Live Ingest


Print This Article 

  All Keyboard Shortcuts 



    Live Ingest works similarly to a standard Ingest process, except that rather than ingesting all the photos at once, Live Ingest monitors a folder and ingests new photos that appear in it according to your specifications. This is used for shooting wirelessly or while tethered.

Live Ingest processes last until you close Photo Mechanic or you cancel them.

Monitoring Files for Stability While Copying

    You can specify a delay (30 seconds is the default) before ingesting a new file to make sure the photo has finished loading before it is ingested. This is especially important for RAW files. We also recommend selecting “Wait for RAW+JPEG pairs when {seqn} is used” if you are shooting RAW.


Tip: For speed when shooting tethered, your tethering software may offer you the option to shoot in RAW+JPEG but only transfer the JPEG to your computer. For maximum speed when working with Live Ingest, consider transferring only the JPEG for quick review. You can do this and add color codes or ratings to the JPEG, and then ingest the RAW versions later by plugging in the memory card to a card reader.


    To transfer the color class/ratings and other metadata from JPEGs to the RAW versions, follow these steps:

  1. Put the two sets of files into the same folder
  2. Open that folder as a contact sheet
  3. Make sure your RAW and JPEG files are shown as a single item by setting Combined RAW+JPEG from the View menu (⌘-J)
  4. Select all (⌘-A)
  5. Use the Update IPTC/XMP command on the Tools menu. Choose to Read IPTC/XMP from JPEG.
  6. Click Update.

Can't find what you were looking for?

Submit a ticket

Was this article helpful?

That’s Great!

Thank you for your feedback

Sorry About That!

Let us know how can we improve this article!

Select at least one of the reasons

Feedback sent

We appreciate your effort and will try to improve this article