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Is it possible to export/process on another computer/machine? - Printable Version

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Is it possible to export/process on another computer/machine? - bugnuker - 2019-01-03

Hello!

I'm trying to find a way to offload the export process to another machine. Let me explain.

I'd like to use one machine to start the workflow, set key frames, and make edits in Lightroom. Once those edits are done, and LRTimelapse has calculated transitions, created the preview, and finished the de-flicker process.

After this, I'd like to somehow offload the "export" job to another machine and let a VM or something else on my network that has access to the network drive do all the work. Once done, I can just open LRTimelapse and render the timelapse manually.

I've looked into have Lightroom installed on both machines. This will work, Adobe does allow up to 2 machines to have the same license installed. I already have the second instance of Adobe installed on my Wife's laptop, so I'm unable to do that.

I'm not trying to remove the requirement for Adobe Lightroom. I just want to make the workflow quicker for me. I'm wondering... if LRTimelapse can make the render previews, it seems to be using AdobeDNGConverter to apply the metadata and create the previews. Is it possible to use a similar method to jsut do the full quality export/render of the photos?

While I'm here and talking about this, it would be super cool to have something like this built into LRTimelapse for workflows that would allow something like jobs or queues.

From reading other posts, it seems one could install LRTimelapse on both computers, and have one (like a VM) do all the processing, while the other (like a laptop) jsut preps the sequence for processing.

That should work without issue, but what I explain below is a bit more automated. Probably too much effort to make the change considering there is a manual work around, but I'll still detail my idea below:

It would be REALLY COOL if LRTimelapse would allow you to import your photos, set key frames, edit your key frames in adobe, then calculate transitions, all like normal. Then, instead of creating the preview on that same machine, somehow be able to save the project. Then on a VM or some other machine, have some worker process or job (or even the LRTimelapse full UI) that can open a saved LRTimelapse project and process the previews and have them ready. It could also do the de-flicker process, out of band, in this same method.

This other LRTimelapse instance would do all the heavy lifting while your main PC is freed up.
Once processing is done, or, once you are ready to continue, you go back to your Laptop or whatever, open the project, and now you see all the previews and the deflicker, ready to watch and edit if needed.

This would require a shared drive that ALL the machines could access. It could allow for multiple timelapse sequences to be initialized, edited, and "ready to go".
Then, at night or something, you could have them all "process" while you sleep.

Right now it takes about 30 - 45 minutes to prep a timelapse, but takes hours to see the previews and deflicker, then even more time to have lightroom export. during all this time, you are not able to work in parallel on another sequence.

TL;DR;
Ideally, in the end, it would be nice to "prep" your timelapse sequences, and have the processing take place during another time or machine, out of band from the original process.

Ughhhhhh, I've typed too much.

Thanks for reading
-Shane


RE: Is it possible to export/process on another computer/machine? - Gunther - 2019-01-04

The problem is, that Adobe does not offer any headless batch-camera-raw process. The Dng Converter to create the previews is the closest I can get, but this will not create any full resolution frames.
So the only thing you could do is to have another Lightroom on the 2nd computer. From there load the metadata from the original sequence and export from lightroom. With the XMP sidecar files (with the metadata) in the same folder as the original files, you'll always have access to the latest processing of the raw files.

From my experience, doing the workflows on one, fast computer would be better if you follow my advices on how to edit multiple sequences with LRTimelapse Pro. Check out the tutorials page at the very bottom, the last video, if you haven't yet. This is the fastest workflow you can get and it's pretty fast.


RE: Is it possible to export/process on another computer/machine? - bugnuker - 2019-01-04

Thanks for your reply!

I'll check out the videos and see what I am missing and see what speed gains I can achieve.
Thanks again and Happy New Year!