Tethered/Auto Import

So Lightroom 2's out, but still no tethering support. What's frustrating me is that I can live without inbuilt tether support but please give me an alternative! I can use my own program to download images on demand from my camera (http://www.mountainstorm.co.uk/photography/Software/Software.html) and an "Auto Import" folder ... but it then takes forever for Lightroom to import them. Now I know its not actually the import thats the problem but the time it takes Lightroom to detect the new image. I've tried moving rather than copying the image into the dir. I've tried using a RAM disk as the auto import folder and all to no avail. I've even written a nice applescript which calls the open action the uses the UI scripting to click the dialog, change back to "All Photographs" and into develop, this is FAR quicker than auto import but the UI flickers all over the place as dialogs appear and disappear.
Please, Please, Please give me an import SDK, or at least an applescript way of importing a new photo without effecting Lightroom. All I want is a way to have Lightroom in the develop module, with "show highlight/lowlights" enabled and then prod Lightroom to add my new file and show it as the current one in develop. I can then use left/right arrows to compare this photo with others I've just taken.
Please help .. I've just managed to write a script which adds images directly via the DB, but I can't get Lightroom to show them without a restart so I'm obviously serious about doing this.
Arrrggghhh
Rich

I've just done a major update to my Lightroom Tethering plugin (v3.3 beta). It now uses my StudioTether for all camera control/error reporting and progress; this should solve the whole loosing your nameplate issue, amongst many others.
Most notably I've actually sorted out "enhanced mode", I've even changed the name as it got bad press :) its now called "custom extensions" and is off by default. I've actually got the SDK docs from Nikon now so it actually works reliably (for me at any rate). I've also added LiveView which it turns out works at around 60fps not the dodgy 10fps NikonCaturePro gives you .... although this needs some work as it can stall after a few minutes. Its currently up on my website:
http://www.mountainstorm.co.uk
Please have a play and report back. So you know my things to do list is:
* fix bugs
* fix liveview so it doesn't stall (might be a memory leak)
* allow recording of LiveView to file :)
* fix PPC support (I need to swap some bytes)
* get moderns Canons working (proving difficult as I don't have one)
If you have a problem, give me a shout and I'll see about fixing it (assuming work and the rest of my real life doesn't get too busy again).
Oh and after seeing Michael's video I thought "what a great idea", Im working on my own one as we speak. I didn't fancy paying for a program to record my screen so I wrote one (called DesktopRecorder) its a bit bare bones but if anyones interested its on my website :)
Good hunting
Rich

Similar Messages

Improve auto-import for tethered capture...

Simply add an option to have new images automatically inherit the develop settings of the previous image (all settings including crop).
Currently, when shooting tethered, I capture and adjust an image - but before I can go back to camera I need to create a new develop preset and point to it in auto-import settings (simply re-saviing the current preset doesn't work). However, this doesn't consistently hold the crop -- and so much commercial work is shot to a specific layout or proportion. Instead, I rely on the previous and/or sync function. Ideally, there would be a way to know that the new images would easily auto import with the same look as previous photos.
Thanks,
Andy

This would be more readily solved by adding crop to develop presets, which is useful for other purposes also.

Lightroom auto import/tethered shooting strangeness

Hello, I'm trying to work out a tethered shooting workflow for the 1Ds MKIII that can keep up with a fairly rapid lifestyle shooter. I'm on a Windows XP system, 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 duo system with 3 GB of ram. I'm seeing this same behavior in LR 1.3 and LR 2.0 beta.
I've followed the steps Martin Evening outlines on his blog (Canon EOS utility in conjunction with Lighroom auto import) here http://lightroom-news.com/2008/02/07/shooting-tethered-with-the-canon-eos-1ds-mkiii/ and everything is working _almost_ smoothly.
When I fire off a single frame with the camera, it takes about 5 seconds for the Canon EOS utility to copy the file to the hard drive and for lightroom to see and move the file from the watched folder to the destination folder. This seems reasonable.
However, when I start shooting at a normal pace (approximately 1 frame a second) it seems like Lightroom stops watching the watched folder until I stop shooting for an extended period of time.
I would have thought Lightroom checked the folder at a standard interval, every 5 seconds or so. However, if I snap, say 40 frames at the rate of 1 a second, Lightroom doesn't realize there are new images in the watched folder until I stop shooting and let the camera's buffer empty out.
Has anyone else seen this behavior? Does anyone know if there is a registry hack to force lightroom to check the watched folder more frequently? Even better would be a hook, like a command line switch, that tells LR to check the watched folder immediately. The EOS utility 'linked software' preference could be configured to call this hook, and would result in much snappier performance.
Thanks for the help,
Andris

Hi Andris,
It strikes me that you have hit the maximum buffer that the combination of the Windows OS, EOS Utility and Lightroom are capable of managing. As you will have read in the report, I was able to fine-tune the tethered import to a rate of 3 seconds per capture image. This was with an Intel iMac 2.8 GHz duo core running Windows XP with 4 GB RAM. So a little faster than your Windows machine, which would explain why my download tests were faster.
Look at it this way. There is the usual buffer of up to 12 frames on the camera in raw mode, which when combined with the 2 seconds it takes to transfer say, 25MB data from the camera to the computer via USB 2. This means that you can shoot at a rate of 1 frame per second, but will soon hit the camera buffer first in around 20 seconds or so at that rate. it takes about a further 1 second for the files to auto import into Lightroom and as you point out, Lightroom appears to do this in bursts. How to speed that up, I don't know. What I do know is that any background activity will slow down the import. On a shoot this week I was busy building an export of high res JPEGs from the catalog as I was shooting more downloads and as one would expect, this did affect the performance.
It would be nice if the tethered shooting could be made faster, but as far as I am aware, this combination is the fastest yet and certainly faster than downloading from a card. As for Capture One, I don't know yet if they have managed to get tethered shooting sorted out for the MkIII.
Martin

How can I use Auto Import to name files after the folder they are dropped into?

I'm camera tethered on a new Macbook Pro Retina, Lightroom 5, all latest software and OS. Using EOS Utility to connect and drop into a DROP folder. When Lightroom Autoimports, I would like it to rename the file after the destination folder. Capture One has this feature and I could have sworn I saw a drop down menu on one of the naming tokens in LR5 about a month ago. ANY IDEAS?

The closest you can come is to create a File Naming Template that includes "Custom Text" as a part of the file name. Then, you will have to change the Auto Import Settings to use this Template when auto-importing and manually type that folder name in every time you change folders. There is no "Folder" token of which I am aware.

Lightroom 5 auto import issues with nikon d90

Hoping someone can help answer my question - I am wondering if Lightroom 5 has any issues with the auto import or tethering feature using a Nikon d90? I was using Lightroom 2 and the auto import feature has no issues with my d90. After I installed Lightroom 5 (Cloud App) and ran it for the first time, the first thing I used was the tethering feature and it worked great for 4 shots. I turned my camera off and then back on again and LR would not recognize my camera any longer for tethering. What's strange is that it will detect it for "Importing from Device" option. So, I went to plan two which was to auto import and that wasn't working at all. I am at a loss. I have a shoot coming up this weekend and need for one of these options to work. Any help is appreciated!!!

I use a D90, but I have never tried tethered shooting with it. Other users might have some suggestions for you, but looking at the list of supported cameras for tethered shooting the D90 is not "officially" supported in Lightroom. So you're probably on your own to find solutions. I know this isn't a lot of help.

Auto Importing in Aperture

I would love to shoot tethered with my Nikon D3 and have images go directly into Aperture. I realize Aperture has a tethering feature, but my clients have become spoiled by Live View and being able to see small changes on the screen before pressing the button. So is there any way to shoot with Nikon Camera Control Pro and direct files to a folder where Aperture would automatically import them? I just read instructions on setting it up for LightRoom w/ auto import, but I don't use Light Room ;-)

Adding to Frank's spot-on instructions: I settled on having a dedicated Finder folder on my system drive, and a dedicated Project in Aperture. This should give you a base to vary to your needs. The Finder folder is named "To Hot Upload to Aperture". It can be anywhere on your system. The Project is "_Hot Uploads". (The underscore forces it to the top of an alpha-sorted list.) My Sony software retains the setting of which Finder folder to put the images in. I set the Folder Action to delete the originals.
I take a picture. Camera sends image file to Sony software→Sony software puts file in "To Hot Upload to Aperture"→Folder Action forces Aperture to import file into Project "_Hot Uploads". In use I put the Sony software on one monitor and Aperture on another, with "_Hot Uploads" selected.
NB: Because you are importing this way, no metadata presets are applied.
When the session is over, I move all the Images into a newly created Project (I always put each Shoot in its own Project) and I run "Metadata→Batch Change" to apply my standard metadata preset (copyright and so forth). That leave both "To Hot Upload to Aperture" and "_Hot Uploads" empty, and ready for the next session.
Screenshot of Automator:
Message was edited by: Kirby Krieger -- screenshot added.

LR4 still brings up import dialog when auto import is on

Mac 10.7. Shooting tethered with 5D Mk II and Canon EOS Utility. Auto import is importing the images into my catalog, but for every shot, the import dialog box appears and I have to click "Cancel". This dialog should not be appearing when auto import is on, correct?
Thanks.

1) Be a little more specific... with your questions... Describe what happens...
2) Perhaps FCPx does not like the .thm (thumbnail files) in the folder...
I

File Numbering in Auto Import

This probably isn't the right forum for this, but maybe someone can help. Is there a way to control the file numbering on auto-import? When I set up to shoot tethered, files that are autoimported don't number consecutively. There seems to be no pattern, sometimes all odd, sometimes not, sometimes just skipping numbers. If I start at 1, shoot 30 pictures, my last file might be numbered 67. I'm shooting through Canon Capture, placing photos in a folder on my desktop and autoimporting from there. Lightroom 1.1 (though it happened in 1.0), Mac OS10.4.10. Thanks.

To get rid of them you will need to find that auto import folder and delete them. If you search for the name in spotlight, then do Show All, when you click on a name you should see the file path to it at the bottom of the finder window, like this:
If you double click the name of the enclosing folder it will open and you can see the file to delete it. In my example if I want to get rid of roykitchen.jpg, double clicking the roykitchen folder name will show it to me.

Auto import problem

Hi all,
I am a professional photographer and have recently upgraded my digital workflow so that I can offer tethered shooting from my Nikon D700 to my macbook pro laptop. I recently purchased and loaded LR2 (version 2.4) so I am very new to it. I did some research and found that I could shoot directly into LR via tethering with the aid of a free downloadable app called 'Studio Tether' which installs a LR plugin called 'Lightroom Tether'. It is working intermittently. Still working the kinks out. I haven't been able to shoot tethered and have the file automatically import into LR even though I have the 'auto import' box selected and configured. An 'import' dialog box appears with each shutter release and I have to manually click the 'import' button in this box in order to import the file. I want to be able to keep shooting and have the files automatically download into LR. Has anyone used Studio Tether/Lightroom Tether? Am I missing a step in LR in order for the files to automatically import?
I am running Mac OS 10.5.8 on a macbook pro 2.4 GHz dual duo core.
Thanks in advance for any input.
Best,
Dennis

Havn't used this particular app, but have used both the Canon and Nikon apps for tethered shooting (unfortunately you have to pay for the Nikon one, whilst the |Canon one is free). Both work fine. Have you set the Watched folder in LR to match up with the import folder used by the tethered shooting app. ?
You may also want to install this plug in which improves LR's teathered shooting abilities.

Auto-import Presets

I searched the forum(s) for this request but didn't find anything that seemed relevant, so here goes (and my apologies if this has been requested before or is already available through some option I missed): I use auto-import all the time -- it's a standard part of my workflow for new images from my cameras, whether tethered or not. To cope with the half dozen or so different scenarios and situations that are repeatedly part of those workflows, I'd like to be able to have a pull-down list of named auto-import presets under the auto-import preferences dialog. This would cover things like location the imported files are moved to, canned metadata to be applied, processing, etc. in named configurations.
Not a huge deal, but it'd certainly make my life somewhat easier and less error-prone while out in the field....

I second that. Plus an option just to watch a folder, instead of auto-copy only

Auto Import Settings needs same robust features as regular Import Photos feature...

Hello,
It is disappointing to not be able to select the feature to auto convert RAW images to DNG as well as copy/move files to subfolders (in my case date folders) using the Auto Import Settings feature in LR 3.3. The main intent of my usage is not for tethered shooting as the feature may have originally been setup for, but moreover to import images from my Eye-Fi Pro SD card automatically to my LR catalog. In fact, this limitation makes the auto import completely useless for me as I have to remove the SD card and mount it (or tether camera via USB) and import standardly. Please make a stronge effort to unite the functionality of all import functions in LR and allow the customer to choose which settings work the best for their needs.
Thanks,
~David

The Eye-Fi Pro X2 (8GB) handles RAW imagery uploads, and does so in a pretty quick manner. I have a Canon G9 that I use the Eye-Fi in and it's RAW images take about 4 seconds per 12.1 MP .CR2 image which isn't too slow for me really. I am also right next to the access point so the wifi signal is stronger and transfers are therefore a bit faster. I use this card also with ShutterSnitch (for iPad) and a 1DS Mark III for location shooting so the AD can monitor shots remotely on the iPad and not have to look over the shoulder at an LCD screen or through a loupe. At any rate, I also have a few other gripes about what LR should be doing with imported images that it isn't currently that seem like big misses, but I will add these to another feature request.

Auto import from network drive

Lightroom tells me the watched folder for the auto import function cannot be a network drive. I am using a laptop tethered to a camera, which then is accessible via the network. I want to auto import from this laptop into Lightroom.
Is this not possible?

That's the way I have to do it today, but sometimes the laptop is too far away to have a good wi-fi connection. I want to be able to continue to take pictures while tethered to the laptop without stopping. Better to have Lightroom watch, and when the laptop comes back in wi-fi range, then to auto import.
What is your auto import workflow?

Auto Import feature lacking convert to DNG and move to subfolders...

Folks,
As many of you may be aware, when setting up a folder for auto import, LR 3.3 does not give you the same options as you might see in the regular import functionality. Namely, the ability to convert to RAW images to DNG on the import as well as move to subfolders is not available. This is a real bugger for me as I have a nice new Eye-Fi Pro card that I have setup to dump all images from my camera to a "watched" folder which is then imported into LR automatically. Unfortunately, auto import doesn't solve the issue for me, so I am back to doing the same old import routine I had done before which is tethering the camera back up via USB (or popping out the card and mounting it instead) and use the regular import feature.
I realize a lot of the design impetus for auto import is around tethered usage, where a photographer may want to see the images as fast as possible, but why would Adobe cripple the auto import functionality deliberately. Give the auto import the same functionality as the regular import and let the customers decide which works best for their setup. Geez!!
~David

I believe I watched a tutorial that indicated that Lightroom now downloads the raw files first and then does the conversion. This speeds up the download process and enables you to go back to my room to do other work more quickly. I cannot comment on the speed of the conversion because I don't convert to DNG. But my thoughts are that 700 raw files will take some time to convert.

Auto import missing full Import options

Setup
Nikon D2X with LR 1.3 Windows XP Pro sp2
I am shooting NEF (Raw) with a D2X tethered to a laptop
Nikon Capture Control drops new images in to a folder
LR auto import is watching this folder and duly imports the pictures
adding metadata as it does so.
The options on the auto import are much more basic than the standard import features.
I would like to import the NEFs to DNG and backup the NEFs.
Are there plans to fix/improve this situation.
Or am I missing something.
(Apologies if this is a duplicate post I have spend quite some time searching and checking FAQs)
/Graham

I don't know if there's any impediment doing it this way shooting tetherered, but it seems a clunky workflow. Why convernt to DNG on import when you want the tethered operation to be as fast as it can be? Why backup images when you don't know what to keep?
Best import RAW, then after at least one cut ediiting/culling, then convert and backup.

Auto import question

If I understand it right , when shooting tethered or wireless, I download to a specific folder which I then make the "watched folder " in LR then use Auto import to import to Lightroom, but auto import insists on moving the files to another folder? I take it moves the original and doesn't move a copy- so why isn't there an option just to leave the file where it is( where I specified and want it in the first place) This seems to add an unecessary (for me anyway) step into my work flow.
Thanks for any assistance guys.
I will be using Win XP Pro+ Nikon Capture Control Pro
Colin

Thanks for your reply, Don. At the risk of appearing rude, of course I read the bl**dy help file, that's why I understand the process as outlined in my question. I understand that the way LR works is that images have to be "dropped into" a watched folder so LR recognises them as new images and imports them. I don't understand why the watched folder needs to be empty to work- I know it DOES but what I don't understand is WHY it does - why lightroom IS set up the way it is, and needs to copy them to another folder and then I have to copy them back to where I want them to be,rather than my choosing where I want them to be in the first place and LR dealing with them there.I am not a programmer but I would have thought that within the watched folder LR could recognise files which it has ALREADY imported, and new ones dropped in by wireless or tether, or drag and drop, which it SHOULD import. Perhaps that way is not possible, or is way more difficult to code. Perhaps my question should have been posted as a feature request, rather than a question re Auto Import. I think I understand Auto Import the way it is set up, just not why it is set up that way.

Tethered/Auto Import

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for