Sequence number in galleries

dlangan · 2016-10-11 02:48:54

Hi there,

I've searched for this topic in the forum so I hope I haven't overlooked it.

I'm very new to Backlight so probably shouldn't be posting live galleries to clients when I haven't fully tested & understood the software. But, I'm using it because my other galleries aren't responsive & mobile friendly.

So, two issues have arisen for me leading to confusion for both customer & myself:

My process is this: Before exporting I rename all files in LR to CustName-SeqNumber.jpg (eg. Elaine-001 to Elaine-100) Then I export & display filename in publisher. All goes well until the thumbnail display.

1) Customer seems to spot the sequence number (eg 1/100) easier than the Elaine-001 number. So, question is - is it possible to turn the sequence number off? I only want customer to see their custom filenames.
2) In LR I have two versions of Elaine-005. One version is in colour & the other B&W. In a regular LR export, these will automatically be named Elaine-005 & Elaine-005-1. In publisher they are both named Elaine-005. So there is nothing to distinguish the colour from the B&W files. Is there a solution to this?

Many thanks,
Deirdre
P.S. I've just seen the 'Subscribe to this topic' option so will be grateful & respond to any feedback.

admint · 2016-10-11 04:15:34

It would probably be easier if you posted a link to your site so we could see what you're talking about as it seems there may be a number of possible solutions to your issue.

rod barbee · 2016-10-11 05:00:15

Sequential numbering in Publisher will mess things up. It's a Lightroom problem apparently. So if you're using that, don't.

But it sounds like you're not using that but rather using Lightroom's virtual copies.

You can create a new naming preset and apply it upon publishing, just make sure it doesn't use sequential numbering.

So, question is - is it possible to turn the sequence number off? I only want customer to see their custom filenames.

If you're referring to the cell number in the thumbnail grid, then yes, you can turn that off in the album template.

dlangan · 2016-10-11 19:19:53

Hi there,

Thanks for your replies. Here is a link: http://www.deirdrelangan.com/TTG-BL/Jes … essicapat/

1) Yes I am using LR virtual copies eg. image number 8 in the above gallery. I don't want to use a new naming preset because when the customer reverts to me with a list of images they'd like to include in their wedding album I want to be able to quickly reference it in LR. I don't want to have to cross reference publisher with LR.

2) I don't think I'm referring to the cell number in the grid. In the above gallery, when I click on any of the thumbnails, a single large image
is displayed & because I've chosen to display 100 images per page, a sequence number eg 1/100, 2/100 is shown in the top left hand corner. This is the numbering that I want switched off. I don't want any info, other than JessicaPat-xxx shown to the client.

Not to labour the point, but in link above there are two JessicaPat-008 images shown to the customer, which is in itself confusing. And when thumbnails are clicked the first JessicaPat-008 is displayed with sequence/cell number 8/100 & the second version (virtual copy) as 9/100.

So, ideally I'd like the x/100 to be removed entirely as it serves no purpose but to confuse. And I'd like to display JessicaPat-008 & JessicaPat-008-1 as per my LR galleries on my current/old website. Or if there's a naming solution in LR that handles the virtual copies in an effective naming way (that I don't have to cross ref between LR & publisher) then I'm happy to use it going forward, but please tell me what it is.

Many thanks, Deirdre

Daniel Leu · 2016-10-11 22:44:16

dlangan wrote:

2) I don't think I'm referring to the cell number in the grid. In the above gallery, when I click on any of the thumbnails, a single large image
is displayed & because I've chosen to display 100 images per page, a sequence number eg 1/100, 2/100 is shown in the top left hand corner. This is the numbering that I want switched off. I don't want any info, other than JessicaPat-xxx shown to the client.

Some custom.css does the trick:

.pswp__counter {
    display: none;
}

Not to labour the point, but in link above there are two JessicaPat-008 images shown to the customer, which is in itself confusing. And when thumbnails are clicked the first JessicaPat-008 is displayed with sequence/cell number 8/100 & the second version (virtual copy) as 9/100.
So, ideally I'd like the x/100 to be removed entirely as it serves no purpose but to confuse. And I'd like to display JessicaPat-008 & JessicaPat-008-1 as per my LR galleries on my current/old website. Or if there's a naming solution in LR that handles the virtual copies in an effective naming way (that I don't have to cross ref between LR & publisher) then I'm happy to use it going forward, but please tell me what it is.

I guess this one is tricky due to how Lr handles filenames. Two workarounds come to my mind right now:
1) Did you try to rename the bw image to something like JessicaPat-008bw
2) You might want to try the {filename} token for the caption

dlangan · 2016-10-11 23:03:36

Some custom.css does the trick:
.pswp__counter {
display: none;
}

Thanks Daniel,
Can you tell me where I add this custom.css file please? Or which file needs modifying to add these lines of code?

I guess this one is tricky due to how Lr handles filenames. Two workarounds come to my mind right now:
1) Did you try to rename the bw image to something like JessicaPat-008bw
2) You might want to try the {filename} token for the caption

1)Thank you, but that for me, is not a solution. I have many galleries with hundreds of images in each so I'm not going to manually search & rename all virtual copies.
2)I've used tried using {filename} as Thumbnails Metadata 01 & 02 (in album settings) but the duplicate name shows ie. JessicaPat-008 for each instance of the same file. I've since experimented in LR with different naming conventions, trying to create a unique filename/number for each exported file & nothing works. I even used the original given filename but same problem with virtual copies.

Matthew · 2016-10-11 23:10:13

Lightroom's handling of virtual copies is quite poor. There's not much consistency in file naming, and Lightroom doesn't track exported images or correlate them to images in your library. Virtual copies just don't work that well when exported. This is a limitation of Lightroom, and not something that we are able to address or remedy in our software.

dlangan · 2016-10-11 23:38:31

Que? A limitation of Lightroom? My understanding is that Backlight is a plugin for LR, no? I would've thought that this was a very basic requirement. LR handles virtual copies sufficiently well when used with other gallery software, namely it's own or PS. All I'm looking for is software that distinguishes versions of files. When I export 2 versions of 1 image file in LR it works perfectly well for my needs & that is, there are 2 files & they have different names.

If I have a virtual copy of JessicaPat-008, then it exports JessicaPat-008 & JessicaPat-008-1 in Lightroom & is handled the same in PS. That's all I'm asking of publisher - that it handles & accepts the names as they are given. It looks like publisher truncates the name or can't handle it.

I don't understand why it looks to be a LR issue to you but a Publisher one to me. In the instance say of an exported image file & its virtual copy, Publisher gets passed 2 files from LR but displays them both with the same name. How is that not a publisher issue & something that can be addressed?

Or am I missing an obvious solution? I don't mind changing my naming convention or ways of doing something if this can be solved but if not, then I would've thought this is a fairly serious flaw with publisher & its galleries.

Daniel Leu · 2016-10-12 11:47:11

dlangan wrote:

Some custom.css does the trick:
.pswp__counter {
display: none;
}
Thanks Daniel,
Can you tell me where I add this custom.css file please? Or which file needs modifying to add these lines of code?

A Custom Stylesheet can be enabled in the Page Template Designer under Advanced Customization. Create a new file called /backlight/custom/css/custom.css, select it, place my code inside, and you are ready to go.

Matthew · 2016-10-12 16:37:27

dlangan,

Here's an image file name from my Library:

0002-Hangang-at-Night.NEF

In Lightroom's Library, I create a virtual copy of that image. Lightroom identifies this virtual copy using metadata, so knows this file by:

File Name: 0002-Hangang-at-Night.NEF
Copy Name: Copy 1

If I export only the virtual copy, then the exported file is:

0002-Hangang-at-Night.jpg

If I export both the original and virtual copy, then the exported files are:

0002-Hangang-at-Night.jpg (original)
0002-Hangang-at-Night-2.jpg (virtual copy)

If I then attempt to re-export only the virtual copy to that same export location, I am prompted to overwrite the original file, not the existing file for the virtual copy. If I choose to use Unique Names, then I end up with "0002-Hangang-at-Night-3.jpg", because "0002-Hangang-at-Night-2.jpg" already exists from the previous export.

If I publish only the virtual copy to my web gallery, the file name is:

0002-Hangang-at-Night_v1.jpg

If I publish both the original and virtual copy to my web gallery, the published files are:

0002-Hangang-at-Night.jpg (original)
0002-Hangang-at-Night_v1.jpg (virtual copy)

Now let's suppose I'm bringing the published file name back to my Lightroom Library, because it's been selected in a client response gallery, or it's a part of an order through the shopping cart. So I'm looking for "0002-Hangang-at-Night_v1" in my Library, but it doesn't exist in my Library, because it's not a match to how Lightroom identifies that virtual copy, which is by the original file name, "0002-Hangang-at-Night", plus a separate piece of metadata, which is "Copy 1".

So there's simply no consistency within Lightroom in how it identifies virtual copies. When I say that Lightroom's handling of virtual copies is poor, this is what I mean, and it's something that we -- as plugin developers -- have no control over. And yes, I have previously requested improvements within Lightroom, but was duly ignored by Adobe's team.

If you want to publish copies of an image in a gallery -- for example, if you'd like to publish a client response gallery with Version 1, Version 2 and Version 3 of an image, allowing the client to select their preferred version -- then using virtual copies is inadequate for this purpose, as your published files will not correspond by name to the virtual copies in your Library. You would need to export your virtual copies, then re-import the exported JPGs into your Library, ensuring that each version is a physical file with a distinct file name. You could then publish those images to your gallery, and those distinct file names could then be used to properly identify the image versions in your Library based on received feedback from the client/gallery.

dlangan · 2016-10-12 18:58:27

Thank you both very much!

Daniel - I will try that out. And thank you for giving me the details on how to implement it. Much appreciated.

Matthew - thank you very much for that elaborate explanation. And for your time & effort. I appreciate how much time creating email replies consume!

So, I get it now why the handling is poor from LR. And implementing Client Response is on my to do list once I've created my backlight website so the issue will continue. But, as a half way house, can publisher not at least use the _v1, _v2 etc bit from the LR Metadata so that it at least displays different versions of the same image with a unique identifier?

And thank you for the workaround. It's a bit of a nuisance but at least it's a solution.

Cheers!,
Deirdre

Matthew · 2016-10-12 19:51:00

dlangan,

A list of selected images returning from the client response gallery might look something like this:

... 0002-Hangang-at-Night, 0002-Hangang-at-Night_v1 ...

So the client response gallery is already using the "_v1", because it utilizes the image file names as identifier for each image. The problem is that when you paste that back into Lightroom to filter the selects, the _v1 file name -- in this case, 0002-Hangang-at-Night_v1 -- doesn't correspond to anything that exists in the library.

So the client response gallery is already providing you with exactly the version that has been selected. The problem is that the entire point of using the gallery and Lightroom's filters is so that you don't have to manually eyeball every file name returned. The problem is that Lightroom has no record of the file names that it itself is creating.

My suggestion to Adobe was something along the lines of, instead of filling Copy Name with "Copy 1", fill it with "[filename]_v#" -- because that's what it gets named when published -- and then use that consistently to name the rendition when exporting or publishing that version. As usual, and despite being a part of the prerelease group at that time, my suggest/request fell on deaf ears. Once the image file leaves their ecosystem, I really don't think they care.

dlangan · 2016-10-12 20:04:43

Thanks Matthew. So the only solution then really is to do as you suggested in the first place - and that is, make sure the files are exported from LR with unique file names ( and not virtual copies).

I used PS to create galleries up until now so I don't know anything about LR Web/galleries but I'm surprised their virtual copy handling hasn't caused problems for them to date. Maybe they will fix it once it impacts themselves directly!

Thanks again,
Deirdre

Last edited by dlangan (2016-10-12 20:05:04)

markh · 2016-10-12 22:49:09

Just an echo from personal experience. Publishing virtual copies leads to more problems than I have fingers to count them on. There's no virtue in virtual.
Mark

dlangan · 2016-10-12 22:58:34

Thanks Mark. I think it was Rod who also said something similar, in his advice to not use virtual copies. But, when you say that, is there an easy alternative? I know about exporting & reimporting but is there a straight forward way to have 2 copies of the same image in LR that doesn't involve jiggery-pokery? I can't see a way to copy a file in LR?

rod barbee · 2016-10-12 23:47:46

I think the only way is to export an image from the Library Module and check the box that will add the new file to the catalog. That way you don't have to export and then import.

markh · 2016-10-12 23:54:38

No easy way. What I sometimes do from within Lightroom with the image I need is click "edit in photoshop". Select "copy with lightroom settings". Then, from within Photoshop, select "save as" and just add "_two" or "_three" or "_var1" or "_var2" or something like that to the original filename. Doing it this way will automatically re-import the image into lightroom. Plus, if you sort images in Lightroom by filename the original and the copy will be next to each other.
Regards Mark

dlangan · 2016-10-13 22:42:16

Thanks again guys. But Mark, using virtual copies was way easier than your suggestion :-)

I've been experimenting with this & getting this to work is harder than I anticipated.

So, I've got a wedding set of 420 images. 6 are virtual copies.

*) I selected all virtual copies, so 6 are selected. So far, so good. File names are AoifeAlan-079, AoifeAlan-085 .... AoifeAlan-380
*) I export these. I want to keep the filename as true to the original so after some experimenting the best option of 'rename' looks to be 'Custom name -original file number' so I enter AoifeAlan-v2
*) Exported file name are looking pretty good. They are AoifeAlan-v2-079, AoifeAlan-v2-085 .... AoifeAlan-v2-380
*) Before I export the entire set, I sort by filename. My 6 virtual copies are at the end of the pile. DOH!
*) I just used my old gallery & exported everything the old way. This is a real swings & roundabout project :-|

Any of you guys that are good at maths, is there a naming convention that will place my master copy & duplicated copy side by side when sorted? There don't seem to be a way to rename AoifeAlan-079-v2, otherwise that would be a solution.

My work is mainly weddings so working with lots of images & need a process. I want to avoid making (too much) work for myself or manually renaming or loading into photoshop etc.

Many thanks,
Deirdre

rod barbee · 2016-10-13 23:47:55

Any of you guys that are good at maths, is there a naming convention that will place my master copy & duplicated copy side by side when sorted?

how about creating a file renaming template set up for:

{Original filename}-{Custom Text}
Or
{Original filename}-v2

Export out of Library and set the export so that the new files are added to catalog. Add the new items to the Publisher album and sort by filename.

Daniel Leu · 2016-10-13 23:58:46

Any of you guys that are good at maths, is there a naming convention that will place my master copy & duplicated copy side by side when sorted?

If sort by capture time they should be next to each other.

rod barbee wrote:

how about creating a file renaming template set up for:
{Original filename}-{Custom Text}
Or
{Original filename}-v2
Export out of Library and set the export so that the new files are added to catalog. Add the new items to the Publisher album and sort by filename.

I don't think that this would works since it would change the name of the original file as well.

rod barbee · 2016-10-14 00:44:01

Not if you only export the virtual copies and have those renamed.
I'm not talking about changing the name when Publisher exports the images. But rather Exporting only the modified virtual copies from the Library Module, adding them back into the catalog (with their new filenames) and then adding them to the wedding album.
They should then be able to be sorted by filename. Of course, they can always be manually sorted in the album.

For example, see this album: http://backlight-rb-test.barbeephoto.co … rst-album/

I exported a b&w virtual copy from the Library Module, using a file naming preset that renamed using the original file name plus the text "v2". I checked the box in the Export dialog to add the image to the catalog.
Then I just added the image to an existing album and published the image.

dlangan · 2016-10-14 02:00:48

Daniel - thanks a million. I've just successfully implemented your code! Perfect :-)

Daniel Leu · 2016-10-14 03:53:52

rod barbee wrote:

Not if you only export the virtual copies and have those renamed.
I'm not talking about changing the name when Publisher exports the images. But rather Exporting only the modified virtual copies from the Library Module, adding them back into the catalog (with their new filenames) and then adding them to the wedding album.
They should then be able to be sorted by filename. Of course, they can always be manually sorted in the album.
For example, see this album: http://backlight-rb-test.barbeephoto.co … rst-album/
I exported a b&w virtual copy from the Library Module, using a file naming preset that renamed using the original file name plus the text "v2". I checked the box in the Export dialog to add the image to the catalog.
Then I just added the image to an existing album and published the image.

Ah, you do the renaming while exporting! Yep, didn't think about that!

Daniel Leu · 2016-10-14 03:54:04

dlangan wrote:

Daniel - thanks a million. I've just successfully implemented your code! Perfect :-)

:-)

dlangan · 2016-11-02 01:41:39

I don't know why but I've only just seen your latter suggestion now Rod (while I was looking for something else)! And thanks for the link. That's exactly what I'm looking for & it's not so much work as to be unworkable. Thanks a mill!

Community @ The Turning Gate

#1 2016-10-11 02:48:54

Sequence number in galleries

#2 2016-10-11 04:15:34

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#3 2016-10-11 05:00:15

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#4 2016-10-11 19:19:53

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#5 2016-10-11 22:44:16

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#6 2016-10-11 23:03:36

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#7 2016-10-11 23:10:13

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#8 2016-10-11 23:38:31

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#9 2016-10-12 11:47:11

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#10 2016-10-12 16:37:27

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#11 2016-10-12 18:58:27

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#12 2016-10-12 19:51:00

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#13 2016-10-12 20:04:43

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#14 2016-10-12 22:49:09

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#15 2016-10-12 22:58:34

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#16 2016-10-12 23:47:46

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#17 2016-10-12 23:54:38

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#18 2016-10-13 22:42:16

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#19 2016-10-13 23:47:55

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#20 2016-10-13 23:58:46

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#21 2016-10-14 00:44:01

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#22 2016-10-14 02:00:48

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#23 2016-10-14 03:53:52

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#24 2016-10-14 03:54:04

Re: Sequence number in galleries

#25 2016-11-02 01:41:39

Re: Sequence number in galleries

Board footer