropping pictures I've ever seen; they call it "crop board".

cncb · « **Reply #27 on:** May 26, 2009, 05:49:02 pm »

One thing that I have requested for a while is a simple way to go back and forth between the thumbnail and single image views. I know you can right-click on the slider to do this but it is not very convenient or intuitive. PSE does this with a double-click on the thumbnail itself which would be nice to have this option in MC (instead of "playing" the images) or some other shortcut on the thumbnail itself.

DarkPenguin · « **Reply #28 on:** May 29, 2009, 10:37:49 am »

Quote from: johnnyboy on May 26, 2009, 02:24:04 pm

You can double click on any day or month in year view to go into the next view down (eg day view or month view).

Pretty straight forwards and simple but effective.
Being able to add notes for the day too is a nice touch.

What is the calendar use case? I've been looking into what I want to do with this but I'm not sure I'm solving your problem. What should the calendar view do? What information do you need from it? What should it allow you to do?

As I work through how this should work I either simplify to something that I think achieves little or I expand it to something that we have other ways of working.

cncb · « **Reply #29 on:** May 29, 2009, 02:09:24 pm »

Personally I find PSE's date slider more useful than the "calendar view".

pank2002 · « **Reply #30 on:** May 30, 2009, 12:49:49 pm »

Quote from: DarkPenguin on May 23, 2009, 02:54:48 pm

You need to write them to the files. What tags are you using? The most portable ones I've found are keywords.

people, places, events etc. I just want Media Center tags to be portable in the way that I can tag a bunch of pictures on the NAS. Then, when they are opened from another MC client the tags should be present.

Quote

What are you looking for in a calendar view? Same question on enlarging images.

Some easy way to locate pictures. The screenshots looks nice. Also, events should show.
I.e. if you have a party that spans after midnight an event could be shown on both days as in Mozilla Lightning.

Edit: This project is a nice inspiration for tags plus calendar: http://www.iola.dk/nemo/

johnnyboy · « **Reply #31 on:** May 30, 2009, 05:45:31 pm »

It just gives you a very familiar interface that you have grown up with since childhood (a wall calendar) so it is friendly and family and easy for everyone to use to browse images by date (can be done with panes technically but just lacks the same visual familiarity).

nwboater · « **Reply #32 on:** May 30, 2009, 07:38:10 pm »

Quote from: cncb on May 29, 2009, 02:09:24 pm

Personally I find PSE's date slider more useful than the "calendar view".

I second that - Don't think we have ever used the Calendar View, but always use the Date Slider.

While I'm at it we have been using PSE for a few years now. At the time we started my Wife was somewhat spooked at learning a new program (she emailed and word processed only ) such as Photoshop Elements. In a very short period of time she was loving it. She found the Organizer extremely helpful and very intuitive to use. With multi-level tagging, the date slider and Collections we can always very easily find and share any of our photos.

I don't mean to sound like an advertisement for PSE - just hoping that somehow the simplicity, power and intuitiveness of its' organizer could be integrated into MC. What a winner that would be! I also share the view that to accomplish this images need to be treated very differently from audio.

Thanks,
Rod

DarkPenguin · « **Reply #33 on:** June 01, 2009, 02:30:13 pm »

See that's the thing. The calendar isn't a familiar interface for finding images. At least not for me. I was thinking of a date slider. Just something at the top that starts at day 0 and runs to the most recent image date. Right now you can scroll the list using the regular scroll bars but you have to see the date you're looking for as it flies by. This would be a bit easier than that. Is that useful?

Edit:

Some other questions. If that IS useful should it be used to fill (or filter) the list? Or does it just scroll the list?

DarkPenguin · « **Reply #34 on:** June 01, 2009, 02:41:17 pm »

Some tagging questions.

Would a tag command like "Apply Copyright" be worthwhile?

The way I see this being used would mostly be on import. You pull down all your photos from your camera. Select them in the import list and hit them with the "Apply Copyright". This would have, name, copyright, maybe some predetermined keywords. Just some stuff you would ordinarily like to have on your images. Maybe this is a more generic "Apply Tag Set" or "Apply Tag Recipe" or similar. That would likely be more keywords and stuff like that.

But the idea is to be able to quickly set some basic fields and keywords.

Thoughts?

marko · « **Reply #35 on:** June 01, 2009, 02:58:25 pm »

Quote from: DarkPenguin on June 01, 2009, 02:41:17 pm

Some tagging questions.

Would a tag command like "Apply Copyright" be worthwhile?

The way I see this being used would mostly be on import. You pull down all your photos from your camera. Select them in the import list and hit them with the "Apply Copyright". This would have, name, copyright, maybe some predetermined keywords. Just some stuff you would ordinarily like to have on your images. Maybe this is a more generic "Apply Tag Set" or "Apply Tag Recipe" or similar. That would likely be more keywords and stuff like that.

But the idea is to be able to quickly set some basic fields and keywords.

Thoughts?

I could probably use that, though I use my own "recently imported" view scheme rather than the default MC playlist. The proposed tag set would be available there too, yes?

The question regarding the eagerly anticipated date slider is interesting. I could imagine scenarios where both would be desirable. Perhaps the slider could have a visible, integrated filter switch which would toggle its behaviour?

-marko.

DarkPenguin · « **Reply #36 on:** June 01, 2009, 03:25:39 pm »

Quote from: marko on June 01, 2009, 02:58:25 pm

I could probably use that, though I use my own "recently imported" view scheme rather than the default MC playlist. The proposed tag set would be available there too, yes?

The question regarding the eagerly anticipated date slider is interesting. I could imagine scenarios where both would be desirable. Perhaps the slider could have a visible, integrated filter switch which would toggle its behaviour?

-marko.

So is the slider the way to go? Rather than a calendar?

raldo · « **Reply #37 on:** June 01, 2009, 03:33:36 pm »

Quote from: DarkPenguin on June 01, 2009, 03:25:39 pm

So is the slider the way to go? Rather than a calendar?

+1

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Author Topic: MC & Images (Read 6748 times)