Can I script a list of files by filename?

[OliWarner]

We went on safari last year and I've only just got around to sorting out our photos. I've excised the out-and-out bad photos and have done a jpeg output of the remaining 1800 photos. To whittle these down to things we want to print, I wrote a Django site to let us browse and vote on all these exported photos.

Now we have a list of ~120 photo filenames.

I want to select these photos back in AfterShot Pro 3 now so I can do final edits and export at print quality. Again, I have a list of filenames. I can (easily) convert these into a list of source filenames but either way, I want to get these into a tag or something in ASP3 so I can pick them up quickly, edit or further whittle. But how?

[grubernd]

you can. and much easier than you might expect.

let me introduce you to one of the hard-to-find features in AfterShot: WorkQueues
they come from Bibble4 times and luckily are still available.
think of them as virtual folders across anything your filesystem can reach.

create a file name "something.work" with the following structure:

Code: Select all

NAME OF WORKQUEUE

/full/path/to/file_1.raw
/full/path/to/file_2.raw
/full/path/to/file_3.raw
/full/path/to/file_4.raw

the extension of ".work" makes the file identifiable.
the "header" with name and an empty line is important.
paths to file should not contain abbreviations like ~/ but the full path.

open via File > Open and select AllFiles or Workqueue as filetype.
or simply drop the file into the thumb panel.

you can then work on those files and all the settings will be written to the xmp file next to the real image.

enjoy. =)

[OliWarner]

I got my script to output a .work file and that all works fine (thank you!) but there are a couple of strange things with this

• ASP spends a little while regenerating previews for the workqueue. This feels strange. Why isn't it just using the library version?
• Worse, when I make changes (eg a vibrance increase) from the workqueue, these are not persisted back to the library.

The second point of this makes the workqueue feature a bit toothless. I need to be able to save these changes. Am I doing something wrong?

[grubernd]

well, sorry i forgot:
work queues are like file system edits, they need to be imported again into a library.
and in general that is not really a good idea, because of different settings.
while the catalogs by default write back to the filesystem, the other way round can only be done via import.