How do you get photos from Photo Mechanic to Lightroom?

[dgberg]

I am new to Photo Mechanic and for the life of me cannot get any photos transfered to a hard drive or Lightroom. It is not even discussed in the manual. It is a super fast download tool but once they are in the contact sheet I am stuck?
Any help is greatly appreciated. Would like to know specificaly how to transfer to Lightroom,Photoshop and a hard drive to save.
Dan Berg

[Jon Meddings]

I am new to Photo Mechanic and for the life of me cannot get any photos transfered to a hard drive or Lightroom. It is not even discussed in the manual. It is a super fast download tool but once they are in the contact sheet I am stuck?
Any help is greatly appreciated. Would like to know specificaly how to transfer to Lightroom,Photoshop and a hard drive to save.
Dan Berg

Dan, I don't know or use Photo Mechanic so I'm not sure what you are using it for. However, if it is to simply transfer your RAW files off the card reader that can also be done by Lightroom or other programs. I use Downloader Pro (for Windows) and it is a superb program in letting me rename my files and put them where I want them automatically on my disk. Then I 'import' these into lightroom (just tells LR where the RAW is on my system).

Why don't you try using LR to move the files from the card reader to your disk and import the images?

[Ken Bennett]

In the Preferences, click the "Launching" tab, then choose the "Default Application to Edit Photos" and choose "Assign Application..." I assigned Adobe Photoshop CS3, but you can choose Lightroom if you want.

Then, when viewing a contact sheet, select the photos you want to edit in Lightroom (Or ACR), and press Command-E on a Mac, and they will open in Lightroom (or ACR). If you are viewing a large proof, just hit the "e" button (no Command-) and it will open that individual image.

Photo Mechanic is more than just a quick downloader and viewer. It's also (in my opinion and experience) the best and quickest metadata editor. All the crucial metadata edits -- changing the filename, adding complete caption information, and complete keywords -- are quickly and easily accomplished, once you have set up your templates for doing so.

I will happily concede that the PM manual is something of a joke. But if you can work your way through it, it can pay off. One nice feature is that you can save snapshots of frequently used dialog boxes, so you can instantly re-use them. This works for Ingest, IPTC, Rename, Save As (which has a ton of features), and pretty much any other dialog. Note that you can use variables in almost every dialog, too, which is also quite handy.

I suppose I could go on and on (maybe I should be writing the guidebook...) Just play with it for a while and see what works. If you have any specific questions, just ask.

[jjj]

Why don't you try using LR to move the files from the card reader to your disk and import the images?

Beware if using LR, as it doesn't always copy all your files across to hard drive, as it ignore some file types like movies files that many cameras produce. I won't use it for that reason. Why not simply use  your file manager to copy files to the HD. Sometimes the simpler method works better.

I used to use PM a lot, but with Bridge and LR's improvements, I see not need for it anymore, I don't more variance in how programmes handle/label files.
Also it's previous advantages as mention by k bennett have been surpased by Adobe's progress.

[dgberg]

Dan, I don't know or use Photo Mechanic so I'm not sure what you are using it for. However, if it is to simply transfer your RAW files off the card reader that can also be done by Lightroom or other programs. I use Downloader Pro (for Windows) and it is a superb program in letting me rename my files and put them where I want them automatically on my disk. Then I 'import' these into lightroom (just tells LR where the RAW is on my system).

Why don't you try using LR to move the files from the card reader to your disk and import the images?

I have Photo Mechanic and just want to learn how to use it properly. I set all the preferences in Photo Mechanic and it still does not seem to work. User error I am sure! I will try again as I just saw something I missed earlier.
Dan
Now works when I click the Command e. Now I have to get it to save a folder to my hard drive.

[Mike Arst]

I have Photo Mechanic and just want to learn how to use it properly. I set all the preferences in Photo Mechanic and it still does not seem to work. User error I am sure! I will try again as I just saw something I missed earlier.
Dan

Dan -- I strongly recommend the Photo Mechanic forums (at forums.camerabits.com). They're excellent sources of information on all things Photo Mechanic, as it were. At least one of the devs is a frequent participant there and is consistently (and tirelessly) helpful.

(Responding to one of the other comments in the thread: I work in a software company's documentation department and tend to be harshly critical of most documentation, the majority of which is terrible. I did not find PM's documentation to be "a joke" at all. I think it's far better than the nonsense passing for documentation that, alas, ships with most programs. There are some sections that need work. Some of the more esoteric program features haven't been documented as thoroughly as they should be. But overall, IMO the PM docs are way better than most. And I found that if you spot a mistake in the documentation and point it out to the company, they'll fix it as quickly as they can. This is a breath of fresh air compared with a lot of other companies' attitudes about their docs -- more along the lines of "Yeah, we know, and oh, whatever ... we'll get to it one of these days...maybe.")

[NikoJorj]

I am new to Photo Mechanic and for the life of me cannot get any photos transfered to a hard drive or Lightroom.

I use mainly the Ingest feature, to copy the photos from card to main & backup HD while adding metadata. I do some preliminary editing in contact sheet mode : delete the worst images, rate the others (with stars).
To go to Lightroom, I'm not aware of an automation to import the whole folder into LR : I import it manually. That's not a big hassle.

[NikosR]

To go to Lightroom, I'm not aware of an automation to import the whole folder into LR : I import it manually. That's not a big hassle.

If you don't mind having PM ingesting to the same folder all the time, then you can use LR's Auto Import function to define this folder as a watched folder and have everything that appears there imported automatically.


To the OP:

PM is supported by an extremely good support forum. Use it.