DPP 4.20.11.0 Star rating filter shows incomplete results

[Scorpio_GRG]

I use Canon DPP 4 for the following scenario - reviewing my raw images (CR3), putting star rating, but when I need to apply star rating  filter to get my rated images I got the following problem - result is incomplete, DPP shows only a random part of rated according to filter images. I have about 1000 - 1500 images in folder. 

[wq9nsc]

Scorpio,

I use this DPP capability for pretty much every event I shoot and it has worked perfectly.  Friday night I shot a football game with just over 1,100 CR3 images captured between two 1DX III bodies.  I dump everything into a folder on one of my SSD drives and while editing I will assign a star rating to any image I want to keep for batch processing.  Often I will provide a set of images to the opposing school and that was the case for Friday night where one of my early university students was on the "chain gang" for this away game and his son is a star player for the opposing team.  I assign a single star to images that will be uploaded for the school I volunteer with, 3 stars for images only for the opposing school, and 2 stars for images that both will get.  Prior to batch processing, I select by star rating and batch into a primary directory for the event with sub-directories for the 2 and 3 star rated images.  This is the workflow I have used for many years and it has worked well.

One thing I have noticed with recent versions of DPP is it sometimes seems to get confused with sort order when dumping images into a directory with images already in place and that happens when you use EOS utility with multiple bodies for the same event.  DPP will execute once the first body has uploaded, to avoid this issue I have DPP set to start with a dummy directory which also makes for fast starts.  Maybe try exiting DPP (of course being sure to save) after you have completed your star ratings and then relaunch it.

What does it show in terms of numbers of images if you select one star only and tell it to batch?  Does it show the correct number of images?

On a related DPP note, the best addition I have made to my photo processing setup is using a second monitor with the tool palette on the second monitor.  I use a 32" 4K primary monitor and for editing I shrink the file structure column which allows room for a reasonable size thumbnail and a very large image edit window with the tool bar on the other monitor.  This makes it very easy to tell at a glance if a thumbnail is good enough to consider and allows for easy editing of the good images. 

For football, I do pretty minimal editing (primarily cropping and a bit of exposure adjustment) but I try to capture images that are basically good to go.  Total time from start of editing to upload of 244 images was under 3 hours but a lot of credit goes to using a fast twin processor HP workstation which makes DPP behave without lagging.

Hopefully you are able to easily figure out what is going on with your DPP problem.  I have the Adobe Cloud along with DXO but I rarely use those programs because DPP does a great job and does it quickly.

Rodger

[Scorpio_GRG]

"What does it show in terms of numbers of images if you select one star only and tell it to batch?  Does it show the correct number of images?"

That is the main problem - it shows the random number less than real number of images is (in case of 1000 images and 600 stared images the number can be from 30 up to +/-400). The only way out in my case - apply filter, move the images to the temporary folder, than re-apply filter and move next portion  so until there will be no stared  images in folder (but better check twice 😉 ). 

I use SSD as well, I tried to wait until SSD activity indicator stops blinking and apply filter after but it does not worked out ((( I wrote to the canon support maybe they will give me solution. 

[wq9nsc]

That sounds like a huge nuisance with way too much chance for error!  Have you tried totally exiting and then restarting DPP after you do the original star marking but before choosing only the star marked items?  Hopefully that will work.

I don't pay any attention to drive activity while doing assignment of stars during editing but I suspect that the write activity is instantaneous because the RAW files and DPP workspace are assigned to one of the 2 TB HP "Z drives" on the CPU bus and only the completed JPG files are written to a 4 TB SSD on the slower SATA bus.

Please update with what you learn from Canon support!

Rodger

[Scorpio_GRG]

"Have you tried totally exiting and then restarting DPP after you do the original star marking but before choosing only the star marked items?"

Yes. But this does not affect the situation 

[wq9nsc]

Scorpio,

In your workflow, are you rating any of your images in camera using the star system?  Does your workflow require you to use the capability of the star rating system where you need to select multiple rating levels (i.e. both 1 and 2 star rated images simultaneously)?  If not, try using the check mark selection system instead of the star system because it is a simpler and more straightforward system that may work better for you.  With check marks, you cannot simultaneously select more than one "mark level" at once but you can still work with each level separately for reviews, batching, adjustments such as DLO or exposure sets, etc. so that you can still do the same transformation to all check levels but it just has to be done for each level instead of a single operation for multiple levels.

It is still odd that the star rating system is providing inconsistent results.  Are you doing other edits while adding the star rating or just doing the rating?  If just the star rating, then maybe something is going on with the way your PC storage subsystem buffers changes before writing to the storage drive.  SSDs have a nearly unlimited read capability but writing causes gradual aging of the device and for that reason every storage device manufacturer has their own algorithm for randomizing writing across the device so that it ages evenly with write cycles.  It is possible there is some timing conflict in how your computer's storage controller is interacting with your storage device.

Rodger

[Sports_N_stuff]

Hey, I apologize in advance for going to the basics here, but when my rating count doesn't seem to be adding up, I've learned to check the sorting parameter.  If "filename" or "rating" has an asterisk by it, i.e. "Filename*" I've learned that it's trying to tell me that it needs more information. Whenever I add files to the directory I'm working in, or maybe added a new version of the file using the NNiP, it will add an asterisk because it had to add the new stuff at the bottom.  Sometimes it will just change to "Custom" which means the same thing.  If that's your situation just click on filename again, or sometimes click A-z, Z-a a couple of times and it will resort itself.  The asterisks will disappear and things will be grouped as you would expect them.  You probably already thought of this, but It's tripped me up a couple of times so I thought I'd mention it in case it helps.  

[Scorpio_GRG]

What I have found - first "check mark" seems to have no effect showing nearly the same behavior. But my last batch of raw files - about 20k I placed to the slow HDD, not my to portable SSD (usb 3.0) which I use (because sometimes I work away from my desktop and using laptop in my workflow). And what I found - I placed as usual about 1k files per folder, so I had about 20 folders and about 300-600 'stared' images per 1000 total in folder. What amazing I had only one case per 20 folders when DPP mismatched! But it was harder to discover this time because in the mismatched folder it was not enough to restart DPP I had to press F5 before it recognized the leftover 16 files (Thanks God I check fast with my eyes if there anything left and I noticed this files). But anyway slow HDD showed much better result and stability over fast SSD in terms  of rating filters in DPP. Feeling a bit confused with such discovery 

[Sports_N_stuff]

Sounds like you may have brought us a great test case.  Glad you saw the missing. Did not know the F5 trick which, from it's behaviour, seems to reset DPP4's relationship to the Windows file system. Using a swappable SATA SSD with similar image counts in about 40 folders, tested the F5 (like you) on some recently starred images to verify it doesn't trigger a save.   It doesn't.  Only seems to refresh DPP4's awareness of the files in Windows.  The only "disappearing stars" I've experienced seemed to be related to triggering the sort again.  Resorting brought them back.  At least that's what I assumed.  Had one folder with about 8500 images CR3, CRN and JPGs on that drive and DPP4 ran pretty slow when you first touched it or did sorts.  Had trouble finding a couple of previously starred images but don't have any proof that it was anything other than me being in the right folder and doing the sort. The fact that you had a problem (especially if you can reproduce it) but it works for you on the slower drive might make one wonder if there's a timing issue in the software.   Good luck.  Thanks for sharing.