batch processing image pairs

[dimockn]

Dear Jonathan,
I have been using PW7 for many years. I love it.
Now PW8 lets me do some batch processing that I have found a great need for.
I use a pair of cameras to synchronously take a pair of images, one "Colour" using visible light, the other "IR" using near infrared.
Then I use PW8 to register the Colour with the IR, and then extract the Hue and Saturation from the Colour, and the Value (brightness) from the IR.
By combining the resulting three greyscale images, I retain the normal colours while introducing the surreal brightness of infrared light.
e.g. https://www.dropbox.com/s/uiuxnvluh8omu ... .jpg?dl=ea
In order to do that for a batch of pairs, what I do first is make* a side-by-side (SBS) image with the IR on the left side and the Colour on the right side.
Then I use PW8 to step through the batch of SBSs. The first transform crops to the left-hand IR. The second crops to the right-hand Colour. After that I process each pair as above.

* The problem I have is that I need to use another program to go through my IR batch and my Colour batch to make each pair into one SBS. I use the free StereoPhoto Maker for that unusual purpose. It is very common for stereo photographers to use two cameras for their 3D work, much as I do for my IR/Colour work.
PW8 caters to many needs of stereo photographers, but it seems to lack any way to to do that SBS combining.

Any suggestions?
Many thanks for the amazing PW8.
Norm Dimock
Ottawa Canada.

[jsachs]

I understand the issue -- unfortunately the way PWP8 batch is designed currently I can't think of an easy way to extend the functionality to read images from two synchronized lists of image files. While you can have a workspace script that reads two or more files, you need to specify them manually and cannot currently automate the process. I will keep the issue in mind and maybe some solution will present itself.

[dimockn]

J
Thanks for the Prompt reply!
I thought such a reply would also show up in my email, so I didn't check back..

Even a stand-alone utility to just combine two folders of independent images into a single folder of side-by-side images would do the trick, so a process like mine would not depend on any third party software.
Happy New Year!
N

[jsachs]

By a strange coincidence, I am working right now on an extension to batch processing to allow processing multiple images at a time, one from each of two or more file lists. I hope to have something working in a few days.

[dimockn]

spooky )
also, I just now discovered the Notify me... checkbox
d'oh

[tomczak]

This may be off-topic, but since you mentioned working on file pairs...

I've been struggling with culling JPG/RAW pairs for a while. I have a procedure now that allows me to fairly quickly review and cull JPGs and then find the corresponding RAW and delete them as well, but it's still not ideal...

[jsachs]

Do you keep them in the same folder or different folders?

[tomczak]

The RAW/JPG pairs are in the same folders.

At the moment, since I like FastStone for viewing, spot-zooming and comparing images, I filter JPGs only and cull them by first tagging them and then moving tagged files to '_rejects' subfolder. Then I use a light and sensibly designed duplicate file finder called antitwin to find RAW files with names corresponding to my JPG rejects and delete them both.

In most cases I have both JPG and RAW with the same name, occasionally only JPGs, almost never only RAW.

With the Fuji RAF, the embedded Preview JPG is much smaller (some 2.5 Mp) than the actual JPG. With Canon CR2 files I was able to make the embedded Preview JPG the same size as the output JPG, so I was keeping CR2 files only and extracting the full-size JPGs from them when I wasn't interested in processing RAW (e.g. FastStone or EXIFTool could extract JPG preview from RAW easily in batch).

[jsachs]

This is probably an operation best done by something like FastStone which maintains image thumbnails for each file. Otherwise you are just going by the filename.

[tomczak]

I need to see the images and zoom on them to decide which to throw out.

FastStone does previewing competently but doesn't want to keep JPGs and RAWs associated so that I could get rid of both versions in one go.

With Fuji RAF, because the embedded preview JPG is small, it makes sense to do culling going by the larger JPGs so that focus and sharpness could be checked and then throw out the RAW file along with JPG in a two-step process.