Versions or Stack questions

[rolandgifford]

I'm evaluating IMatch. I have been using Photo Supreme and IDImager before that for some years so DAM principles aren't completely new but the way that IMatch behaves is new to me.

A longish post as I hope the background helps someone give me better guidance, possibly in a direction I haven't even considered.

I've never been sure about the difference between versions and stacks (which appear very similar to me) so am happy to use whichever fits my workflow best.

My camera is set to produce raw and jpg files and I load these to a folder for the trip and identify them as a version pair. Initially I will apply summary categories identifying the trip/country/year and a category to indicate that I haven't evaluated this one yet. Volume is anything up to 10,000 photos per trip. I take bird photos mainly. I then look at multiple photos together in the viewer to decide which ones to keep and which to discard, the Quick View panel will no doubt help clear out the ones which are simply awful. Up till now I have set a photo to be deleted with 5 stars so that I can then delete them all together later. I do it this way because I sometimes want to check again. I only want to see the jpgs in the file viewer and I have found that I can achieve that with filters. As I progress I remove phots I've looked at from the not checked category and will drive my file viewer display from that category.

After the first pass I assign the rest of the categories to photos I haven't initially deleted, generally species but sometimes others. I will also re-add the category to indicate that I haven't checked yet. I then go through again species by species culling some more.

When I have finished this I look at all of the photos that I am keeping in Affinity and will possibly do some editing and create an afphoto file and an exported jpg in a sub-folder from the trip folder called Affinity. Having done this I want to add these afphoto and jpg (and sometimes dng if I have used Topaz denoise) files into the same version set/stack with the jpg in the Affinity folder as the display in the file viewer.

I have played with the File Relations settings and I can build a version set with the initial pair and with the afphoto file in the Affinity folder but not the jpg file in the Affinity folder. I've also managed to get the afphoto file as the displayed file in the File manager but that it primarily by luck rather than knowing what I'm doing. I'm not clear at all what "Use this version" means on the versioning tab. Does it mean matched on this rule? What if a set of three files is matched by the rule?

If I select multiple files showing the afphoto, the viewer show what I assume to be the base file. How do I get it to display the afphoto file? I actually want the jpg in the Affinity folder but that isn't in the version set yet.
 

[Mario]

I've never been sure about the difference between versions and stacks (which appear very similar to me) so am happy to use whichever fits my workflow best.

Stacks allow you to group any number of files to reduce the clutter in File Windows.
You can create stacks manually or using the Auto-Stacking feature.

The versions concept enables IMatch to propagate (copy) metadata, categories, ratings, labels etc.  from masters to versions.
The master and all its versions automatically form a version stack.

Which one of these you use (or both) depends on whether or not you want to automatically copy metadata, categories, collections, Attributes. And for which of your files.

I have played with the File Relations settings and I can build a version set with the initial pair and with the afphoto file in the Affinity folder but not the jpg file in the Affinity folder.

This is not enough information.
Show us your folder layout, the file names you use and the version rule you have created and the settings you use (make screen shots of both tabs in the file relation dialog and attach them).
This allows us to tell you what the problem is and how to fix it.

I've also managed to get the afphoto file as the displayed file in the File manager but that it primarily by luck rather than knowing what I'm doing.

I assume you mean the File Window, not File Manager?
IMatch has no problems with rendering previews for the proprietary Affinity file formats, provided that Affinity software is installed.

I'm not clear at all what "Use this version" means on the versioning tab.

Did you read Uses in the Versioning Help?

Basically, you can tell IMatch to use a version instead of the master for display purposes.

For example, if you develop your master file in a RAW processor and save the resulting image as a version. If you make a version a visual proxy, IMatch will use the version (the developed file) instead of the undeveloped master to render thumbnails in File Windows, in the Viewer etc.

The version stack proxy does does something similar. It tells IMatch the image to use when you collapse a version stack. Some users want to see the master, some users want to see whatever image they consider as final for a version set in this case.

See the help for all details.

If I select multiple files showing the afphoto, the viewer show what I assume to be the base file.

Not clear what you mean here. If you select multiple files and open the Viewer, the Viewer will show all selected files.
If not, you are probably working with a version set and you have enabled a visual proxy.

Again, as said above: if you have problems with making IMatch detecting versions correctly, we need to see your folder layout, the file names you use, the file relation you have created, and the options you have enabled. This gives us the information we need to give advice. All else would be guesswork.

Also note that you can attach screen shots to your posts (JPEG format). This allows you to show us what you see, which can be very helpful to diagnose issues or better understand what you are seeing.