PhotoLab Importing Multiple Copies

Hello all - New to DxO, PhotoLab and this Forum.

I am having the following problem. When importing photos from my camera to my Mac and when they automatically transfer to PhotoLab, PL is making multiple copies of each photo.

Today PL was duplicating a downloaded jpeg photo 5 times and a downloaded raw photo 5 times.

I believe I must have certain settings in PL set wrong but cannot find the problem.

Can anyone here tell me how to correct the issue?

PL does not import anything, it just accesses the folders in which you put your images.

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As Colin said, PhotoLab does not actually import any images, it just points to their location in whatever folder you copied them to on your hard drive. The Photo Library is nothing more than a file manager. It only displays what is already in your folders. Are you sure that you’re not seeing multiple virtual copies, which is a very different thing? If you use your computer’s file manager do you actually see multiple copies of your raw and JPEG images?

Additionally, hopefully you are not trying to edit your images directly from your camera’s SD drive which is bad practice.

Mark

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Hi Colin — To keep the explanation as simple as possible, I’ll use the following as an example of what’s happening:

Example, in photos I transfer 1 photo from my camera (Canon R6II) to my Apple Photos folder. This photo has jpg and raw listed in the upper left hand corner of the photo. (I shoot jpeg and raw)

When PL accesses the photo, 7 jpegs are transferred over to PL and 7 raw copies are transferred over to PL. 14 total copies / duplicate photos.

Only 1 photo In my Photos folder becomes 14 photos in DxO when PL accesses the photo.

There must be a setting or settings in PL that I can adjust to stop this from occurring.

Your thoughts?

Thank you.
Gary

Hi Mark — Same response as above.

To keep the explanation as simple as possible, I’ll use the following as an example of what’s happening:

Example, in photos I transfer 1 photo from my camera (Canon R6II) to my Apple Photos folder. This photo has jpg and raw listed in the upper left hand corner of the photo. (I shoot jpeg and raw)

When PL accesses the photo, 7 jpegs are transferred over to PL and 7 raw copies are transferred over to PL. 14 total copies / duplicate photos.

Only 1 photo In my Photos folder becomes 14 photos in DxO when PL accesses the photo.

There must be a setting or settings in PL that I can adjust to stop this from occurring.

Your thoughts?

Thank you.
Gary

Using the Apple Photos app is probably causing the multiplication. AP’s database contains all sorts of previews and thumbnails depending on how you set AP.

Try the following

  • copy photos from the card to a folder on your Mac
  • open AP and set it to NOT import originals (see screen below)
  • Point PhotoLab to open the folder with the new images on you Mac

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It’s definitely not PhotoLab because PhotoLab never transfers any files anywhere. It oes not have an import feature. Its file manager does not have any automatic functionality. It just presents a view of your folders and the files within them. It certainly does not have the ability to create duplicate copies of your raw atnd JPEG files. The built-in file manager is manually operated by the user and there is no ability to duplicate files., even manually. Something else in your workflow is causing this issue.

Mark

I bet it is Apple Photos that is causing the issue. The Photos database is a pretty complicated thing and PL is not designed to work with it. Copy your images to a folder that is not used by Apple Photos and your issue will go way. I have used PL from version 1 and have never seen the issue you describe - am also on Mac.

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There is no such thing as an Apple Photos folder.

When you open Photos, what you are seeing is the application’s user interface to its database manager. When you drag images into that window, Photos takes those files, makes several different sized thumbnails for viewing at different resolutions and adds entries to the database so that it can find them when needed. Here is what is inside the Photos App icon…

The app creates a a default “bundle”, which is badged with the Photos app icon, and is placed in your Pictures folder. If I use Finder to look inside this bundle, this is what I see…

… and if I drill down to the Originals folder, I see…

Then you have all sorts of “stuff” in other sub-folders that are managed by the app.


What you have got, by default, is the ability too see the Photos bundle in the PhotoLab Library pane…

This is “dangerous” and you really would be better off disabling this in PhotoLab preferences…


Now, what has happened so far, is that you have unwittingly and unnecessarily “buried” your image files in the Photos bundle’s Originals folder.

In order to return to some state of sanity, you are going to need to use Finder to retrieve all those files from their automatically created sub-folders and move them to an appropriately named and arranged hierarchy under your Pictures folder…

Something like this…

… although how you arrange them is up to you.

Once you have disabled the “reading bundles” setting, you can then use the PhotoLab Library browser to point to any sub-folder in your Pictures folder, or indeed, any folder anywhere on any of your disks…


If the above isn’t clear, let us know and either I or someone else will help further

Please be aware that doing this will deliver the files with long cryptic filenames.

Use Apple Photos to export the originals instead. This will produce friendlier names and xmp sidecars that can include metadata like e.g. a copyright notice etc.

Ah yes! I had forgotten that bit. As @platypus says, use the Export Originals menu item to extract them from their inner sanctum with their original filenames.

Thank you all very much for your recommendations.

I contacted DxO and because I am using PL6, they won’t give me any support. However, several times they have hinted that I could solve my issue by “looking into the user guide for this version and searching for the export settings to hopefully assist you with your questions”.

DxO seems to be hinting the answer / reason for my problem is in the export settings.

I reviewed that area and I guess I don’t know what to look for and could not see a solution.

Any of you familiar with the export settings.

What you have been told by DxO is utter rubbish. I’m in a meeting this evening but, if nobody else replies, I will later

2 Likes

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Perhaps they did not understand your problem, but I can tell you without a doubt that the export feature has absolutely nothing to do with the issue you reported. All an export will do is create a single output version of your edited file In TIFF, DNG, or JPEG formats once you manually initiate it. It is not triggered automatically and does not make copies of your original files.

Mark

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That sounds like a very “dog in the manger” attitude. There is essentially no difference in how images are read into PL for many versions now.

As Mark says, your advice from DxO is total rubbish to be completely ignored.

Is there any chance you could write a step by step description of exactly what you are doing from when you get your images from the camera? Do you remove the memory card from the camera or do you use the Image Transfer app provided by Apple with a USB cable?

To start with, where exactly do you transfer the files to? The Photos (flower) icon in Pictures, or a sub-folder in your Pictures folder?

Any chance of screenshots ?