Ongoing workflow; surplus of XMP files

[dd-b]

I'm looking for a solution to quickly sorting and rating moderate (mid hundreds; at least I don't have to cope with 15,000 images from a weekend like the other poster elsewhere on this board!) numbers of images, making web jpegs, applying IPTC data, and filing them away for future reference.

Currently I'm using Photo Mechanic to sort and rate, Thumbs Plus to index, and Bibble Pro for batch conversions. Individually they're all wonderful applications. (FPV looks to be as good for my purposes as Photo Mechanic, at 1/3 the price; I just discovered it today.)

Trouble is, Thumbs Plus and Bibble don't see the ratings applied by Photo Mechanic.

I was hoping that FPV might do better, and to a small degree it does -- Bibble can pick up the rating that FPV applies, which is a start. However, that leaves me with TWO XMP files; Bibble and FPV use different naming conventions (bibble leaves on the original file extension and adds .XMP after that; not that that's FPV's problem!).

None of these schemes yet let me go back and re-evaluate the initial ratings using the good rating program. One obvious hack is to move things around in various directories. Trouble is, this causes confusion (adjacent photos get different ratings, and this makes it hard to compare again later; and also, once files are recorded in the database, moving them loses the database information associated with them).

I'm looking for a workflow that doesn't consist of a series of hacks precariously piled on top of each other. And it's likely, since I just started playing with FPV today, that I'm not yet fully appreciating how to use it effectively. So, anybody think they understand what I'm looking for? Any suggestions?

[malch]

I think I understand your frustration.

It seems to be the industry as a whole has not served this need well.

FPV tackles a relatively small part of the problem very well. The author intends to tackle more and I participate in this forum because I think FPV has a very bright future and will address more of these needs over time.

But you obviously want a solution today, if not yesterday Personally, I think Adobe Lightroom comes closer than anything else to addressing the kind of workflow requirements you've described. It seems to be working well for some folks but it doesn't quite fit for others (including me).

It truly sucks that the all important Ranking field is the one item of EXIF/IPTC/XMP data that seems to be the least well standardized across different applications Having said that, I should acknowledge that FPV does offer some pretty flexible options in that regard.