Unexpected droplet export behavior

[Jeffrey Saldinger]

I made a new action in Photoshop and turned it into a droplet to use in a Lightroom export preset. One of the steps in the action is to resize the image.

When I set the Lr export preset to use the droplet after export, the size change does not occur but other steps in the action do. Yet when I set the preset to “do nothing” after export; go to the folder that has the newly-created file; then open the file “manually” in Photoshop and run the same action, the resizing works.

I’ve gone over my steps a few times and can’t see anything wrong. Other actions and droplets I've made recently work as expected.

Still using El Capitan and Lr 2015.6, Ps similarly “old”.

Any thoughts?

Thanks for your help.

[john beardsworth]

Nothing comes to mind, especially as the other steps are apparently working.

Yet when I set the preset to “do nothing” after export; go to the folder that has the newly-created file; then open the file “manually” in Photoshop and run the same action, the resizing works.

What happens if you drop the newly-created file on the droplet?

[Jeffrey Saldinger]

Thanks for the suggestion, John. There is nothing final in what follows, but I thought an update was in order.

I’ve put a few hours into this already today (adding to the hours over the past couple of days), keeping more meticulous step-by-step notes. I did make a fresh action to make sure it was working, turned it into a droplet, and made new Lr export presets. I made a copy of the droplet in question, dragged it to my desktop, and tried a few times dropping files onto it.

It’s hard for me to effectively summarize everything I’ve observed. I hope what follows is not perceived as an off-putting tangle.

One of the confusing observations is that when I run the action (and I speak here of one-at-a-time trials using the droplet on the desktop, using the action in Ps, or using a Lr export preset with the "after export"), I sometimes observe that the file dimensions in Lr (in the metadata panel) haven’t changed, even though in Ps and the finder the size is what I expected.
In one case (having dragged the file from the Finder to atop the droplet), when the action was finished I observed in the Finder (which still had the file in question selected) that the file size had changed as expected (e.g. from 70+MB to 2+MB), but the dimensions did not change (the action that flattened the file should also have changed its dimensions). When I selected another file above it in the Finder and reselected the file in question, the dimensions changed to what had been expected.

In one final test I did, I used one of today’s new Lr export presets on 10 files (the preset applies a droplet after export). In eight of the ten cases, the files showed the expected new dimensions in both Ps and the Finder, but in Lr the dimensions in the metadata panel remained unchanged. In the other two cases, Lr, Ps, and the Finder are consistent (i.e., showing the expected new file dimensions).

Having used the same Lr export preset with the same action on ten files at one time, and having observed these inconsistent results, it came to mind that there might be something about certain files that causes the unexpected behavior.

[john beardsworth]

This leaves me wondering if a step in the droplet isn't working, or if the problem is really with the dimensions in the metadata panel. if you do a Metadata > Read Metadata on these eight (ref your "eight of the ten cases"), are the dimensions correct?

[Jeffrey Saldinger]

John, thanks so much for staying with this.

Yes, when I follow your suggestion the dimensions of the eight in question change to the expected values. Perhaps it is useful to add that in these eight cases, the metadata status was “Up to date” before I did the “Read Metadata from Files”.

I haven’t yet tried everything again to see if this solves the riddles I alluded to in my previous post, but it’s certainly encouraging. I have responsibilities out in the world today so may not get to work undistracted until later this afternoon or tonight, but I look forward to testing my workflow then and not being alarmed when I see the wrong dimensions in the metadata panel.

Isn’t it...well, is “bizarre” the correct word here?...bizarre that eight of ten files would work one way and two another way?

[john beardsworth]

Yes, when I follow your suggestion the dimensions of the eight in question change to the expected values. Perhaps it is useful to add that in these eight cases, the metadata status was “Up to date” before I did the “Read Metadata from Files”.

Great, that confirms my thoughts. I have always regarded metadata status as a bit flaky, Jeffrey, and it's not very clear what triggers LR to update the metadata of a file that has been changed externally. So I've had cases where I made edits in PS which didn't show up in LR until I "tickled" LR. Read Metadata From Files would force LR to review the file, as in your case, but so too can generating a preview, for example by zooming in 1:1, or taking it into Develop. This preview tickling might conceivably happen if there are no existing previews at the size of the current grid thumbnails, and that might lead to an apparent randomness such as the 8 and 2.

[Jeffrey Saldinger]

John, this is a fabulous, clear, helpful explanation. Thanks for the time you’ve put into my little tangle of experience.

Before I went out this morning I tried the same export preset with the ten same files as yesterday. This time six that didn’t change dimensions yesterday (i.e. in the Lr metadata panel) didn’t change today; two that changed yesterday did change today; and two that didn’t change yesterday changed today. The Read Metadata From Files command fixed everything. I hope this report of different outcomes with the same files from one day to the next adds something intriguing for you. Given what you said about “tickling” Lr, I wasn’t concerned; as a practical matter the problem appears to be solved.

While I was out today I thought of a wrinkle I had not accounted for (not related to the current droplet/metadata issue); it’s something related to the specifications I need to follow for the finished files. So I have a bit more work to do.

I expect to do more on my project tonight and will reply soon.

[Jeffrey Saldinger]

All five new actions (one for each of the aspect ratios represented by the files in question) and corresponding export presets are done, and the files I needed have been created.

Thanks again for staying with me on this, John.

[john beardsworth]

Glad it's resolved, Jeffrey. I suppose that the core of this was your "as a practical matter", and making Lightroom look out for such external changes to files would be resource-intensive, so responding to tickling seems a balanced solution.