Workflow: IMatch does it again!

[Jingo]

Just figured I'd pop a quick message to say how happy I am with IMatch... just got a new camera to replace one of my aging wildlife bodies (Olympus OM-1 upgraded from Olumpus Em5-II) and went on 3 water-focused photo shoots this past month.  With the new camera, the shooting modes produce a ridiculous number of burst photos (50-120 FPS) and trying to figure out how to navigate even 10-20 burst photos to cull proved more difficult than I anticipated.

In doing research, I was after a simple method to compare say 20 photos at 75% so I could easily choose a keeper and delete the rest.  I wanted to do this at the "front" end of my workflow.. but couldn't find a decent comparison tool that would do this!  I own and tried: FastRawViewer (4 photo max and not pretty to setup), Photo Mechanic (2 photo max compare), DxO PhotoLab (my RAW editor - no compare - can only compare variants to master), Olympus Workspace (has an AI sharpness tool for bursts.. but the results are odd and the software is clunky).

So - I decided, let's just move culling to the end of the workflow... with my fast computer, it doesn't take long to make edits to a RAW file and apply the edits to the entire burst of photos, export all the images to JPG and bring em over into IMatch....

In IMatch: 

• I grab say 100 images that are either in the burst (!) or very similar, 
• open them in the viewer, 
• select 8 in the filmstrip and zoom to 100%... focus on the bird and then 
• reject all but the very best of them.  
• Rinse and repeat until we are done with the set.  
• I'll then exit the viewer and with my filter set to Hide Rejected Files, I only see the selects.
• I will then choose another stack and repeat the steps.

When the first process is complete, I'll go through and compare some of the keepers again to narrow it down even further (which leads me to a feature request - allow the viewer to also Hide Rejected Files so I can compare the keepers and narrow them down further).

In any event... I think IMatch once again shows just how versatile and powerful it is... Thx Mario!

[Mario]

I'm happy to hear that IMatch helps you with your workflow

One user just wrote check out IMatch - probably the best, unknown DAM (image management suite) on the planet.  over at DPReview. I could do with more helpful comments like that all over the Internet (Hint!, Hint!).

which leads me to a feature request - allow the viewer to also Hide Rejected Files

Filter features like that are built into the File Window.

Hide rejects via the Filter Panel or the Quick Filter and they won't show in the File Window or the Viewer.

I don't think adding the same functionality the Viewer, the Quick View Panel, the Slide Show, etc. would not be useful. It actually would complicate things in the code (I don't like that) and confuse users (users don't like that).
One could also request the Viewer to have it's own search bar or its own Filter Panel, etc. This would never end.

In IMatch, you select the files you want to view in the Viewer in the File Window. 
You can filter using the Quick Filter, the Search Bar and the Filter Panel as needed. Make a "Hide rejects" filter and store it. Recall it anytime from the Filter Panel or Quick Filter ribbon. Then open the Viewer / Slide Show / Design & Print / ...

I do that like, every day, and thanks to the cool Quick Filter, it costs me two clicks only:



and this schema also works for filtering out files with specific labels, or tag values or versions or stacked files or whatever.
Always the same, whatever your filter criteria might be.

Feel free to open a feature request in the FR board, though.

[Jingo]

Hide rejects via the Filter Panel or the Quick Filter and they won't show in the File Window or the Viewer.

Yeah.. I guess I was hoping for a way to hide the rejected images from within the Viewer once you reject them there... kind of like it does in the File Window.  That way, I can continue to narrow down my choices because the images would filter themselves off of the thumbnail bar.

Not worth the can-of-worms this could open up.. I can just continue to reselect them after filtering back in the file window to open them in the viewer again...

[Mario]

hide the rejected images from within the Viewer once you reject them there...

This is what <Del> in the Viewer does. It sets the Delete Mark and the Viewer dims these files in the film strip and jumps over them while navigating. See Delete Action and Skip Images With the Delete Mark for more information.

[Jingo]

Yes.. and that works great. But the images are still shown in the filmstrip with the Red X on them so one needs to selectively choose around all the X's if you want to perform another compare.  

IDEALLY - there would be an option to not include the Delete Mark from the thumbstrip images so one could then just select another group to compare again.

Another Ideal option would be to highlight and start showing images with the first image in the thumbstrip.. not the image that was selected from the File Window.  I often start with the first image in a set, scroll down 40 images and Shift-Select to group all 40 and hit Enter to go to the Viewer.  This loads all 40 images but the image that displays is the last one (the selected image) and the thumbnail that is selected is this last image.

There is a preference to either return to the selected image or the last viewed thumbnail image when going out of the viewer.. I would love to see a similar preference for ENTERING the viewer (first group image or selected image).  

[Mario]

The FAQ board is not the place to post or discuss feature requests. It's for posting tutorials and tips for other users.