Stacking - Amending Version Control Time Tolerance

[Andre]

Hi everyone
I am fairly new to iMatch and must say what a great DAM it is.  Wish I had started using it long ago.
Anyway, I do a lot of bracketing photography with time differences up to 6 seconds using a strong ND filter.  I would like to change the default time of 2 seconds to 6 but it appears this is not possible.  Am I missing something?  Also, I have tried to include the stepped stages which are the tiff files and then the final jpg into the stack but for some reason it only includes the jpg as long as the jpg contains the same name as one of the raw files.  Any comment will be greatly appreciated.  Pleae see attached image.

[Mario]

Hi, welcome to the community.

The version rule you have created is based on the file name (topmost field in the dialog).
This rule finds versions by looking at the file name of the master (cr2 and cr3 files, in your case) and then searches for versions matching the file name of the master, applying the regular expression in the field link expression.

The time tolerance field is available for version rules which use the EXIF timestamp or GPS timestamp to find versions based on date and time.

See Link Via in the IMatch help for more information.

Maybye Auto-Stacking is what would work better for you?

[Andre]

Thank you for the response Mario.  I thought after playing around a bit more with versions and stacking I would leave some lessons learned for others new to the software and who does bracketing photography.
What I do once I have culled and uploaded the files to iMatch, I add keywords as required to each photo, then process those I think are the best.  Once reading the processed files back into iMatch I create versions and stacks to reduce the number of files on the screen.  I tried a few fancy scripts but found what Mario has as a default is actually the best way to go about it with one change.  Also, keep the versions with the same name as the original - much easier to manage.

• I first create vesions and found it is best to keep the original RAW file on top and not the jpg or tiff file.  You end up with a mixture of versions on the screen (if you keep your original and processed files in the same folder) and I found it confusing when you have a mixture of file types on the screen.
• The one change I made is to add a new VERSION rule whereby a tif file becomes the master and a jpg becomes the version file.  I have done this as some steps in my workflow I have created a tif file with a different name and from that I have created a jpg as the final output.  All my final outputs are jpg's.
• Once completed and all your files have been processed, create versions and then hit the "T" key to group the files.
• Then stack adjusting the time slider as needed using the EXIF time slider in the auto-stacking command box and don't create rules unless you really know what you are doing.  Rules just creat a complication and I found it can corrupt your workflow.
• Once you have done this then use the filter to see the final jpg file only.  This way the only photos on the screen are the final outputs.

This is what I found and as a non-technical person when it comes to software I thought others may benifit from what I learned.  Mario has done a great job with this software and if you use the custom settings it actually works a lot better than trying to be fancy and do things your own way.
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[Mario]

Thanks for sharing your workflow and findings.
We have a special boards to collect tips & tricks, with several sub-boards. Maybe you can copy & paste your post into https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?board=46.0 ?