Skip to main content
Next

Hand off takes to another editor

Hand off takes… writes what you decided, the takes with their star ratings, colour labels and groups, as files another editor can read. No image is copied or moved: the files go into a folder you choose, not beside your photographs. Use it when the developing will happen in Lightroom or Capture One, not on Vixlo's edit page.

Opening it​

Press ⌘E, or choose File ▸ Hand off takes…. Either works on the edit page as well as on the cull page. Not Edit takes (⇧⌘E), the item above it, which opens Vixlo's own edit page.

The dialog is titled Hand off takes to an editor. Three counts sit under its sentence: the takes, the holds remaining and the groups covered. Every take in the library is handed off, and takes and holds are counted across the library, whatever the pass is narrowed to. The groups figure, such as 8/9, is worked out over the pass on screen: how many of its sessions have reached their target, one take unless you raised it on the session's card (Session cards). Under the counts, rows say what is about to happen:

  • Will write 12 XMP sidecars + 1 decisions.json, into the folder you choose next and never beside the source card.
  • If holds remain: 3 holds remain, with Review them or continue now.
  • If the bin holds frames: 3 frames in the bin, with a line from this library's bin rule.

The Hand off takes dialog with 12 takes, 3 holds remaining and 8/9 groups covered

In Vixlo 0.1

Under the bin rules Ask when I finalise the cull and Empty the bin automatically when I finalise, the last row reads Vixlo will ask whether to empty the bin before handing off or This library empties the bin on finalise — those files will be deleted. Neither happens: writing the hand-off asks nothing and deletes nothing. Frames in the bin are deleted only when you press Empty bin… and confirm (Library rules).

Holds first, or continue​

If holds remain, the button left of Write to folder… reads Review holds; otherwise it reads Close. A hold is never handed off; only takes go.

Review holds closes the dialog and shows Compare: the frame you are on beside the best other frame Vixlo can find. It does so from Single, from Frames and from the edit page, which it leaves for the cull first. Compare opens on the frame the cull was on, not on a hold, which after a stretch on the edit page need not be the take you were looking at there.

To leave Compare, press C again or Esc; Leaving Compare has the other ways.

Writing the files​

  1. Press Write to folder….
  2. A folder picker opens (Choose a folder for the XMP sidecars and decisions.json. Nothing is copied, moved, or deleted — your originals stay exactly where they are.). Choose a folder, or make a new one, and press Write Here.
  3. The dialog reads Hand-off written: Wrote 12 XMP sidecars and decisions.json for 12 takes. Your originals were not touched., with the folder's path and Reveal in Finder.

The Hand-off written dialog with 12 sidecars written

Any folder on this Mac you can write to will do, except one on a removable card or drive, an external drive included: the message ends A hand-off never writes back to a source card.

caution

Never choose the Originals folder inside your library. Vixlo keeps an .xmp there beside each photograph you have worked on, holding that frame's decision and develop settings (What a library is on disk). A hand-off written there replaces any of those files whose name matches one of its own, and the develop settings in them are gone. In any folder, an .xmp of the same name is replaced, whoever wrote it.

The folder holds no photographs; Using a hand-off in your editor says how the sidecars and photographs meet.

What is written​

For each take, one .xmp file named after the photograph as it was on the card, the way Lightroom expects a sidecar beside a RAW file to be named: DSCF1234.xmp for DSCF1234.RAF. A photograph Vixlo renamed on import still gets the card's name; Photographs renamed on import says what to do. In the standard fields every XMP reader shows, it carries:

  • the star rating, if you gave one.
  • the colour label. A take you never labelled is written as Green, the usual convention for a select, so it shows as chosen.
  • keywords: Vixlo and a group name, also as a hierarchy, plus the stack of a take in one, and Cover if it leads the stack.

Vixlo's own fields hold the decision, the take's place in this hand-off, its group, its stack and, on a favourite, the favourite. The group is the one given at import, so its name may not match the session you see in Frames (How a shoot is grouped).

One decisions.json lists every take with its file name, decision, rating, favourite, colour label, group, stack and order. It is Vixlo's own record; the editor reads the sidecars. The keywords and caption you typed on a frame are not in these files.

Refusals​

Four things stop a hand-off before anything is written:

  • No takes: the dialog says No takes yet — mark at least one frame before handing off. and Write to folder… stays off.
  • A folder on a removable card or drive, as above.
  • A folder you cannot write to: isn't writable, so nothing was written there.
  • Two takes with the same file name, such as frames from two cards of one camera that both started at IMG_0001, because both would want the same .xmp. The message lists the names and ends Rename these frames, or hand them off separately. A hand-off has no field for a new name, so to get past this, change one of the two frames to Hold and hand off, then make that one a Take again, make the other the Hold and hand off again into a second folder.

The last three, and a failure part way, show Couldn't write the hand-off with the reason. If a sidecar will not write, the hand-off stops there, writes no decisions.json and says how many sidecars are already in the folder. If only decisions.json fails, the sidecars are valid and the dialog says so. Try again reopens the picker.

In Vixlo 0.1

The same-name check compares whole file names, so two takes that differ only after the dot, or only in capital letters, pass it: IMG_0001.RAF and IMG_0001.JPG as two takes, for one, when Vixlo did not pair them as one shot. (A pair Vixlo paired at import is one take and is not affected.) Both want IMG_0001.xmp; the second replaces the first, and the report counts both. Keep only one of the two marked Take, or hand the two off separately into two folders.