Photo Mechanic & Lightroom

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Greetings, wondering if anyone here uses Photo Mechanic (PM) and could maybe give some helpful advice. There are times when I import into Lightroom (LR) that I want to use camera settings or want to use a setting that will allow certain items to be automatically applied – like noise reduction. If I have my raw images in a folder and import them directly into LR then said settings will be applied. However, if I cull through my images in PM first and move selected images to say a “selects” folder, then import them into LR none of the settings get applied.

For example, I have some photos in a folder called Rodeo (because I just shot one) … as a test, I open LR and select 10 images. I import them where they are “add” and when I open them in the develop module, they have Noise Reduction applied as a starting point.

Now, if I open PM and open the Rodeo folder and cull the photos, select the same 10 photos, put them into a “selects” sub-folder within Rodeo, and then import them into LR – following the same “add” function – leaving the photos where they are. When I open the photos in the develop module they have NO noise reduction applied.

Thoughts? Is PM doing something to the photos to keep them from being imported into LR the same way they are natively? Is there a setting somewhere?

BTW, I’m using a Nikon Z9.

Appreciate any advice.
 
I'm not familiar with photo mechanic, but I would check to make sure you still have a raw file. So I'd use file explorer or the PM and check the file to make sure you still have .NEC files in the new folder. If not then the mystery is solved. You want to use the copy raw files (whatever they call it) choice in PM

If they are NEC files then check if Lightroom has an icon on the thumbnall that says metadata was changed externally. You click that and I believe choose to over ride the changes.

The third idea would have to do with hidden and unwanted sidecar .xmp files being created by PM, if for example you used ratings or rankings in PM. But that puts me out of my depth so hopefully someone will jump in. There might be a setting in PM to not write the sidecars, or they would have to be deleted from the new folder. I believe file explorer can be set to view hidden files to check if that is happening. You could then try deleting one to see if it fixes the problem.
 
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Moose Peterson shoots with Nikon and uses Photo Mechanic. So does Jason O'Dell. Check out how and why they use it at these links below. The workflow may be too complicated for your needs, but you will get some ideas on why they both use PM. There are likely other videos out there too so just use google to find them.

My short answer (I do not use PM): it is faster to view, cull and delete images in PM than LR. After culling, move remaining images to LR.


 
Appreciate any advice.
I used PhotoMechanic for a while and it's pretty amazing for fast image culling and tagging. As I recall there's a checkbox in the Preferences to apply camera settings. It's been a while so I may be confusing it with other tools but I distinctly remember having to set something up so that my in-camera preferences were applied to each photo before I imported the selected images to LR.

Have you checked all the options in PM Preferences?
 
Moose Peterson shoots with Nikon and uses Photo Mechanic. So does Jason O'Dell. Check out how and why they use it at these links below. The workflow may be too complicated for your needs, but you will get some ideas on why they both use PM. There are likely other videos out there too so just use google to find them.

My short answer (I do not use PM): it is faster to view, cull and delete images in PM than LR. After culling, move remaining images to LR.


Will look at the videos but your comment about culling and putting in LR is exactly what I'm doing.
 
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