Tethered/Auto Import

[Guest]

So Lightroom 2's out, but still no tethering support. What's frustrating me is that I can live without inbuilt tether support but please give me an alternative! I can use my own program to download images on demand from my camera (http://www.mountainstorm.co.uk/photography/Software/Software.html) and an "Auto Import" folder ... but it then takes forever for Lightroom to import them. Now I know its not actually the import thats the problem but the time it takes Lightroom to detect the new image. I've tried moving rather than copying the image into the dir. I've tried using a RAM disk as the auto import folder and all to no avail. I've even written a nice applescript which calls the open action the uses the UI scripting to click the dialog, change back to "All Photographs" and into develop, this is FAR quicker than auto import but the UI flickers all over the place as dialogs appear and disappear.

Please, Please, Please give me an import SDK, or at least an applescript way of importing a new photo without effecting Lightroom. All I want is a way to have Lightroom in the develop module, with "show highlight/lowlights" enabled and then prod Lightroom to add my new file and show it as the current one in develop. I can then use left/right arrows to compare this photo with others I've just taken.

Please help .. I've just managed to write a script which adds images directly via the DB, but I can't get Lightroom to show them without a restart so I'm obviously serious about doing this.

Arrrggghhh

Rich

[_Chet_Drarvik_]

The LR 2.0 SDK has new functionality under LrCatalog (addPhoto) that you might be able to use.

[Guest]

Wow, thankyou. I thought I'd checked the new v2 SDK but it appears on reflection that whilst I'd downloaded the v2 SDK I had checked the v1.3 one again :(

You are right the addPhoto call is just what I wanted. As such I've now made a more efficient Autoimport plugin for lightroom v2

http://www.mountainstorm.co.uk/photography/Software/Software.html

It will almost certainly need the files to be moved into the watched dir so that its an atomic action but does appear to be far faster at importing that adobe's builtin one.

Now all I need is a way to select the newly added photo.

Thanks

Rich

[Sean McCormack]

Rich,
The one issue with your Tether plugin is lack of documentation. You know what it does and what to enter, but it's not obvious here..

[Guest]

Oh I know, an interesting lesson ... make documentation to remove the need to email everyone telling them :)

Hopefully I'll get chance to sort this at the weekend. I'm planning a website update (with documentation) and If I get chance some extra Nikon support and some bug fixes.

Rich

[Sean McCormack]

If you do get a chance, borrow a Canon!

[john beardsworth]

And make it work on PC.

[Guest]

New vewsion, LightroomTether v2.1

Thanks for all the feedback and help,

I had a bit of time free tonight and have managed to create a new version of LightroomTether. I believe I've fixed all the bugs people have reported although I can't test them all :)

It also adds Nikon enhanced mode, which should make for faster image capture. I've tried it on D40, D70 and D80's.

http://www.mountainstorm.co.uk

Please, Please go, download and feedback your experiences. I'f you get it working (try both modes please) then send me an message so I can update the camera support page. I'd also be interested in those currently using a tethering solution on the relative performance of my tool.

If you decide it does the things you need, be kind and donate some money so I can go down the pub and celebrate.

Rich

[_Michael_Warf_]

I created a short video tutorial around my experiences with the Mountain Storm plugin for Lightroom 2

http://www.michaelwarf.com/blog/adobe-lightroom-tethering-tutorial

I hope you enjoy it!
M.

[Guest]

I've just done a major update to my Lightroom Tethering plugin (v3.3 beta). It now uses my StudioTether for all camera control/error reporting and progress; this should solve the whole loosing your nameplate issue, amongst many others.

Most notably I've actually sorted out "enhanced mode", I've even changed the name as it got bad press 🙂 its now called "custom extensions" and is off by default. I've actually got the SDK docs from Nikon now so it actually works reliably (for me at any rate). I've also added LiveView which it turns out works at around 60fps not the dodgy 10fps NikonCaturePro gives you .... although this needs some work as it can stall after a few minutes. Its currently up on my website:
http://www.mountainstorm.co.uk

Please have a play and report back. So you know my things to do list is:
* fix bugs
* fix liveview so it doesn't stall (might be a memory leak)
* allow recording of LiveView to file :)
* fix PPC support (I need to swap some bytes)
* get moderns Canons working (proving difficult as I don't have one)

If you have a problem, give me a shout and I'll see about fixing it (assuming work and the rest of my real life doesn't get too busy again).

Oh and after seeing Michael's video I thought "what a great idea", Im working on my own one as we speak. I didn't fancy paying for a program to record my screen so I wrote one (called DesktopRecorder) its a bit bare bones but if anyones interested its on my website :)

Good hunting

Rich

[DawMatt]

Hi Rich,

Any chance of this plugin being ported to Windows? I'd love to try it.

Thanks,
Matt