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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Ingest/transmitting/processing-lightroom vs. Photo Mechanic
David Welker, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Springfield | MO | USA | Posted: 7:23 PM on 03.07.10 |
->> So I am building a new computer and am working on a new processing system and workflow. Since I am planning on working both a desktop system and a laptop system, I am looking into new ingesting, and processing options.
I currently use lightroom on my laptop, but am looking into photo mechanic to move to my laptop for doing transmitting and processing on the run and moving lightroom to the desktop. Does anyone have any experience with both of theses systems and their opinions of the pros and cons of each?
Is it pointless to have both running on the same machine?
I have downloaded the trial version of photo mechanic and I am trying to get use to all of the features but i feel like I am missing something. |
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Joel Hawksley, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Athens | OH | USA | Posted: 7:44 PM on 03.07.10 |
| ->> How much post-processing do you do right now? I've found that PM makes the most sense when the images you're working with don't require much, if any toning. What role does LR have in your workflow? |
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Steven Limentani, Photographer
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Charlotte | NC | United States | Posted: 7:55 PM on 03.07.10 |
| ->> IMHO the benefit of PM is the speed with which you can review and sort images. LR is slow because of it's refresh rate giving a pause when you move between images before you get final focus of the image. I could never get used to this and moved to PM. But, many use LR to import, sort and post-process. If you use PM then you must use an additional program for post-processing eg CS4. |
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David Welker, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Springfield | MO | USA | Posted: 8:01 PM on 03.07.10 |
->> LR is my major part of my workflow right now. I import, edit (typically- exposure,crop, some other stuff if needed), then import to Photoshop- Reduce noise (if needed) and sharpen, save (goes back into LR), export.
When doing larger projects like weddings and such I can use Lightroom because of it's cataloging is easy. |
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Brad Barr, Photographer
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Port St. Lucie | FL | USA | Posted: 8:18 PM on 03.07.10 |
->> PM is substantially faster at ingesting and culling than LR. You can be well into the culling long before LR is done ingesting, let alone building previews. For sports PM is no brainer. Its simply a far better tool. For weddings, doing the culling in PM then color corrections is LR is how I do it. There is no reason to then go into PS just to sharpen or reduce noise, LR can do this ably as well. For weddings, I just dont use PS any longer as its much faster to do it all within LR (after the culling). If you must use LR to cull...it can go pretty fast if you have it build 1:1 previews...then walk away...and cull in LIBRARY mode after its made the previews. Culling in the Dev mode is just too slow as it builds an additional preview..thus slowing the preview load times significantly.
As for which on which...pm on laptop...but also LR and PS on the laptop if you actually are gonna use it. Desktop..Def LR and PS...you can have PS on 3 I believe, and LR doesnt seem to care...PM i think is a single license so laptop makes more sense. |
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David Welker, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Springfield | MO | USA | Posted: 8:32 PM on 03.07.10 |
->> Brad,
I appreciate your insight. Thanks!
The reason I had been doing noise/sharpening in PS is because I found it easier to see the detail verses LR. |
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Dave Einsel, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Houston | TX | United States | Posted: 8:39 PM on 03.07.10 |
| ->> Ask 10 people and you will get 10 different answers but I believe there is no faster way to ingest, apply boiler plate IPTC, and first edit than PhotoMechanic and there is no better way to batch process/crop files than Lightroom. So, I use PM as described above and save the selects to an "edit" folder. The "edit" folder is then imported into LR where processing is done and then exported to a "xmit" folder. The last step is to apply final captioning in PM (because I absolutely hate the LR IPTC interface) and send. It may sound like extra steps but I find it beats opening, processing and saving individual files in PhotoShop. This works well for both RAW and JPG files. |
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Brian Dowling, Photographer
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Philadelphia | PA | USA | Posted: 9:01 PM on 03.07.10 |
->> I do what Dave does. Importing 500 shots into LR will take forever where PM will be able to load up the thumbs in 20 seconds. If you ingest with PM, you can start selecting keepers right away instead of waiting for the whole card to download as well.
One thing I haven't figured out is a way to "pick" an image in PM and have it show up in LR for when I get home and import all my files into LR. |
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David Welker, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Springfield | MO | USA | Posted: 9:04 PM on 03.07.10 |
->> Brian,
So do you use LR more for archiving? |
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Joel Hawksley, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Athens | OH | USA | Posted: 10:47 PM on 03.07.10 |
->> All of these responses pretty much paint the same picture, David. Use Photo Mechanic when speed matters, and at least to ingest/cull for everything else. I find my editing habits have formed around PM's interface, so I found myself using it even when speed isn't an issue.
I do use Aperture/Lightroom when I need to tone stuff, but if anything, using PM has encouraged me to get everything right in camera, which has cut down my post time much more than any piece of software ever could. |
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David Welker, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Springfield | MO | USA | Posted: 11:02 PM on 03.07.10 |
| ->> thanks for the input Joel, I appreciate it! |
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Kevin M. Cox, Photographer, Assistant
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Galveston & Houston | TX | US | Posted: 11:15 PM on 03.07.10 |
| ->> A point of clarification: A single license of Photo Mechanic allows you to install on both a desktop and a laptop as long as both copies are not in use at the same time. |
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David Welker, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Springfield | MO | USA | Posted: 11:18 PM on 03.07.10 |
| ->> cool thanks for the fyi Kevin! |
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Khai Le, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Riverside | CA | USA | Posted: 1:52 AM on 03.08.10 |
->> I'm using Photo Mechanic to ingest. I tag my selects then use the color label to narrow it down even further and caption.
I import the folder containing my images into Lightroom and have it display only the images I color labeled (Lightroom unfortunately doesn't recognize images that are flagged with the lock button on the camera or through Photo Mechanic but does recognize Photo Mechanic's color labels).
I then use Lightroom to do the final editing and transmitting. |
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David Welker, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Springfield | MO | USA | Posted: 6:33 PM on 03.08.10 |
->> I think its interesting that some are using both. I am working on the trial of PM now to see how I like it exactly and how my workflow works.
I need to get to understanding the code replacement, etc. |
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Joel Hawksley, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Athens | OH | USA | Posted: 6:41 PM on 03.08.10 |
| ->> The main reason for using lightroom/aperture these days is presets, if you're shooting RAW. It's easier to batch WB correct, for example. |
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Kent Nishimura, Student/Intern
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Honolulu | HI | USA | Posted: 7:19 PM on 03.08.10 |
->> David,
I used to use Lightroom for everything, then i found out about Photo Mechanic, and have been using it ever since. I switched to Aperture from LR for purely archival reasons, and use primarily PM and CS4 for my workflow. hope that helps.
aloha! |
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Thomas Boyd, Photographer
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Portland | OR | USA | Posted: 8:24 PM on 03.08.10 |
| ->> Kent: Using Aperture 3 in the field would be way faster than a Photo Mechanic/CS4 workflow. You can start working on images before they're even off the card. Then, you never have to open them in CS4 at all. I would keep Photo Mechanic for transmitting the exported images though. |
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David Welker, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Springfield | MO | USA | Posted: 8:39 PM on 03.08.10 |
->> Joel/Kent,
Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it. |
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Neil Turner, Photographer
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Bournemouth | UK | United Kingdom | Posted: 7:17 AM on 03.09.10 |
->> I have stopped ingesting all of my files. I am aware that I overshoot and therefore go through a contact sheet in Photo Mechanic from the card and then copy the selected files to a "RAW" folder. On average I actually copy one third of the pictures that I shoot which, when you shoot with 5D MkII bodies, is a huge time saving.
Photo Mechanic is amazingly quick for selecting, batch renaming and IPTC captioning. Code replacement, hierarchical keywording and the seemingly limitless abilities of the variables tabs all go together to make me use Photo Mechanic and evangelise about it to my colleagues.
I cannot imagine how long this would take in Lightroom and I have yet to see what Aperture can offer to help my workflow - despite trying every trial version they produce.
Out of habit, I do my RAW conversions using ACR in Photoshop CS4 and I still cannot see any advantages to using ACR in Lightroom. The same workflow exists on my laptop and desktop machines and I use Extensis Portfolio as a long-term catalogue. |
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Mike Burley, Photographer
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Chicago | IL | USA | Posted: 9:02 AM on 03.09.10 |
| ->> I shoot raw, sort / caption in PM, and tone in LR. I find its quicker than when I used to go PM -> PS. |
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Alan Maglaque, Photographer
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South Plainfield | NJ | USA | Posted: 9:25 AM on 03.09.10 |
| ->> PM and LR are a match made in heaven. You can do all you ingestion, review, selection, captioning in PM and then only import the selected images into LR for minor tweaking of the images. |
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David Russell, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 10:37 AM on 03.13.10 |
->> I do almost exactly what you're planning. I have Photo Mechanic on my laptop; it's the fastest way of meeting deadlines. And when I shoot RAW + JPG it keeps them paired so when I number files they correspond. Very helpful.
If a file needs some special attention, I can always open the RAW in Photoshop.
I just re-archived all my files in my office to start a new workflow there, for which I'll use Lightroom to catalog everything.
I'm considering adding Capture One to my laptop for the times I shoot tethered on location. |
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David Welker, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Springfield | MO | USA | Posted: 2:46 PM on 03.13.10 |
| ->> Thanks for all of the help everyone. I think I am going to go forward with everything that I have planned so far. Again, Thanks for all the suggestions/inputs. |
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Lane Hickenbottom, Photographer
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Omaha | NE | usa | Posted: 4:21 PM on 03.13.10 |
| ->> I use them both and don't understand why you wouldn't put both on both computers. Each software license allows for it. |
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Stanley Leary, Photographer
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Roswell | GA | USA | Posted: 1:26 PM on 03.14.10 |
->> I agree with Lane. I use both. PM is quick for ingesting and editing in comparison to Lightroom.
I don't like the forced library system of Lightroom. I love the image processing of lightroom. |
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Steven Limentani, Photographer
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Charlotte | NC | United States | Posted: 4:38 PM on 03.14.10 |
| ->> I am surprised that people have talked about the importance of batch adjustment with LR only. For my workflow, I ingest RAW pictures into PM but then after sorting and tagging I batch adjust and crop in ACR. Depending on how much more I want to do with the images I may simply save as JPEGs from there or open them in CS4. Can someone explain to me what the advantage of LR is compared to this approach? |
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