P: Import only pictures with "lock" from camera

This is a pretty basic request and should have been implemented long ago. PhotoMechanic has had it for ages ... even Aperture 3 offers the feature ...

It's pretty sad that Adobe has seemed to take their eye off the ball from the original goal of Lightroom ... to be a more complete workflow solution from capture to finished product. By not addressing such issues, Adobe is further frustrating the efforts of many users instead of streamlining their workflow. Workarounds are NOT solutions ... just more work ...

Much of my work is in the area of photojournalism where I need to get my images posted to an FTP server or displayed online immediately following, or in some cases, actually during an event. Time is money in this situation. No matter how "superior" some may consider the IQ of Lr/ACR ... what good is that superiority if you can't make deadline? By Lightroom not offering this very simple feature, I am usually forced to employ a competing option ... which doesn't do much to increase the value of having Lightroom as part of my toolset.

In the end ... it shouldn't take until Lr5 for this feature to be added ... considering that I recall it being discussed for inclusion with the very first beta of Lr1 ...

Since current Canon Cameras can lock pictures by pressing one button it would be WONDERFUL to import just those who were selected.
Just like Victor pointed out: It's possible in Photo Mechanic and I love it. But I would never use both software together just to achieve that.
Please guys... make it happen!

Thanks for your suggestions! I'll take a look at the videos.
Walter

Walter,

Thanks for your suggestion, but I have come to the conclusion that I am better off changing my workflow to start in Photomechanic - which does have the ability to import only locked pics - and then import into LR.

Even though I am adding a complete application to the workflow, things are actually significantly faster than they will ever be with LR.

There are some interesting tips in these videos:

The Ingest tutorial:
http://youtu.be/fg00PF_F2GY

This one on setting them up to work together:
http://youtu.be/iO07PIIiRHM

And something that is really helpful for doing selective ingest:
http://youtu.be/4hEuIUN35mE

Not that there is anything at all wrong with LR, it just seems that Adobe has little or no interest in making it useful to Photojournalists that need a very quick workflow, rather than a workflow focused on efficiently managing inventories.

Even the most effective plug-ins have not brought LR close to the abilities to quickly ingest, caption and send in Photomechanic.

Cheers
Victor

I import all files from my camera but mark those that are locked. Here is a workaround that allows me to do this in Windows:

1. Use Windows Explorer create a folder on your hard drive named TEMP and another folder named TEMP READ ONLY. (The second folder should be next to the first, not inside it.)

2. Copy all files from your camera card to the TEMP folder using Explorer.

3. Use Explorer to view the files. Change Explorer to show the Details View, then right-click on the top bar and add a column to show Attributes. Unlocked files will show “A” in that column and locked files will show “RA.”

4. Click on the Attribute column to sort by that column, select all the RA files, and move (not copy) them to the TEMP READ ONLY folder.

5. Import the files from the TEMP folder into Lightroom using your normal import procedure.

6. Import the files from the TEMP READ ONLY folder into Lightroom the same way but use the import dialog settings to add some keyword such as “locked” to all of those files.

I import all files into subfolders organized by date. This procedure ends up with all the photos together by date, but the marked files have the keyword “locked.” I can then sort or organize those files as desired.

OttomanicImporter
---------------------

* Supports special handling for read-only files (e.g. import protected files only, set pick flag if protected, ... )

Hi Jeremiah,

Otto Importer is up-and-running as I write (I've been using it for real), but it needs more polish and testing. It supports:
* Ability to import only protected (read-only) files.
* You can make all raw files read-only, or read-write after importing.
* Files that were read-only on card, can have metadata set, e.g. pick flag.
* DNG handling...

Anything else you can think of along these lines?

Let me know if you want to sneak a peek before final release.

Rob

Oh I can wait! Just had our 3rd baby and I'm weeks behind in photo editing as it is. This has been an LR niggle since I started (with LR2). Hehe. Finally figured I would raise the flag and see what gets Adobe's attention.

Sounds like a great update Rob!

Hi Jeremiah,

Yep. - often plugins are not as seamless as native, but where there's a will there's a way...

Either JB's Locktastic or ChangeManager's feature to select read-only files will allow you to distinguish the read-only files from the others, pre-DNG-conversion anyway (thanks for bringing that aspect to my attention).

I am in the process of re-doing RC Importer right now (code name: Otto Importer). It will support extended importing functionality available for manual as well as auto-importing. I'll make sure I respect the read-only attribute when converting to DNG - please standby...

In the mean time, if you do want to modify RC Importer to get you through the week, consider these lua tidbits:

local file = photo:getRawMetadata( 'path' ) -- to translate photo object to file path


fso:isReadOnly( file ) -- e.g. to determine if pre-converted raw file is read-only


fso:makeReadOnly( file ) -- e.g. to set read-only attribute of converted DNG.


photo:setRawMetadata( 'rating', 1 ) -- see SDK/API doc for other options.

- place strategically in ImportAndCopy.lua module, and you'd have just what you want. But as I said, I'll be releasing OttoImporter in a week or so, which will have read-only handling features built-in, if you can wait...

Please feel free to contact me outside the forum for details or further discussion...

Rob

I just found another plugin that might help someone, I have not tried it yet myself though.

http://www.beardsworth.co.uk/lightroo...