Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: Damon Lynch on January 05, 2010, 06:07:48 pm
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Do you ever need to import hundreds or thousands of images from multiple memory cards at one time? Do you like to give your images meaningful names? Do you want to back up your images as they are downloaded? Do you like everything to be as point and click as possible, without the need to remember special codes? Rapid Photo Downloader (http://www.damonlynch.net/rapid/) does all this, and more. It is free and open source, and has been translated into twelve languages.
With Rapid Photo Downloader, you can:
Import images from multiple memory cards at the same time (as well as cameras, network locations, etc.)
(http://www.damonlynch.net/rapid/screenshots/download.png)
Specify image names using metadata, sequence numbers, job codes, and other elements
(http://www.damonlynch.net/rapid/documentation/images/prefs-rename.png)
Enter a new job code, or reuse an existing job code
(http://www.damonlynch.net/rapid/documentation/images/jobcode-choose.png)
Automate program operation
(http://www.damonlynch.net/rapid/documentation/images/prefs-automation.png)
Handle any download errors gracefully
(http://www.damonlynch.net/rapid/documentation/images/prefs-error.png)
Keep notified when downloads are complete
(http://www.damonlynch.net/rapid/screenshots/notification.png)
Check it out (http://damonlynch.net/rapid/). It runs on multiple versions of Linux. Let me know if you have any questions, comments etc.
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OS X?
Jeremy
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OS X?
You could run it in a virtual machine (easy), or someone could port it (possible, but more difficult).
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This program will not let me select which images to download: it always downloads everything from the camera / card. So, unless one selects to delete each file after downloading it (something I am still not willing to do, as I use the memory card as a temporary backup), the same files will get downloaded repeatedly. Perhaps I am missing something, but I think it does not work properly with my current workflow.
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This program will not let me select which images to download: it always downloads everything from the camera / card. So, unless one selects to delete each file after downloading it (something I am still not willing to do, as I use the memory card as a temporary backup), the same files will get downloaded repeatedly. Perhaps I am missing something, but I think it does not work properly with my current workflow.
It depends. If your generated file names don't change from download to download, it won't download them again, because it does not overwrite images. But yes, it will attempt to download everything it finds.
If you move the downloaded files out of the DCIM folder, but keep them on the memory card, it won't download them, because it won't see them (unless you've enabled downloading from portable storage devices).
It's really a significant amount of work to add the feature you are looking for. Someone else may write it, but I do not anticipate setting aside the time to write such a feature in the coming 2 years.
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It is free and open source, and has been translated into twelve languages.
So, since it's free, you think you have the right to suck Michael's bandwidth to put up a commercial with multiple full size screen shots? Sorry, that's really over the top...your first post as a new member of LuLa and you decide to make it an ad for something? Then you have the gall to post 6 screenshots (not even downsampled mind you but full UI screenshots). I mean it would have been bad enough to post the first paragraph...but what could POSSIBLY be going through your mind that it's OK to post screenshots?
I also note that while your product is free you DO solicit donations so it's not technically correct to call it "free"...it's donationware...
Maybe you would like to make a donation to Luminous Landscape, huh?
Funny, you joined March of 2009 but never made a post until today...and your first one EVER was an ad. Not sure you really fit in here bud. Michael is away so I don't know what, if anything will come of this but the odds of my EVER using YOUR product is less than zero (it would have been just zero but it won't run on a Mac :~)
I know Michael has resisted creating a formal Term Of Service agreement preferring to let peoples' own ethics and judgement be guided by the group but if people join merely to do self-promotion, I kinda think that might be considered unacceptable.
At least do Michael the favor of editing your initial commercial ad post and delete the images so people who innocently come to this thread don't waste LuLa's bandwidth...
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I must agree that the screen shots in the post are inappropriate. I'm less provoked by the nature of the post, even though it borders on spam. It is "on topic" essentially, though disrespectful to Michael IMHO, and disrespectful to the members of the board in that it assumes we need screen shots in the first post at all, etc.
If one softens one's view on it being spam, a mention of the software and a link would be sufficient. The screen shots should be on your (Damon's) server, available to those interested. I didn't go to the linked page, but I would think that one who can develop such a tool can also markup an appropriate site to provide such pages with screen shots and other supporting elements.
Good luck with your project, but please be respectful in how you share it.
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It depends. If your generated file names don't change from download to download, it won't download them again, because it does not overwrite images. But yes, it will attempt to download everything it finds.
If you move the downloaded files out of the DCIM folder, but keep them on the memory card, it won't download them, because it won't see them (unless you've enabled downloading from portable storage devices).
Unfortunately, that won't work for me: I move the RAW files to their final destination after I process them, so the files will be downloaded again; and moving the files inside the card does not fit my workflow, either (I just let the files sit on the card until I need the space, call it 'lazy garbage collector').
It's really a significant amount of work to add the feature you are looking for. Someone else may write it, but I do not anticipate setting aside the time to write such a feature in the coming 2 years.
Yes, the program should keep a list of devices and pictures downloaded (or at least, the last one and assume a sequential naming)... probably will be cheaper to buy a second hard drive and use the automatic backup feature.
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It sounds like you are trying to make a different version of Breeze Sys Downloader Pro.
I am not as irritated by your solicitation as Schewe was, but for your third posting, this is a bit aggressive. If you had been a contributing member of the community for a while, perhaps your solicitation wouldn't be irritating folks.
On the other hand, it does appear that you are a creative innovator trying to make a cool new product. This kind of innovation is what has given us HDR processing, focus stacking, panoramic stitchers, geotagging and a multitude of amazing new technologies that are driven by software. Good luck.
Compare your feature set to Downloader Pro. You don't yet seem to have any substantial competitive advantage over their product.
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So, since it's free, you think you have the right to suck Michael's bandwidth to put up a commercial with multiple full size screen shots?
All the images are hosted on my server, which I pay for. You are welcome to verify this by checking the image properties. So it costs Michael nothing for the display of the images. Second, the program itself is free in all senses of the word. It costs nothing, you can give it to your neighbor, and you can adapt it to your needs. In other words, free as in gratis and libre. Third, I have put literally thousands of hours of my time into the program. I have not received a single donation or any form of compensation, gift etc. I do it as an act of service and to be a good member of the community. Simply put, it's something I wanted to do before I die.
Finally, the reason why it was my first post is that for a long time I had been holding off posting here because I wanted to make sure the program was rock solid and proven before I let photographers here know about it. The fact is, I was inspired to write it after reading a long and very interesting article about the right kind of equipment to take on a safari that was posted on this very site back in 2007 or so (the irony is, I suppose, is that it was written by an ex-Microsoft employee). Since there was no such software program for Linux I decided to write my own. So me posting my first forum article about this program was actually something quite meaningful for me. It was a marker for me that I had achieved what I had set out to do, arising out of what I had learned here.
I hope that clarifies things. I'm not making any of this up or exaggerating in any way. Since I appear to be not welcome in your community, I'll continue to read the LL articles and continue to develop the program.
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So, since it's free, you think you have the right to suck Michael's bandwidth to put up a commercial with multiple full size screen shots? Sorry, that's really over the top...your first post as a new member of LuLa and you decide to make it an ad for something? Then you have the gall to post 6 screenshots (not even downsampled mind you but full UI screenshots). I mean it would have been bad enough to post the first paragraph...but what could POSSIBLY be going through your mind that it's OK to post screenshots?
I also note that while your product is free you DO solicit donations so it's not technically correct to call it "free"...it's donationware...
Maybe you would like to make a donation to Luminous Landscape, huh?
Funny, you joined March of 2009 but never made a post until today...and your first one EVER was an ad. Not sure you really fit in here bud. Michael is away so I don't know what, if anything will come of this but the odds of my EVER using YOUR product is less than zero (it would have been just zero but it won't run on a Mac :~)
I know Michael has resisted creating a formal Term Of Service agreement preferring to let peoples' own ethics and judgement be guided by the group but if people join merely to do self-promotion, I kinda think that might be considered unacceptable.
At least do Michael the favor of editing your initial commercial ad post and delete the images so people who innocently come to this thread don't waste LuLa's bandwidth...
Get a clue, Schewe. It would have taken you all of 5 seconds to right-click on one of the screen shots to see that the images are not hosted on Lula and therefore are not using any of Micheal's bandwidth at all. It's best to know what you're talking about before you go off on someone like that.
And frankly I don't see how anybody could take offense to such a post for a free, open-source application (GNU GPL) that the author has already said others are free to modify or port to other platforms if they wish.
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All the images are hosted on my server, which I pay for.
Cool...that at least eliminates the LuLa bandwidth issue...
Since I appear to be not welcome in your community, I'll continue to read the LL articles and continue to develop the program.
Never said that...what I said was considering your first post was an ad, I'm not sure you fit in here. If you wish to participate in discussions OTHER than trying to promote a product (and make no mistake, whether or not it's free, it IS a product) that's fine by me. Course, if you HAD spent much time here I think you would find that the number of people using Linux (and to whom your product would be of interest) would be in the extreme minority. Which is another irony in that very few LuLa members would be interested.
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It sounds like you are trying to make a different version of Breeze Sys Downloader Pro.
Ummm, no. I am trying to make the best photo downloader / importer for Linux. Some users ask for features they are used to in other programs (including that one). Of course it is inevitable there will be some duplicated functionality, just as all web browsers have some core features in common. I don't use Downloader Pro or any other program to import my photos. I expect Downloader Pro has many features not found in my program -- it has been around much longer, and is used by more photographers. But likewise I'm sure it lacks a few features found only in my program.
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Never said that...what I said was considering your first post was an ad, I'm not sure you fit in here.
I have a suggestion. Probably the most important reason for this particular forum is to share expertise and insights relating to the processing of images on computers. Let's just stick to doing that, ok? That's all I want do here. All of us have different areas of expertise and experience which we can use to help each other.
Now maybe you can help me, because I have a question. On all cameras with RAW + JPEG functionality, is the exif date for the pair of images always going to be identical, down to subseconds? Specifically, I am hoping that this will be the case with the field Exif.Photo.DateTimeOriginal.
Damon
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I have a suggestion. Probably the most important reason for this particular forum is to share expertise and insights relating to the processing of images on computers. Let's just stick to doing that, ok? That's all I want do here. All of us have different areas of expertise and experience which we can use to help each other.
Damon
I just want to pipe in and say I really like RPD,I have found it better than many commercial applications, but I do agree that it would be nice to be able to (de)select images for download. I tend to edit/purge on my monitor, so if I forget to format a card, I am redownloading non-keepers.
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After understanding how RPD works, I have reconsidered my current workflow. Before I leaved the photos on the card for some time, just in case the dowload went wrong, or I accidentally deleted the files from my hard drive; now I will simultaneously download the files to two different hard drives: the one where I work with them, and backup copy that I do not touch.
This makes more sense now, and unless RPD does nasty things (like deleting files from the card even if the download went wrong), it seems safer, too.
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After understanding how RPD works, I have reconsidered my current workflow. Before I leaved the photos on the card for some time, just in case the dowload went wrong, or I accidentally deleted the files from my hard drive; now I will simultaneously download the files to two different hard drives: the one where I work with them, and backup copy that I do not touch.
This makes more sense now, and unless RPD does nasty things (like deleting files from the card even if the download went wrong), it seems safer, too.
Excellent. The program does not do nasty things like that The last thing it does in it's internal "workflow" is delete images from the download source, if requested by the user, and it does so only with images that were successfully downloaded of course. If you know a little programming, then check out lines 1998-2038 in rapid.py:
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~dlynch3/rapid.../rapid.py#L1998 (http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~dlynch3/rapid/trunk/annotate/head%3A/rapid/rapid.py#L1998)
Damon
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Excellent. The program does not do nasty things like that The last thing it does in it's internal "workflow" is delete images from the download source, if requested by the user, and it does so only with images that were successfully downloaded of course. If you know a little programming, then check out lines 1998-2038 in rapid.py:
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~dlynch3/rapid.../rapid.py#L1998 (http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~dlynch3/rapid/trunk/annotate/head%3A/rapid/rapid.py#L1998)
Damon
I do know a little programming, but Python is not my taste... anyway, the devil is in the details: just one unchecked system call, and you end thinking you have done something when in fact you have done nothing (at least, that is how things were with C); and those details are not easy to spot during a quick review.
For example, I see that "downloadImage" returns whether the image was downloaded or not, that sounds good; but "backupImage" has no return parameters, however: does that mean that the image will be deleted even if it could not be backed-up? I hope that is not the case! Again, I am no Python expert, and could be misinterpreting the source code.
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t "backupImage" has no return parameters, however: does that mean that the image will be deleted even if it could not be backed-up? I hope that is not the case! Again, I am no Python expert, and could be misinterpreting the source code.
Python is really easy to understand. You read it correctly, and while doing so you noticed a logical bug in my code. Thank you See https://bugs.launchpad.net/rapid/+bug/509348 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/rapid/+bug/509348)
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Is this Linux only? I see theres no Mac or Windows versions are they lightly in the future.
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Is this Linux only? I see theres no Mac or Windows versions are they lightly in the future.
If you want to run it on either of these two platforms you have two choices:
1. You run Linux in a virtualized environment (free and easy, see for instance VirtualBox)
2. You port it (more difficult)
I personally have no interest to port it, because I wrote it to fill in a gap for photographers who use Linux (who number more than you might imagine). But because the code is licensed under the GPL, and written using standard technologies (python and gtk), anyone is free to port it. As I have indicated above, anyone is welcome to do so.
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In my earlier note, I hadn't noticed that this was for linux only. This does, indeed, fill a unique niche. I work with a lot of linux programmers, and they seem to have a fanatical (worse than mac people) dedication to open source and GPL, but I haven't been convinced that the photo tools are as robust and effective as the more widely available PC and Mac tools. Gimp is novel, but it seems substantially inferior to PS. The results I have seen from people working with Linux seem to be rougher, their tools less evolved.
Don't get me wrong, I would be ecstatic to see feature parity between commercially available tools for PC/Mac and the open source stuff, but it just doesn't seem to be there. For this reason, I kind of think the choice to be a linux photographer is a bit of a compromise at this stage of the game, at least where processing and usability is concerned.
Damon, what are your thoughts?
Stuff I use that doesn't have equivalent/competitive products on Linux (I think):
* CS4
* Bridge
* Qimage
* PTGui
* Photomatix
* Downloader Pro (sorry)
* Neat Image
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At home I only use Linux, and have managed to deploy a complete work-flow using exclusively free software. I am well aware that most of the software I use could not compete with their commercial counterparts on a feature by feature comparison; and for most professionals, the compromise is understandably just unacceptable. But an amateur like me will probably never need (or even miss) most of those features; and the price of all that software is just prohibitive: your complete list probably costs more that all my photographic equipment together...
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Stuff I use that doesn't have equivalent/competitive products on Linux (I think):
* CS4
* Bridge
* Qimage
* PTGui
* Photomatix
* Downloader Pro (sorry)
* Neat Image
* Of course Photoshop is the gold standard and Gimp is not as good. Personally I use Photoshop, virtualized or native. I appreciate its wide variety of image sharpening options. But I do most of my work in Bibble Pro 5, which has a lot of things built in, like Noise Ninja, super quick and easy lens correction, hot pixel removal, etc.
* I hardly use the capabilities of Bridge (I don't have much need for it) so I can't say much about that, except to point out that Bibble can handle metadata, maintain an image database, etc.
* On the Qimage website the say it runs under Linux/Wine. I've only ever printed from my university so I can't comment.
* For panoramas, there are quite a few programs, but to be honest I've never done a panorama so others will have to comment.
* The Photomatix website says it works under Linux/Wine. There are also plenty of HDR programs under Linux. I hardly use any of these programs so I can't add much useful here.
As I mentioned earlier, Downloader Pro has lots of neat features. But I really do suspect Rapid Photo Downloader has some that it doesn't. For example, can Downloader Pro synchronize RAW+JPEG sequence numbers for images being downloaded from the same or different memory cards?
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As I mentioned earlier, Downloader Pro has lots of neat features. But I really do suspect Rapid Photo Downloader has some that it doesn't. For example, can Downloader Pro synchronize RAW+JPEG sequence numbers for images being downloaded from the same or different memory cards?
What do you mean by synchronise in this case? The sequence number assigned by the camera would usually be identical if you were using raw+JPG shooting modes.
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What do you mean by synchronise in this case? The sequence number assigned by the camera would usually be identical if you were using raw+JPG shooting modes.
A downloading program like Rapid Photo Downloader or Downloader Pro can be used to assign sequence numbers to images, e.g. 'Downloads Today', or a 'Stored number', etc. These are useful when you need to keep track of such things, or when you have multiple camera bodies and you need to guarantee you have unique file names. Since I added sequence numbers to Rapid Photo Downloader , I've never used the camera assigned number again, as they are (relatively speaking) quite long and serve no purpose.
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A downloading program like Rapid Photo Downloader or Downloader Pro can be used to assign sequence numbers to images, e.g. 'Downloads Today', or a 'Stored number', etc. These are useful when you need to keep track of such things, or when you have multiple camera bodies and you need to guarantee you have unique file names. Since I added sequence numbers to Rapid Photo Downloader , I've never used the camera assigned number again, as they are (relatively speaking) quite long and serve no purpose.
There are many ways of keeping files unique with numerous bodies. Serial numbers, time stamps, shooter ID, unique additions if required (a "uniqueness" number if you like) etc etc.
But now I understand what you're saying - that you have some master reference number and that it syncs between raw and JPG. No, Downloader Pro doesn't do that. Personally I'd never need it, but I can see it being useful if it fits your workflow so it's a nice feature.
The most powerful feature of DLP for me is the huge variety of options I have for creating a file name, the ability to run plug-ins (such as DNG converter) - compared to anything else out there I've used, it's miles ahead.
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The most powerful feature of DLP for me is the huge variety of options I have for creating a file name, the ability to run plug-ins (such as DNG converter) - compared to anything else out there I've used, it's miles ahead.
Ditto in spades!
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I also like its directory maker plugin and its geotagging capabilities. I wish there was a way easily have more than one job code in a day. You can do it by manually selecting the files and downloading them separately, but that is a bit of a pain considering all the great automation that it provides.
I like the idea that rapid photo downloader provides tokens for embedding shot data (aperture, iso, shutter speed, etc...) into file names. that's pretty novel.
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It's interesting that the plugins feature is something many (all?) of you seem to appreciate. Are all the plugins written by the author of Downloader Pro, or have third parties produced their own? One feature I was planning to add to Rapid Photo Downloader was something like this, which would probably be implemented as the ability to run a post download script (which means you could run practically anything you wanted with the right script).
The ability to map one field (e.g. serial number) to a user-defined value seems useful, as some image metadata fields are useful but very long. Do photographers here use it?
The way I've implemented Job Codes is that you can specify a new one or choose an existing one whenever you start a download. It will apply to every image being downloaded. As has already been indicated in this discussion, the problem Rapid Photo Downloader currently has is that it will try to download everything on the card, because as yet there is no feature to choose which images to download. A feature request for this has come up a few times recently, so it seems it would be helpful if me or another developer implemented this sooner rather than later! Personally I'd never use it, but I can see how it would be especially useful for those who want to apply a different Job Code to different sets of photos on the same card.
Thanks,
Damon