IDimager and AfterShot Pro - Work Queue Starter Script

[roeglinl]

Hi,

I've updated the WorkQueue Starter Script for IDimager to work with AfterShot Pro. In order to get it working I had to change the registry key from which the AfterShot exe-location is read since I couldn't find a corresponding key to the one used for B5 which was ('HKLM\SOFTWARE\Bibble 5\').
For now I am using 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\AfterShot Pro\DisplayIcon' which works on my Win7/64bit machine but might not be a general solution. I tried to read 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\AfterShot Pro Work Queue File\shell\open\command\' which seems to be the natural choice but this gives me unspecific errors upon reading the key with 'WScript.Shell.RegRead'. Tried it without trailing backslash and with 'command\Standard' and 'command\(Standard)' but failed miserably...

So if anyone else is interested in using this please give me some feedback on your results. Any ideas on how to correctly read the '...\shell\open\command' - key or better registry keys to obtain the exe-location are also highly appreciated.

Cheers,
Lars

[Ken Berry]

While I am sure this will be a welcome development for Windows users, I assume it will not work with the Linux and Mac versions of ASP...

[roeglinl]

While I am sure this will be a welcome development for Windows users, I assume it will not work with the Linux and Mac versions of ASP...

Sure, this is "Windows only". It should be adaptable to just write the work queue and a starter script in a shared folder for the Linux (and MacOS ?) users which run IDimager in a virtual machine, but from what i read here and in the Bibble forums i am afraid that the majority of the potential target audience uses iMatch instead of IDimager anyway.

[Dutchmm]

It seems from the top level description as though there is a good deal of functional overlap between ASP and IDImager. Are you using ASP as a component of your IDImager workflow? Or vice versa?

[roeglinl]

It seems from the top level description as though there is a good deal of functional overlap between ASP and IDImager. Are you using ASP as a component of your IDImager workflow? Or vice versa?

Basically I would describe IDimager as a full featured DAM application with pretty basic image editing capabilities and for ASP its the other way round.

In my workflow I start with FastPictureViewer for inital culling (and rating) and subsequently use IDimager for rating, sorting, keywording, ... ASP is for raw development only, since the B5/ASP catalogs from my findings can not compete with DAM applications like IDimager / iMatch or Lightroom. Work queues were introduced as workaround for the lack of DAM features in B4 i guess but they are still very usefull. Baiscally they consist of plain-text files which contain the references to the images of interest which are then opened by ASP. An example queue file could look like this

Code: Select all

[IDimager queue]

D:\Folder1\Folder2\Image1.CR2
D:\Folder3\Folder4\Image2.CR2
E:\Backup\Folder5\Image3.CR2

Thus ASP would load Image1, Image2 and Image3 from three different locations and you can work with them. This makes interoperation with scriptable DAM applications (IDimager/iMatch) pretty straigthforward.

[ferdinand-paris]

It used to be the case that work queues were necessary to "send" files from iMatch 3.6 (Windows only and an alternative to IDImager). Somewhere this changed. I don't know when, but in Bibble5.2.3 and ASP you can "send" a selection of files in multiple folders directly from iMatch to B5/ASP and they open just like a work queue. In imatch 3.5 you set up B5 and/or ASP as a "user tool". I assume that IDImager has something similar. I wouldn't want to see work queues disappear, but they're not as necessary as they once were.

F_P

[roeglinl]

It used to be the case that work queues were necessary to "send" files from iMatch 3.6 (Windows only and an alternative to IDImager). Somewhere this changed. I don't know when, but in Bibble5.2.3 and ASP you can "send" a selection of files in multiple folders directly from iMatch to B5/ASP and they open just like a work queue. In imatch 3.5 you set up B5 and/or ASP as a "user tool". I assume that IDImager has something similar. I wouldn't want to see work queues disappear, but they're not as necessary as they once were.

F_P

That works for IDimager as well, but not as reliable as the work queue solution. I often see error messages like "Only one instance of ASP can run a time" and then only one image is opened. I have no idea, why this is happening (might be a bug, but perhaps hard to adress?), but with work queues this annoying behaviour is eliminated.
In addition if the work queues have sensible names they are reusable. For example I just have a longer work queue with images from a trip to the US that I am working through for a photo book but don't have enough time to finish all in one session. So if i want to continue later I don't have to start IDimager but can just double click on the work queue file...

[pesto126]

I use this combination as well.. though did just submit a thread about extra sidecar files (not sure what's up with that).

When I use ASP and Idi, I just highlight the images I want to open and do an OPEN WITH.. ASP to load them in for editing no problem. If I know ASP is already open and I wish to work on a different photo, I just drag/drop between the programs which also works great. Idimager is a pretty decent DAM and certainly blows ASP's tools away.. though I really do like they implemented the metadata filters with the Refine button... so much easier than Idi's implementation.