Hi, I am a fairly newbie user working on post for my first holy grail project. For background; I have assembled a more straightforward daylight timelapse earlier, so been through a simplified version of the workflow with success. But I am now having trouble getting LR5 to read the metadata from the files after the first initial steps in LRTimelapse. The main difference being that earlier I was using .jpgs and now I'm using .DNGs.

After I have saved the first steps in LRTimelapse and want to go into LR5 to edit keyframes, I don't get the option to "Read metadata from files" - it's greyed out and my only option is to "Update DNG previews & metadata". I tried that, but it takes forever and nothing happens to the previews (not sure if those should change?), and I don't get any star ratings indicating keyframes that should be edited.

I tried to open the files in Bridge just to check, and there the 16:9 crop and star ratings are clearly visible, but it seems like LR5 can't "see" the changes. I have even tried to sync the folder containing the DNG's but it doesn't make a difference.

What am I missing - please...?

The DNG Workflow works exactly like any other workflow. Please make sure that you are in Grid View (Library) when making the metadata operations.
See this faq thread as well:
http://forum.lrtimelapse.com/Thread-meta...ng-applied

Thanks a lot for your quick reply Gunther!

I have read the documentation and checked and double-checked and then got the idea to try with the original Canon .CR2 raw files that got converted into .DNGs (I thought this might have some benefits like slightly smaller file size, no need for sidecar files and embedded previews that would reflect adjustments.)

Fortunately I hadn't thrown away the original Canon .CR2 RAW files yet, and made a new attempt using those instead of the DNGs, and followed the same procedures. Everything worked as expected without a problem, so that leads me to suspect that there is some kind of communication problem somewhere between the .DNG format and the syncing back and forth with Lightroom 5 and / or LRTimelapse.

I will simply proceed with the original RAW files as that seems to work better. Seems like .DNG has a lot of theoretical advantages but may not be the best format in real life production environment.

Anyway, fantastic program and ditto support - please keep up the good work! :-)

BR, Morten

Hi Morten, if this works for you, good. But I'm still surprised that DNG does not, because me and many users use it frequently without any problems.

Hi Gunther;

To be honest I was a bit surprised too, but there seems to be a problem with the DNG format as the option to read/write metadata in LR5 is simply greyed out, and the only available option is to "Update DNG Previews & Metadata".

I tried that option too, assuming it might read the changed settings and update the previews accordingly, but no. It seems as if LR5 can't see the changes. So I'm not sure if LR5 is reading the metadata from the same place that LRTimelapse is writing it - it doesn't seem like it is.

Bridge, on the other hand, could see the changes, as when I opened the folder after doing the initial steps according to the LRTimelapse documentation, I could clearly see the thumbnails open with the expected 16:9 ratio and keyframe ratings in Bridge. But not in Lightroom with DNGs.

Only with .CR2s do I get this expected behaviour. So it is as if something is getting lost in the translation between the DNGs and LRTimelapse/LR5.

I have checked my settings and auto sync etc. have been turned off, so that should not be the issue.

As Bridge can see the changes then it seems like it may be an issue with my version of LR5 rather than LRTimelapse. I'm using LR5 for Mac, if you are using LR5 for the PC then maybe this is a bug that is only in the Mac version of LR5?

Anyway, using .CR2s are a perfectly fine workaround for now :-)

Update Previews and Metadata is something you should definitely not use when working with LRTImelapse!
It will change the previews to the edited ones and LRTimelapse wont be able to work then anymore correctly!

Lightroom will always try writing XMP into the DNGs itself, this takes very long. LRTimelapse uses Sidecars (much faster) - and both programs will read whichever is never. So normally the interface just works. Maybe your DNG's are not writable?

I have no clue why your LR cannot read / write Metadata for DNG. It's not a Mac/PC problem, 30% of the LRT users are Mac users and they can use it.
I'd suggest you just use the RAW files, mostly it's the better choice anyway.

I'd suggest you just use the RAW files, mostly it's the better choice anyway.

Thanks Günther, will do! :-)