Help me automate a photography workflow
September 23, 2011 1:48 PM   Subscribe

How can I automate ftp transfers from one Mac to another?

I'm setting up a workflow for moving jpg's from one Mac running OS X to another for offline viewing during a photoshoot. I'm using Adobe Lightroom to shoot tethered to a Macbook Pro and I need the jpg's being saved through Lightroom to be automatically moved via ftp (or afp) to another Mac for an art director to view.

I'm not much for command line and would like to accomplish this through an app running in the background. I have zero applescript or automator knowledge.
posted by photoslob to Computers & Internet (12 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Odinsdream is absolutely correct. There are a million ways you could do this, but using Transmit is the easiest and requires the least amount of work on your end.
posted by jeffch at 1:55 PM on September 23, 2011


Response by poster: Good to know about Transmit because that's what I'm using already. Problem is that I can't get the synchronize feature to continuously move the files. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
posted by photoslob at 1:59 PM on September 23, 2011


Does OSX include rsync?
posted by rmd1023 at 2:05 PM on September 23, 2011


Dropbox instead of FTP?
posted by entropicamericana at 2:09 PM on September 23, 2011


Response by poster: I've got Transmit mount as disk figured out (very cool btw) but I still don't have an automated way to move the files. I need the images to show up in Lightroom on the machine I'm working on AND on the other Mac as well.
posted by photoslob at 2:16 PM on September 23, 2011


You could create an Automator Application to do the syncing. Since you've got Transmit installed, you've got a Synchronize action (in the Internet settings) of the Automator app.

If you know the folder where your files are stored in Lightroom, you could create an Automator Application that takes the Lightroom folder as an input and then synchronize that folder using the Transmit automator action. It still won't be automatic, but sending the files will be as simple as running an app (which can be done from spotlight quickly). No need to mess with rsync or cron.
posted by jeffch at 2:24 PM on September 23, 2011


Response by poster: I'm trying not to mess with Automator and Transmit's synchronize feature will do basically the same thing.
posted by photoslob at 2:28 PM on September 23, 2011


Chronosync will let you sync two folders at defined intervals (minimum one minute) automatically with no user input. Since you've got Transmit mounting the other computer, you could set Chronosync to sync the files between the folders on the computers.

Not free.
posted by jeffch at 2:33 PM on September 23, 2011


Best answer: Why even mount-as-disk with transmit? If afp is an option I assume that means shareable folders is too and you're on the same network. The only reason I'd see to use transmit instead is if it's robust about dealing with network disconnection and reconnection.

I use an automator script to watch the download folder on any of my macs for .torrent files and move them to a specific other folder - a dropbox folder, so it gets auto-synced to the remote location. If the machine wasn't online for some reason it would just happen the next time it was - that's sort of the advantage of using Dropbox for it, they have handled coding up the detection magic.

In my case the torrent on the receiving machine deletes the file when its done with it and therefor Dropbox deletes it from the other machines too. This may not be the sort of thing you want to do with your images here but you can customize easily (see below).

You may not have Automator experience but this particular use is crazy easy. You open Automator, pick new and choose "folder action" as the type. Pick the folder to monitor from the drop box in the upper right, drag over a "filter finder items" from the files&folder library on the left and set it up to only copy the files you want. If you want the jpgs and not the raw files pick the extension accordingly.

Next up you drop either "move finder items" or "copy finder items" and pick the destination. Save it and you're done.
posted by phearlez at 2:44 PM on September 23, 2011


Response by poster: I tried having LR just write the files to the Transmit mounted disk but it takes forever and LR gets all crashy.
posted by photoslob at 2:46 PM on September 23, 2011


Response by poster: What's the network speed between the two computers?

WiFi on a home network. There's no telling how fast the wireless will be where I'm working.
posted by photoslob at 2:53 PM on September 23, 2011


Response by poster: phearlez, if you were here I'd kiss you on the mouth. I did exactly what you described and the files are moving!
posted by photoslob at 2:56 PM on September 23, 2011


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