how to filter images by size. HELP.

[sergio]

I am now finally transferring thousands of images I had in DVDs into HDs, however I have one big problem. I used in the past an app called Archive Creator that not only archived into cds or dvds the images but also made thumbnails of those images to make an index. As I am transferring hundreds of dvds, manually filtering the thumbnails is not an option. I would love to import everything into LR and then tell it to filter and trash whatever is smaller than x size in kbs, but LR doesn't have this feature, at least I am not aware it does. I tried using automator but the damn thing doesn't work, tjhough it apparently should. Who knows what I'm doing wrong. I am urgently needing a way of filtering these files out of my catalog, so help would be greatly appreciated.

Sergio

[Michael Bailey]

Hi Sergio,

I've had the same problem. Oddly, Adobe Bridge does allow this sort. My only solution has been to use it there and then go back to Lightroom and synchronize again. In Bridge you can select "show files from subfolders" (or words to that effect, I don't have the program in front of me) to allow you to grab bigger chunks at a time. But be careful not to select too many subfolders at a time because Bridge gets unstable with huge searches and selections.

By the way, the fashion work on your web site is beautiful.  MB

[joofa]

I would love to import everything into LR and then tell it to filter and trash whatever is smaller than x size in kbs, but LR doesn't have this feature, at least I am not aware it does. I tried using automator but the damn thing doesn't work, tjhough it apparently should. Who knows what I'm doing wrong. I am urgently needing a way of filtering these files out of my catalog, so help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi,

If you are on a Mac then use a command of the following form in the Terminal at the directory level you want (it will traverse all subdirectories underneath):

find . -iname "*.*" -size -100c -exec mv {} /tmp/ \;

Please note the "." after the "find", which signifies the current directory. In case you are currently in a different directory then you don't need to change directory to where you want to search; simply use the path to that directory here instead of "." And, replace 100 with whatever maximum size you want, but it should be between the - and c. Also note the \; at the end, which can't be omitted. Notice that I am moving the files out to a different location (/tmp). You could have used -exec rm {} \; instead, to delete them as the "find" command finds them, but it can get dangerous. Better be safe to move them to a temporary location from where you could purge them if you wanted to.

Use at your own risk  

Joofa

[Victoria Bampton]

There's a Lightroom plugin which should filter them well enough for that purpose: http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/megapixel-sort

[JRSmit]

I am now finally transferring thousands of images I had in DVDs into HDs, however I have one big problem. I used in the past an app called Archive Creator that not only archived into cds or dvds the images but also made thumbnails of those images to make an index. As I am transferring hundreds of dvds, manually filtering the thumbnails is not an option. I would love to import everything into LR and then tell it to filter and trash whatever is smaller than x size in kbs, but LR doesn't have this feature, at least I am not aware it does. I tried using automator but the damn thing doesn't work, tjhough it apparently should. Who knows what I'm doing wrong. I am urgently needing a way of filtering these files out of my catalog, so help would be greatly appreciated.

Sergio

Sergio,
I am assuming that these thumbnails are jpeg's, and in the same folder as the master images.
If they are not JPG, TIF, PSD or a known raw format, Lightroom will ignore them.

If JPG when (In LR 2.x) you select import from disk it brings up a explorer window where you can select images, you can filter this list on size and select only the ones bigger than xx kb. (or filter on name or type)
Alternative: What could be of help to filter during import is creation date, if you choose to organise into folders by date you can deselect the dates you are not interested in.

Another alternative, in Finder or explorer, list the images on the DVD with filter on size and select those images bigger than xx kb, and copy these to a folder in your folder structure for images on your HD. Then import these images as Add (thus without copy or move). Probably overall even faster and easier than complete import and then remove afterwards.

If you are able to program a bit in your OS, you can make a small script that first copies the filtered images from the DVD's to a folder on the HD. Then run the LR import on this folder or set of folders to import with Add.

Hope this helps a bit.

[tomrock]

If the thumbnails are in the same folder as the original files, does Archive Creator add something consistent to the filename to identify the thumbnails? Something like "original filename_TN"? Maybe you could search for _TN.

[john beardsworth]

I'll point you towards my Folder Size plug-in http://www.beardsworth.co.uk/lightroom-plugin-folder-size/