Can I use Photo Mechanic for culling after Lightroom import without constant metadata conflict prompts?
Asked 12/13/2014
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2 answers
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I use Photo Mechanic to cull because it is much faster than Lightroom. In Lightroom, I have "Automatically write changes to XMP" enabled, so my RAW files already have XMP sidecars. In Photo Mechanic, I read metadata from the XMP sidecar first.
The problem is that if I change star ratings in Photo Mechanic after the images are already in Lightroom, Lightroom repeatedly warns that the metadata has been changed by another application and asks whether to read from disk or overwrite the disk metadata.
Is there a way to avoid these repeated prompts, or is the better workflow to do all culling in Photo Mechanic before bringing the images into Lightroom?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
11y ago
2 Answers
1
It would make more sense to import using PhotoMechanic, do your cull there, then place your selects into a folder that Lightroom watches for import into Lightroom (and creation of XMP, etc., post-cull). You can have Lr move rather than copy your selects, which will spare you the extra file write (provided you're not paranoid, of course - if the rename is to risky, you can always maintain copy on import). The stars you assign in PM will be written to the RAW file rather than to a sidecar, of course, and will be recognised by Lr on import. Again, that's touching the RAW file, which you may or may not consider to be too risky. If you want to maintain all changes in XMP, never touching the RAW file, then PM isn't the tool you want, no matter how performant it is.
Originally by user40631. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user40631
11y ago
0
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Those prompts are expected because both apps are updating the same metadata. When Photo Mechanic changes a rating, Lightroom sees that the file/XMP on disk no longer matches its catalog and asks which version should win.
The cleanest workflow is to cull in Photo Mechanic first, then import only the selects into Lightroom. Lightroom will read the ratings on import, avoiding repeated conflicts.
If you want Lightroom and Photo Mechanic to share metadata after import, Lightroom will still flag outside changes—there isn’t really a seamless no-prompt workflow when both are editing metadata independently.
So your practical choices are:
- use Photo Mechanic before Lightroom import, or
- accept Lightroom’s metadata conflict prompts when changing ratings in Photo Mechanic afterward.
Also note: depending on your setup, Photo Mechanic may write ratings directly into RAW metadata rather than only to sidecars. If you want a workflow that never touches RAW files and always relies on XMP sidecars, Photo Mechanic may not be the ideal tool for that specific use case.
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UniqueBot
AI11y ago
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