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Question

Auto Stack by capture time in bridge

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
March 5, 2020
2 replies
3200 views

Hello Adobe community!

I am managing and sorting alot of images through my photography sport activity, and usually use Lightroom classic to sort and stack images. Unfortunatly Lightroom is very slow probably due the quantity of files to manage.

I am using in Lightroom classic the function auto-stack by capture time to help me as a first step to group the files taken in continuous mode. I would like to use Bridge (faster) to sort my pictures out before starting my editing work, but I can't find that function into it which is annoying, plus if I do an auto-stack in Lightroom Classic I wont find my sorting in bridge to complete the sorting work.

Anyone could help me on that topic? May be by switch from Lightroom and Bridge with their different functionnalities?

Otherwise that would be interesting for Adobe to include the auto-stack function from Lightroom Classic into Bridge as it is supposed to be the application to organise your files more than Lightroom.

Thanks

Bert

Timur-san

Participant

Hi Bert,

I may suggest you try to play with Bridge's Auto-Stack parameters to simulate LightRoom's sorting.

It actually has them! Image overlap, timestamp, and eV differences. Built-in values just make no sense in my case. I do HDR photo bursts and Bridge just stacks them wrong by default.

So, if you are familiar with JavaScript - you may alter Auto-Stack grouping parameters. These are stored in its ExtendScript plugin file. On my Windows machine, it is "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Bridge 2022 Extensions\AutoStacks.jsx". MacOS should be something similar.

Go ahead on your own risk 🙂 You may use ExtendScript Toolkit's editor or any plain text editor. Make sure to create a backup copy of AutoStacks.jsx file before you do any changes there.

Grouping parameters are located after about line 190 where the new 'panoramaMatcher' object is defined. Below are its well-commented properties for image overlap, timestamp, and eV differences stacking. Change that values until Bridge does Auto-Stack job just the way you want.

Good luck!

Timur-san

Participant

More precisely, look for this section, starting about line 170:

// This section defines the criteria used for determining if a photo
// is part of a Panorama or HDR collection.

gary_sc

Community Expert

Hi Bert,

You are correct, Bridge does not have Stacking by time per se. However, if you select all of the images in a given folder and right click on the images, one of the options is to Stack for HDR and Panorama. But for continuous shooting, you are not being helped.

I also use LR-Classic for stacking but I can't say I've seen any delay. Typically the number of images to stack (by time) are not much more than 200-300. I have my time set to 1 second (for HDR purposes). How many images do you have in your folders?

As far as using Bridge and LR-Classic together, that may not be the best idea but that depends upon what you are doing with the images in Bridge. IF you are just looking at them and playing keep and toss and then bringing them into LR-Classic, that's fine. But if you are looking at them in LR-C and then doing any processing or deletion in Bridge, you will create confusion within LR-C.

I find that Bridge is fantastic for looking at a group of images that I do not want or need to be included in my LR-C catalog. But I know many photographers who do everything in Bridge and do not use LR-C at all. My point is that applications are like photography: everything is a compromise.

About the only suggestion I can give you is to make a Feature Request for the Bridge team to add "Stacking by time," I'd suggest you go to Bridge's Uservoice and make a request. <https://adobebridge.uservoice.com>

Sorry I cannot offer more.

Bert - MYSAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks for your input Gary,

yes it's what I deducted, I am shooting a lot of surfing in continuous mode to sell them, and so it's a lot of files (about 5000 per shooting day) and about 70 surfers so I am stacking them, starting with an auto-stack set at 1 sec and then I start a manual stack. It's a bit of work but have to be done...

Lightroom CC is ok to do but my computer slow down (not sure why...). So Bridge for that part of the work should be the app to be used, stacking, color code, keywords and then back to Lightroom for editing... but unfortunately I don't find Bridge that helpful for so many files, and this kind of funsctionnality is missing to help, which is a shame as it is a file manager app when Lightroom is more oriented for editing... Bridge would be faster for that first part of the work...

any how thanks for the answer Gary!

cheers

gary_sc

Community Expert

Hi Bert,

OK, that helps me understand a lot.

Besides not having the time-based stacking capability, Bridge is also known for very slow building of thumbnails and image files. While Bridge has never been a speed demon, it seems to have gotten a bit worse in recent years. 5000 images? Bridge is not my first choice unless you start loading the images and then go out to lunch. (Sadly, seriously.)

Your explanation also explains why LR takes a while to Stack the images, again 5000? Sheesh!

How much RAM do you have?

Oh, in a related question, what OS are you using? IF you are on a Mac, have the Activity Monitor running while you are doing this to monitor how much of your RAM is being used and how much Hard Drive activity is taking place. It might help you see what's taking place. If you are on a PC I cannot suggest what to look at but you might know and/or someone may jump in to tell us.

Suffice it to say that you are doing some major assault on your system here. It "might" be more efficient if you were to break this down into small "bits" to make it easier on your system. So, for example, each rider or every hour or so put the images into separate folders and process them in groups, not all at once.

Thoughts?

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