Hi again,

I wanted to give a quick update since my last post. We have abandoned that approach. Since then we've been trying out this routine, using two separate catalog files:

Each morning, both people select ALL images, Sync/Import/Replace Current
Work during the day tagging etc. while making sure we are not working on the same group of images (this is possible b/c there's only 2 of us)
At end of day, each person does a Find/Front catalog/Annotated (today's date), Show all. Select images, then Sync/Export.
If you made a new catalog or edited an existing catalog -- you make a Notepad file and send it via email for the other person to import the next day.

So far we have run into these issues:

- "Sync All" does not always work. At least, not on such a large group of images. Keywords we know are there, don't appear after doing the sync. Sometimes they show up if you select just that image and sync, sometimes they show up if you remove the image from the catalog and re-import, sometimes they randomly show up later on, sometimes they don't show up. Also, checking the "include catalog sets" box doesn't seem to do anything.

- Problems with the Notepad file. When you're trying to import a catalog set, the Notepad window may sometimes show your list of images with a red "?" instead of a thumbnail. I'm not sure what could be triggering this. If you create a set from this, the Organize Panel displays the total number of images you're supposed to have but the viewer area only shows the images with no "?", which is concerning, because then your number counts are off.

- If one person deletes a physical folder, the other person gets a "?" This usually isn't a big deal as the other person can just remove that ? folder.

Hope this adds to the general knowledgebase out there and any advice on the above issues would be much appreciated as well.

-Becky

I accidentally posted this in a different thread. Here's where it was meant to go...

---------

One more from me!

I sort of found a way to do this, posted about here:

http://thedambook.com/smf/index.php?topic=4878.msg27420#msg27420

Now I am trying to get my ACR edits, made in Bridge to the DNG, to show up in Expression. I started with a JPEG, converted it to DNG through Camera Raw with no changes.

I then made obvious edits in ACR to the DNG in Bridge/Camera Raw, clicked Done. The thumbnail in Bridge updated.

The folder was not yet in my EM2 catalog, so I imported it. The thumbnail for the DNG did not reflect my edits. I tried Rebuild Item; no change.

If I make the PIE edits in Camera Raw PRIOR to saving the image as DNG, they do show in the thumbnail when importing to EM2. However, if I make a further PIE edit in Camera Raw, and click Done to dismiss ACR, the thumbnail doesn't change in EM2. I tried Rebuild Item; no change.

I then removed the folder from the catalog and re-imported. My original PIE edits showed up, but not the second set. Again, no change with Rebuild Item.

If I choose Save Image within ACR (instead of "Done") I get a second DNG -- it doesn't replace the first one -- and this second DNG does reflect my most recent PIE edited in the EM2 thumbnail.

So, all of this is basically evidence in favor of Peter's recommendation in the DAM book that you make your edits before cataloguing in EM2; once they're in the catalogue, that is the "permanent" home and if you make PIE edits later it should be treated as a derivative file workflow.

Again... Picasa sucks for a lot of reasons... but for PIE editing on the fly, albeit with a limited toolset, it was super smooth... grass is always greener, I guess.

-Becky

Agg... I apologize, this was supposed to be a response in a different thread, and I'm not seeing a way to delete.

-Becky

One more from me!

I sort of found a way to do this, posted about here:

http://thedambook.com/smf/index.php?topic=4878.msg27420#msg27420

Now I am trying to get my ACR edits, made in Bridge to the DNG, to show up in Expression. I started with a JPEG, converted it to DNG through Camera Raw with no changes.

I then made obvious edits in ACR to the DNG in Bridge/Camera Raw, clicked Done. The thumbnail in Bridge updated.

The folder was not yet in my EM2 catalog, so I imported it. The thumbnail for the DNG did not reflect my edits. I tried Rebuild Item; no change.

If I make the PIE edits in Camera Raw PRIOR to saving the image as DNG, they do show in the thumbnail when importing to EM2. However, if I make a further PIE edit in Camera Raw, and click Done to dismiss ACR, the thumbnail doesn't change in EM2. I tried Rebuild Item; no change.

I then removed the folder from the catalog and re-imported. My original PIE edits showed up, but not the second set. Again, no change with Rebuild Item.

If I choose Save Image within ACR (instead of "Done") I get a second DNG -- it doesn't replace the first one -- and this second DNG does reflect my most recent PIE edited in the EM2 thumbnail.

So, all of this is basically evidence in favor of Peter's recommendation in the DAM book that you make your edits before cataloguing in EM2; once they're in the catalogue, that is the "permanent" home and if you make PIE edits later it should be treated as a derivative file workflow.

Again... Picasa sucks for a lot of reasons... but for PIE editing on the fly, albeit with a limited toolset, it was super smooth... grass is always greener, I guess.

-Becky

Well, a baby step forward,

Following advice found here
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/398363

I opened a JPEG image in Camera Raw. By choosing Save Image (lower-left button in CS4) you get an option to save as DNG.

You can select all images in a folder and save them as DNG this way.

-Becky

Hi Ric,

Did you ever solve this problem?

I am using DNG Converter 6.3.079 and it does not convert JPG to DNG. It skips those files.

Image Ingester Pro yields a folder with no DNG files. I get the JPGs plus an additional XMP file for each JPG.

Is there ANY way to do this without Lightroom?

-Becky

As a little follow-up, if I save the JPEGs as TIFFs (using Bridge, through Tools>Photoshop>Image Processing) then I see the PIE edits in the TIFFs when I import them into Expression. However, if I then made a further edit in ACR on the TIFF, it doesn't show up in Expression. I guess I would need to re-export another TIFF for every editing session?

This part of the equation was all a lot easier in Picasa!

-Becky

Apologies for posting in an old thread. Is it true that this issue still exists? I would like to be able to work with JPEG files in ACR and then move into cataloguing with Expression Media. The PIE edits I made in ACR are not showing up in the Expression thumbnails. I'm not opposed to converting them (although it may prove too cumbersome) but can't even find a way to do that! The DNG converter doesn't recognize my JPEG files. We don't have Lightroom.

-Becky

Hi Roberte,

Thanks for the response and advice.

At the moment AtomicView (server) or Portfolio isn't an option for us. I am therefore hoping to implement a not-too-intense system which would allow both of us to work with images and not drift out of sync for more than a day. It SEEMS like it should be possible... but the best laid plans...

For a few weeks we followed the below scenario, with the images on the shared drive and each machine with its own local EM catalog, Primary and Secondary:

Primary works and saves on the catalog.
Secondary determines which group she needs to work on, alerts Primary to not work with that group.
At end of day, Secondary does a Sync Annotations > Export on JUST those images.
At end of day, Secondary emails a Notepad file if she has made any new catalog sets (or altered an existing set.)
Both Primary and Secondary quit EM at end of day.

During the night, two backup routines run:
1. The Primary catalog replaces the Secondary catalog.
2. The Notepad file for Secondary is copied into the Primary folder. (This is optional since we're also emailing the Notepad file, but what ends up happening is that the email just serves as an alert that the Notepad file has been changed, and this backup routines saves Primary having to manually copy the Notepad file over)

In the morning:
Primary selects ALL images in the catalog and does a Sync Annotations> Import > Merge (prefer original file)
Primary checks email to see if there is a new Notepad file. If there is, she uses it to update catalog sets.

It sounds complicated, but actually (with the help of a post-it on each computer) it was pretty easy to follow. We did see some red question marks when one or the other of us renamed or moved files, but it seemed manageable.

However, as those of you with more experience will probably NOT be surprised by, we ran into trouble yesterday when we were under deadline and both needed to work with the same group of images. Here is what happened:

Secondary imported the images and started adding keywords and other annotations (Title, Job Identifier).
For various reasons we needed to switch Primary onto that task while Secondary worked on something else. So Secondary did a Sync Annotations > Export.
Primary then imported the new folder and the keywords were there.
Primary then continued to work on the images by adding keywords and other annotations.

The day ended. We both closed the program.
During the night, the backup routines ran, as described above.

In the morning, Primary (following protocol) selected all images and did a Sync Annotations > Import > Merge (prefer original file.)
Of course, some of the keywords and annotations she had added the day before were lost. Not all, because she selected Merge, but those which conflicted with the original file (Secondary's work from yesterday) overwrote her new ones. And in some cases, Secondary had added annotations into other fields which had been deleted by Primary (as not necessary) and of course those appeared again after the import.

So... I think I understand the problem, but not what to do. I feel like I'm playing a chess game with a much better player, who will outwit my every move!

Any advice would be SO appreciated. I am going to look at the Phase One forums and the old MS forums as well.

I know the program is not built to be networked. But it seems like, with only two (reasonably) intelligent people involved we should be able to figure something out?

-Becky

Hi,

We are on iMacs running Snow Leopard and we also have this problem.

-Becky

Hello,

I am working on an image bank primarily of artwork documentation. On page 105 of the DAM Book 2nd edition, there is a partial list of IPTC fields which includes a group specifically related to photographs of artwork; for example, "Artwork or Object in the Image", Artwork Creator" etc. Perfect! Only problem is I am not seeing this in the Info panel in EM2. All the Show/Hide field checkboxes are checked to Show.

Maybe we could see these in Bridge? But I would rather not mess with Bridge since we have two people trying to both work on the catalog and I'm afraid that would introduce some bad variables.

Am I just missing the obvious?

-Becky

Continuing to update in case any lurkers find this useful (or, hopefully, in case anyone has a helpful suggestion!)

In the past month we've been experimenting with EM2 for two, as discussed above. We've found that the "record locking" scenario described in the Microsoft forums I linked above doesn't work as described.

What is supposed to happen is that only the first person to open the file is able to edit and save changes, while the second person (and any theoretical people thereafter) can only work with a read-only version of the catalog. If it worked this way, it would be fine for us.

What happens in practice is that if two people have the catalogue open, then neither one can save changes. It will let you make all the changes you want, but won't save them. Worse, there is no error message to tell you so. You can choose Save from the File menu, and you can have Auto-Save turned on, and it just silently fails to do so.

Only when you try to quit the file will it ask if you want to save. Unfortunately, you can't until the other person has closed out of the file.

We each have an iMac running Snow Leopard. Are other people experiencing this behavior? Suggestions for a workaround? I guess we could set up a "distribution catalog" scenario but I was hoping to avoid that.

-Becky

Hi Michael -- sorry, forgot to sign my post above.

I didn't find a solution which satisfied me -- which would have been a way within LR to search for dates in the Image Taken IPTC field.

(I don't understand BTW why one can't just search on every available term??)

There are a number of workarounds one can implement (altering the Capture Date or storing the Image Taken date in a keyword are two) but neither made me happy. I wanted to preserve the Capture Date as a separate piece of data (knowing when I scanned an image is important to me) and using a keyword seemed like sort of a hack, although I know it's totally do-able for certain things.

Like I said, I'm trying out EM now instead...

-Becky

Yes, you can definitely do that. I've been trying LR out recently for a negative scanning project and that part was easy. I ran into problems with associating the correct date with the material though. I posted about it in the LR section here:

http://thedambook.com/smf/index.php?topic=4840.0

Because of this (and other things, but mainly this) I've abandoned LR for now in favor of EM2.


I came away from the book thinking that the DNG option is decidedly better, see ch. 2.

Hi all,

Is anyone using the baked-in tools in Expression Media to edit their images? (Crop, Saturation, Color Balance, Levels etc.)

I'm playing with it and can't quite tell what I'm doing. Is it PIE? There is support for image versioning.

Alternately, is there a way to open TIFFs or JPEGs using Adobe Camera Raw as a Helper Application? MS Help indicates you can do this, and I have added the Camera Raw plugin as a helper app but nothing happens when I select it. Does it have to be a RAW file? The same image opens in Camera Raw fine from within Bridge. But it'd be nice to stay in EM...

-Becky