Can you "color" pictures before importing them?

[Fotograf Crille]

Hi, can you "color" pictures before importing them? I'm used to Photomechanic and I'm a sports photographer and I want a quick way to throw away the ones you don't want before importing.

[dj_paige]

Are you talking about Lightroom Classic?

Are you talking about culling photos, or does the solution have to involve some sort of "color"?

If you are talking about culling in Lightroom Classic, yes LrC offers the use of embedded previews so you can quickly cull the photos you don't want, there's no "color" associated with this. See for example: https://darkroomphotos.com/lightroom-classic-new-embedded-previews/

[Fotograf Crille]

Yes, it's Lightroom C I'm talking about. Can you sort by Color or something else before importing? If so, can you help me and explain. In photomechanic, you do the sorting directly and "throw away" the ones you don't want.

[Mod: Editing post for a better reading]

[dj_paige]

Please do not write such that we have to keep scrolling to the right to read your message. Just type your text into editing window where your message goes.

So the solution you are looking for has to involve some sort of color before importing? Culling is not the goal?

[JohanElzenga]

Sounds like the OP is talking about color labels, applied by Photo Mechanic. Lightroom Classic does not support filtering by color labels on import.

[Seaquence]

Im a sports photographer who uses Photomechanic to cull images, before importing to LrC, as it's a much quicker way to compared to the unfortunate lag time involved when tapping through images in LrC. You can star rate or colour rate in Photomechanic, then from the top menu choose Edit- Select Star Rating  (or colour class) images you chose. Then under Image - Edit Photos With - Lightroom Classic, which will take you to the LrC imort window and you choose the folder you want them to go in, as normal. Search this on Youtube if you have trouble.

[ExUSA]

You would need to do this in Bridge, which is a file browser rather than a database. You can rate, label, delete, and move photos in Bridge before importing to Lightroom.

[Conrad_C]

It doesn’t have to be done in Bridge. It’s fine to pre-cull in Photo Mechanic (as many pros do) because in terms of culling, Photo Mechanic does exactly what Bridge does: It lets you browse photos while using presets and shortcuts to assign star ratings and other metadata, writing it to XMP metadata sidecar files, which makes that metadata available for Lightroom Classic import.

Upon import, Lightroom Classic wil see the XMP sidecar files and read in the IPTC-standard ratings metadata it finds, whether it came from Bridge or Photo Mechanic or any of the other apps that save user-added metadata in a form that Adobe apps recognize. For example I just tried editing star ratings of images in the open source photo organizer XnViewMP, and because that app writes the metadata changes into XMP files, both Bridge and Lightroom Classic display those ratings.

That’s the only requirement: Are you culling in an app that writes industry-standard IPTC  metadata into XMP sidecars? If the answer is yes, Lightroom Classic can probably read it in on import.

[Conrad_C]

Im a sports photographer who uses Photomechanic to cull images, before importing to LrC, as it's a much quicker way to compared to the unfortunate lag time involved when tapping through images in LrC.

By @Seaquence

You might be able to minimize the lag time by telling Lightroom Classic to not build previews on import. In the Import dialog box, set Build Previews to Embedded & Sidecar. Then Lightroom Classic will just do the import part, skip the preview building. When you press the left arrow or right arrow key in the Library module the adjacent images should come up immediately because it will simply display the preview that’s already present and is ready to show because that preview was embedded by the camera. Which is what I think Photo Mechanic does.

[Seaquence]

Hmm, interesting. Maybe I'll try that. I import to LrC with convert to DNG. Would that work the same with 'Build Previews to Embedded & Sidecar? I guess imbedded means DNG.

The images in Photomechanic are definitely not as sharp as in LrC and Im wondering if thats because they are in fact just the camera previews. Photomechanic is a quick way to cull bulk images though, even with the extra step of the direct import from Photomechanic to LrC using star or colour ratings, which LrC recognises fine. 

[Conrad_C]

Hmm, interesting. Maybe I'll try that. I import to LrC with convert to DNG. Would that work the same with 'Build Previews to Embedded & Sidecar? I guess imbedded means DNG.

By @Seaquence

I think those are two separate things. Embedded & Sidecar means “use the made by the camera” which are either embedded in the raw file or provided in sidecar files.

If you also convert to DNG, I am not sure exactly how that handles previews but I think it just takes whatever preview type was chosen in Build Previews and includes that in the DNG file. Although it does embed that preview in the DNG, I think that’s different than whether it included a preview embedded in the camera or one it generated. Because it’s possible to choose Copy as DNG while at the same time, in Build Previews, not choosing Embedded & Sidecar.

Just curious, is there a reason you convert to DNG on import? If speed was an issue I would think it might be better to import the raw files as is without the additional time and processing needed for the DNG conversion pass.

[Seaquence]

Speed isnt really the issue by the time Im ready to import to LrC. I choose Copy as DNG on import simply because then I dont have to go back and do it later. I have a 150,000 images in my catalog so Im trying to keep my 8T harddrive from filling up too quick. Speed is only an issue in the culling stage and thats the only reason I use Photomechanic. I tab through the images quickly in PM, placing a one star rating on my choices. Im usualy left with about 25% of what Ive originally shot. I then import those to LrC, have a break while that loads, which isnt that long, then do a batch adjustment and keywording while I skip through everything again as I flag the final slection. I then delete whats not flagged and Im done!

If loading just the Proprietory Raw, without the embedded previews solves the lag time, it may well be a faster way without having the extra import step but I guess I will then still need to go back and build previews so I can make adjustments? Along with having to convert to dng at the end as well.