Our new DSLR Camera Remote app for the iPhone hasn’t been out for 12 hours yet and there have been so many people who have already purchased the app and posted feedback. First, thank you on all levels. We appreciate the great feedback and comments. I’d like to address one of the comments I’ve read so far about using the DSLR Camera Remote along with a watched folder in Lightroom. Using the default settings can cause some frustration, but I think I’ve figured out a way, at least on a Mac, to resolve it.

The Problem

For those of you shooting with the DSLR Camera Remote and wanting to have those photos be automatically imported into a Lightroom catalog, you may notice a problem similar to the outlined below by reader Brendan:

One problem when I use DSLR remote in tandem with Lightroom:
DSLR uses a watched folder, and displays the latest entry to this folder on my iPhone.
Great so far.
Lightroom also uses a watched folder, but as soon as something shows up in that folder Lightroom moves it to another folder.
Problem being, as soon as the image is moved, it disappears from my iPhone screen.
Not your fault, but it would be wonderful to have the latest image appear on the laptop as well as my iPhone.
It doesn’t seem to be possible to stop Lightroom from moving the image out of the watched folder.

Brendan – you’re right. When the DSLR Camera Remote app on the iPhone displays the photo that you just took, it is getting that photo from the pictures folder you defined or setup in the Server Software. Further, there are no options in Lightroom 2 that will allow you to NOT move a file from a watched folder before importing it into your Lightroom catalog.

Under the Auto-Import Settings dialog box, you have to enter a subfolder name in the Destination portion of that dialog box. If you don’t Lightroom will at least, put in an underscore character. So how do we get around this? On a Mac, it’s pretty straight-forward. Here’s how I was able to get my photos automatically imported into Lightroom 2 while keeping the files where the Server Software and the DSLR Camera Remote on my iPhone expect to see them so I can still get previews on my iPhone.

For this scenario, Folder A is the folder where the DSLR Server Software stores the photos, Folder B is the watched folder as defined in Lightroom’s auto-import preferences. Folder C is where the images will ultimately end up after being (moved and) imported by Lightroom 2.

The Solution

I opened up the Automator application that is included with Mac OS X 10.5 {  {1}  } and did the following.

Step 1 – Create a new folder (Folder A)  where you want the DSLR Camera Remote Server Software to store the files. I can be anywhere you want. Create Folder B – this is the temp folder. Create Folder C – this is where the images will ultimately end up via the Lightroom 2 Auto Import.

Step 2 – Launch Automator and from the Wizard-like sheet that appears, choose Custom.

automator-01

Step 3 – From the Actions category, select Files & Folders and then Find Finder Items.

automator-02

Drag the Find Finder Items action over into the big empty window space on the right. Under the Where: section, choose Folder A. Be sure to set the Whose: section to be Date Created equals today.

automator-03

Step 4 – From the Actions list on the left, locate the Copy Finder Items action below the action created in Step 3 above. Choose the location of Folder B – this is where you are going to tell Lightroom 2 to look for the auto-import.

Step 5 – Now you’re ready to save your creation. Go to the File menu and choose Save as Plug-In… in the next dialog box that appears, give it any name that is meaningful to you. Next, and this is important, choose Folder Actions from the pop-up menu for the Plug-In for: section. In the next drop down menu, click once and then select Folder A that we created above.

automator-04

What’s going to happen is every time a file shows up in this folder from Step 1 (i.e. our photos being captured remotely) it will get COPIED from Folder A to Folder B. Because it’s a folder action, it will run whenever ANY FILE created “today” shows up which is going to be all the time since we’re shooting.

Step 6 – In Lightroom 2, go to the File menu and choose Auto Import and then Auto Import Settings. Define where you want the files to go or if you wish to append metadata, etc upon import.

picture-7

Finally go ahead and fire up the Server Software if it’s not already going. Grab you iPhone and fire away on  your supported camera. If Lightroom is in the foreground you’ll see the photos show up. Further, the photos are still on your iPhone preview because the originals are still in Folder A, where we are looking.

Folder B becomes empty due to the nature of the Lightroom auto-import behavior. Folder C and it’s sub directory is where the files from Folder B get automatically moved to due to Lightroom’s Auto Import Settings. That’s all there is too it. Pretty simple really, even if you’ve never used Automator before.

When you’re all done, you can delete Folder A as it is now just a duplicate of the files that have already been moved and added to a Lightroom database.

As for Windows, I’m not very well versed there in order to provide any type of solution. But if anybody reading this is, please feel free to drop a comment on your solution.

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  1. I believe it is also included with Mac OS X 10.4 [↩]

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