NeoFinder Forum

I'm trying out NeoFinder under the 30-day free license. I am an advanced amateur photographerI with a few questions.

• (1) When I catalog my ARW files, NeoFinder adds a prefix “.” and a postscript “.icloud”. “DSCxxxx.ARW” in Finder becomes “.DSCxxxx.ARW.icloud” in NeoFiner. The NeoFinder path is “…/…/.DSCxxxx.ARW.icloud” so when I try to open it in, say, Affinity Photo, it can’t find the file. I have to change the name in the NeoFinder metadata window with the “also rename in volume” box checked. I don’t yet know how to do batching processing with AppleScript, but hey, why is NeoFinder appending these extra characters in the file name? No problem with JPEG cataloging.

• (2) After correcting the name issue above, the ARWs are shown as 0.2 KB files with no preview.
  I often have multiple files for the same image - .ARW, .afphoto, .tiff, .etc. (Yes, I added the . to .etc for .fun!) Can these be bundled and searched as a single item with a single preview?

• (3) For pano and focus stacks, I realize that I need to keep my raw and developed files in a subfolder. Can I have a preview and metadata for the folder? I want to be able to search for a focus-stack image without having the search show me all 20 images in the stack. Is this kind of bundling possible?

• (4) I’ve been through the Adobe and Capture One. They use DAM as a way to lock us into their “ecosystem.” I am looking to NeoFinder to separate my DAM system from image processing. I want to process in multiple software and be able to contain them all in a single DAM system.

I know I can’t get my adjustments out of Capture One, but is there any way to get my metadata, particularly the keywords, out?

• (5) Is there any way to tell NeoFinder to use specific preview files? If I have a raw file and processed files, but I want a preview from the processed file - not the raw.

• (6) When I try to “open with” on .ARW files, it presents no options. How do I associate a list of applications that can open each file type like Finder does?

Hello,

please don't post multiple questions in a single post, that makes it super hard to reply to.

(1)That has nothing to do with NeoFinder, but you are probably cataloging an iCloud Drive? It seems Apple does that mess while your files are being downloaded.

(2)Same as (1)

(3)What is a pano stack?

(4)Don't use tools like Apple Photos or Capture One for tagging and adding metadata, they indeed often lock you in: https://cdfinder.de/blog/files/skip_app ... s_app.html
Ask the vendors to store your metadata in the standard XMP records for other tools in your workflow.

(5)NeoFinder catalogs thumbnails of all the files in the folders you catalog.

(6)You install an app that is able to open ARW files. https://www.cdfinder.de/guide/8/8.12/default_app.html and https://www.cdfinder.de/guide/8/8.11/open_with.html

Thank you for your reply. I've read the blog and user's guide links. I suggest we close out this thread as follows.

(1) & (2):

That has nothing to do with NeoFinder.

Well, it does impact how I'd like to use NeoFinder. Please don't take my questions as being critical. NeoFinder is a powerful tool by most accounts and my own (incomplete) evaluation. I will start a separate post on iCloud issues.

(3) & (5): A pano stack is a group of image files for a panorama. Let's set questions (3) & (5) aside until I've explored NeoFinder's search capabilities further and figured out how to use NeoFinder tools in a stack workflow. That might lead to a post on the User Exchange forum, especially since there are likely multiple possibilities.

(4): I figured out how to CaptureOne to create XMP sidecars for metadata. I'll share that in a post on the User Exchange forum.

(6): Your response was very useful. I've found that the behavior I observed is related to iCloud, which I'll address in the iCloud post.