Moving and / or deleting sidecar files

[Stefanjan]

I have RAW files processed in both DXO Photolab 4 and ON1 Photo Raw. Sometimes versions processed in both.

When I move or delete the .CR2, the .xmp file is also moved or deleted but not the .dop or .on1 sidecars.

Should these files be moved / deleted and how do I do this.

I thought I was asked when installing imatch a couple of days ago but it does not seem to be working.

[Mario]

IMatch knows about and automatically manages XMP files.
If your editing software produces other buddy files, you need to let IMatch know via Edit > Preferences > File Relations.

You need to create a buddy file relation which tells IMatch the extensions of buddy files for your CR2 files.
See: File Relations: Buddy Files

Just add all the various extensions your other software produces in a .CR2 buddy rule. IMatch then takes care for them, moving, renaming, deleting them as needed.
Use the Test command available with some of your real file names and buddy file names to ensure that your rule is working and grabbing the right files. Make sure the files are found, especially when your other software has the habit of putting buddy files in sub-folders.

Let us know if you need help with this. And show us some files names and how your files look in Windows Explorer (unless the buddy files are always in the same folder as the CR2).

[Stefanjan]

Hi Mario,

Thanks for your reply

The buddy files are all in the same folder and could look like this.

IMG_3164.CR2
IMG_3164.CR2.dop
IMG_3164.on1
IMG_3164.xmp
IMG_3164_DxO_Processed.jpg
IMG_3164_Nik.tif
IMG_3164_Nik.tif.dop
IMG_3164_Nik_DxO_Processed.jpg

[Mario]

Nothing unusual here. Just a quite hard to handle naming convention. Does DxO really append DxO_Processed to your file names?

Did you create a buddy file for your CR2 and TIFF files?
Do they work? If not, show us what you did.
Note: Do not create a buddy file rule for XMP files.

[bekesizl]

Here is the relevant part of my buddy/version rules for RAW files, their derivatives and DXO+ON1 sidecars.

DxO Sidecar (buddy)
\.(cr3|cr2|nef|tif|tiff|jpg|jpeg|dng|nef|rw2|raf|srw|arw)$
/^_*//
^{name}{ext}\.dop$

ON1 sidecar (buddy)
\.(cr3|cr2|nef|tif|tiff|jpg|jpeg|dng|nef|rw2|raf|srw|arw)$
/^_*//
^{name}\.on1$

RAW (buddy+version)
\.(cr3|cr2|nef|rw2|raf|srw|arw)$
/^_*//
^(_*{name})[+\-_]*[0-9|a-z]*\.(jpg|jpeg|dng|tif|tiff|afphoto|psd|heic)$

These rules will result in following Master/Version/Buddy relations

• Master: IMG_3164.CR2
• Buddy: IMG_3164.CR2.dop
• Buddy: IMG_3164.on1
• Buddy (automatic): IMG_3164.xmp
• Version1: IMG_3164_DxO_Processed.jpg
• Version2: IMG_3164_Nik.tif
• Buddy of Version2: IMG_3164_Nik.tif.dop
• Version3: IMG_3164_Nik_DxO_Processed.jpg

[Mario]

Thanks for sharing! 

[Stefanjan]

Here is the relevant part of my buddy/version rules for RAW files, their derivatives and DXO+ON1 sidecars.

Thank you Mario,

I don't quite understand how, but that seemed to work. I need to read the literature again with a fresh brain.  I cut the files on imatch and pasted in another folder. All of the sidecar files moved as well.

Did I understand correctly that RAW (buddy+version) means create one rule RAW (buddy) and one rule RAW (version) with the same parameters. That's what I did for the last example you kindly provided.

Should these files be automatically stacking? That part doesn't seem to work.  Although I can manually stack the files using SHIFT S.

[Stefanjan]

Does DxO really append DxO_Processed to your file names?

In DXO you have the option of adding a suffix when exporting a file. I used "DxO_Processed" when I was using Adobe Bridge so that I could identify the finalised image but that should not be necessary with imatch as a better workflow will be to simply stack the images.

[Mario]

A version rule is only needed if you want to do versioning. Buddy files and version rules are separate - because you might need only one of both. Or version files which are not buddy files (often, buddy files are not part of the database anyway).

Version stacking is automatic.
The versions are hidden under the master when they are in the same scope - unless you override this in the File Window or you expand the version stack. You can always tell by the icons in the File Window.

[Mario]

In DXO you have the option of adding a suffix when exporting a file.

You are free to make your naming convention as complicated as you with. As long as you can make IMatch detect your versions / buddy files via regular expressions, you are fine.
I have found, and many pro's agree, that simple and consistent is the way to go.