Copy or duplicate a photo

[Pito Salas]

This is so basic that the command must be there. I want to make a copy of one picture so I can apply different edits to see which ones I like best.

But after 5 minutes of looking I can’t find the command. If it is actually there, consider this a bit of UX feedback: It should not be that hard to find.

If there is no way to do this, then consider this a bit of functionality feedback: clearly (to me) it should be possible to duplicate a picutre.

Pito

[JoJu]

What’s so complicated in
“show in Finder”
“duplicate”
and continue to work with the copy in Nitro?

Except that physical copies for no other reason than try another version indeed is not exactly state of the art today. I never duplicate large RAW files, I use cloned variants (in Capture One) which leaves the source file untouched and doesn’t decrease diskspace..

[Nik Bhatt]

The short answer is that it’s not implemented yet, but hopefully soon (in a release or two, I hope).

The long answer is that it’s harder than it looks if you are using the Photo Library. Actually, it’s impossible to fully implement Duplicate in the Photo Library. That’s because Apple does not permit third party apps to read/write keywords, titles, descriptions, etc. As a result, I cannot make a new image in the library that includes the titles, descriptions, or keywords you may have added in Photos. I can copy Nitro data, but not Photos data. Argh. So, when I make the Duplicate feature in Nitro, any duplicate made in the Photo Library will be missing that data.

In the intervening time:
1) Finder: Use Duplicate in the Finder – if your disk uses APFS, then the duplicate will not use more disk space
2) Photos: Use Duplicate in Photos – they can make a true copy.

[Andy Gordon]

Hi Nik, this kind of aligns with other finder related activities that I would want to do such as move or copy images and associated xmp files between folders – are more image organisation tools planned soon?

[Ingvar Thorsson]

Just a thought

Would it be possible to implement a way to create multiple xmp files for a specific image with a method to switch between active and inactive sidecars as an alternative to a full image copy from within Nitro? A Sidecar can become active via a simple renaming

E.g. D1234.xmp D1234.xmp1 D1234.xmp2

In this case there is just one valid xmp file at any time with minimal risk to the application integrity

I understand that this concept is incompatible with Photos, a showstopper?

[Nik Bhatt]

I haven’t determined the extent of file management tools for upcoming releases. Probably the first batch will be around R+J and XMP file extension flexibility (and possibly writing XMP into the original).

Having multiple XMP files is possible, but I think it would probably create a bunch of problems. If the point of duplication is to be able to edit an image more than one way, then I have a better approach in mind, but again, that’s in the future.

[Author]

Posts