A Script to solve a Workflow Problem

I have a problem in my photo workflow for quite some time, and finally I created a solution in the form of a script I wrote.
Maybe you have a similar problem, and you also work with Linux, then I may have a possible solution below.

However, even if you are a Windows user, scripts are still useful, and who doesn’t know the old DOS box.
You need basic computer knowledge, but you don’t need to be a programmer to use scripts.
And whether for Linux or Windows, Google is your best friend !
Just type your OS system, type in what you want to do, command line or terminal/console – you’ll be surprised how much you can still find about the old Dos or Shell Scripts.

The problem is as follows : I always shoot jpg + raw.
When I go through my photos on my computer the first time, my photo viewer is slow because it also has to open the raws, so I put all raws immediately after download in a folder that I create named “RAW”.
Then I view and clean up the jpgs almost immediately after – so all less good and bad jpgs are removed.
However, I still have all raws in my “RAW” folder,
both good and bad.
In the main folder I also create another subfolder named “EDIT”,
in this I put an edited jpg copy of my very best photos that I want to publish at some point, this copy can be an edit of a sooc jpg or raw, but in most cases only resized for web – the file name remains unchanged – only extra edits of the same jpg get renamed.

Now, what I want is : I want to keep all good to best jpgs,
and only from the very best (jpg or raw) of which I have edited and placed a jpg in the “EDIT” folder,
of that I want to keep the raw file,
all other raws will be removed.

Situation, description and solution :

First step – I copy all my photos from SD card to my computer with Rapid Photo Downloader – RPD creates a folder with file name “year month date”, and copies all files (jpg +raw) into this folder.

Step two – I create a subfolder from the start in that new folder “y m d” called “RAW” in which I place all raws – now my viewer has no problems anymore !
While viewing I delete all bad jpgs from the main folder.
I also create a second folder named “EDIT”,
in this folder I create a jpg copy of my very best jpgs or raws, that I want to publish at some point.

Step three – After fully processing a photo folder I would like to delete all raws – except ! all raws of which have been in an edit, or of which a jpg is in the “EDIT” folder, I want to keep !

For this I start a script which I named “RawCopier”.
It will first look in the “Edit” folder, remember all the file names of the jpgs that can be found there.
Then it will search for the same filename in the “RAW” folder with the Olympus .orf extension.
Then the script copies these files to the “EDIT” folder for when I later want to create another version and need the raw from these photos.

Result : In the “EDIT” folder I now have a raw file for every jpg it contains. It is safe to delete the “RAW” folder now.

Below is the text that makes up the script, you can adapt it to your own situation, other file extensions and/or other folders.

for f in /home/marc/Afbeeldingen/2022/20221015/Edit/.jpg; do filename=$(echo $f | sed -e ‘s/.\///’ -e ‘s/..*//’); cp -r /home/marc/Afbeeldingen/2022/20221015/Raw/${filename}.orf /home/marc/Afbeeldingen/2022/20221015/Edit/; done

As a script editor I use “Kate”, it’s simple to use and is standard in Kubuntu 22.04 LTS

Give the script a name and save the text file with the .sh extension,
in this case “RawCopier.sh”, in the “root” of the folder where you want it to run.
To make the script executable, open a terminal such as “Konsole” in the folder where you have the script.
Type : chmod +x followed by the exact full name of your script with extension:
chmod +x RawCopier.sh
Enter
Your Script is then executable.

If you want to run this script in a different or new folder – put a copy of the script in the “root” of that folder, open the script in Kate, and change the path names in the script to the current situation.

You can also use another folder to copy the Raws to instead of the Edit folder,
in the script just change the “copy to pad” in the last bit of the script (Orf) – this way it’s easier to check if you indeed have all the raws you need in the “orf” folder, so you can delete the “raw” folder.
The names I used are just an example, you can rename them in the script to whatever you want – just remember the correct order : first path is “lookup” folder, second is “copy from” folder, third is “copy to” folder.

for f in /home/marc/Afbeeldingen/2022/20221015/Edit/.jpg; do filename=$(echo $f | sed -e ‘s/.\///’ -e ‘s/..*//’); cp -r /home/marc/Afbeeldingen/2022/20221015/Raw/${filename}.orf /home/marc/Afbeeldingen/2022/20221015/Orf/; done

I found this very similar script at “https://www.unix.com/shell-programming-and-scripting/260878-copy-files-different-extensions-same-name.html” but this script didn’t work !
I edited it, changed a few things, and made it usable – You can easily adapt the script to a different situation.

La Gallerie

The photo gallery of Open Source Photography, Olympus micro 4/3 system, Vintage Lens Photograpy, Film Simulation, PictureFX, HDR – Photographer : Marc R.