Topic: Photo Management and MC (Read 16355 times)

nila · « **Reply #50 on:** June 18, 2003, 12:39:41 am »

For the date fields - could we perhaps choose how we want to see them?

Like with programming languages we set profiles for how we want to see them in the properties for that field:

d = numeric day
dd = numeric day (two digit)
D = monday
y = 03
Y = 2003

etc - so we can define how the fields are displayed?
and used for eg when renaming?

sraymond · « **Reply #51 on:** June 19, 2003, 03:39:57 pm »

Bump.

I was hoping that:

- the [Date (month)] could be somehow converted to a two digit number (from the current spelled out);
- the [Date (day)] could always be a two digit number (vice the current single digit for days 1-9);
- the [Date(hourminute)] and [Date(second)] calculated fields could be added.

Scott-

nila · « **Reply #52 on:** June 20, 2003, 12:43:43 am »

date(hour) - this then adds the problem of 24hr vs. 12hr plus AM/PM.

With the date fields we really need some way to be able to format how the info is displayed.

sraymond · « **Reply #53 on:** June 20, 2003, 08:23:46 am »

Quote

[date(hour) - this then adds the problem of 24hr vs. 12hr plus AM/PM./quote]

I forgot there was somethine else besides 24hr! Must be the military indoctrination...

Don't get me wrong - I'd love customization. But what I *really* need is a way to rename my photos - and I still can't do that yet. I'm looking for YYYYMMDD-HHMM-SS or even something close.

Scott-

sraymond · « **Reply #54 on:** June 24, 2003, 07:31:42 pm »

Bump.

Quote

Bump.

I was hoping that:

- the [Date (month)] could be somehow converted to a two digit number (from the current spelled out);
- the [Date (day)] could always be a two digit number (vice the current single digit for days 1-9);
- the [Date(hourminute)] and [Date(second)] calculated fields could be added.

Scott-

Matt: I hope you can add this, as it will finally let me rename my photos in MC (using a template of YYYYMMDD-HHMM-SS). I think the HH should definitely be 24 hour. Sorry if I'm being a pest, but this seems like such a simple addition - even just the last ([Date(hourminute)] and [Date(second)]) would be enough for now.

I agree with others that flexibility would be ideal, but for now, I just need a single way to rename photos.

Scott-

Cmagic · « **Reply #55 on:** June 24, 2003, 10:10:15 pm »

Yep,

I follow Scott on this request. Naming photos with the present Date (month) scheme results in a file listing like the following in Win Explorer :
2002-April
2002-December
2002-February
2002-January...
2002-June
2002-March
2002-May

Here is a sample of my present naming scheme (named using Breezsys downloader) which is quite common in the digital photography world :

20021121-0736-0670-a--sunrise.jpg

Photo number #670 taken November 21st 2002 at 7:36 am, the little "a" means its an original (negative) unedited image.

Have a nice day,

Christian

Cmagic · « **Reply #56 on:** June 25, 2003, 02:40:04 am »

Hi,

One thing I find a bit annoying with MC is the RMC/resize image feature.

If you are not careful enough you can easily destroy an original image since when the files are not write protected, MC will simply replace the original image with the resized one !
In fact it happened to me once while playing with the feature

(I should have played with copies).
Once a picture is reduced from 3000x2000 to 640x480 there's no way to undo !

Adobe Photoshop Album always makes a copy before any editing (resize, rotate) and will warn the user.
Paint Shop Album or Imatch will allow the user to set the Read Only flag (displaying a lock) and warn you.

I think MC should also warn the user before attempting to replace an original file with an edited one. MC could also set the newly acquired images to Read Only.

C.

nila · « **Reply #57 on:** June 25, 2003, 05:48:30 am »

I agree.

I made this mistake too.

Any non-reversable changes to files (images size etc.) should definitely carry a warning that they are NOT undoable.

sraymond · « **Reply #58 on:** June 30, 2003, 03:22:24 pm »

Bump.

Quote

Bump.

Quote:Bump.

I was hoping that:

- the [Date (month)] could be somehow converted to a two digit number (from the current spelled out);
- the [Date (day)] could always be a two digit number (vice the current single digit for days 1-9);
- the [Date(hourminute)] and [Date(second)] calculated fields could be added.

Scott-

Scott-

Cmagic · « **Reply #59 on:** July 02, 2003, 12:56:55 pm »

Bump again since I believe there are some useful suggestions for photo management in here !

Matt · « **Reply #60 on:** July 02, 2003, 01:06:28 pm »

Would a [Date (filename friendly)] field that did this YYYYMMDD-HHMM-SS work for everyone? It'd leave off the HHMM or SS parts if the date didn't contain them.

Cmagic · « **Reply #61 on:** July 02, 2003, 01:19:09 pm »

I'd like that, maybe the seconds might not be necessary. Scott ?

Thanks Matt,

Christian

sraymond · « **Reply #62 on:** July 02, 2003, 01:27:25 pm »

Seconds help ensure unique filenames... it's quite common to take more than one photo each minute.

The alternative would be to use a sequential number appended to the YYYYMMDD-HHMM, but I've only seen this done on programs that rename the files at the time of acquiring.

I, personally, cannot take more than one photo each second, but maybe there are cameras out there that do?

Quote

Would a [Date (filename friendly)] field that did this YYYYMMDD-HHMM-SS work for everyone? It'd leave off the HHMM or SS parts if the date didn't contain them.

This would work for me. Of course, I'd always prefer flexibility, but in accordance with the way I name files now, even if I had flexibility, I'd do it this way.

Matt: Thanks for listening!

Scott-

kiwi · « **Reply #63 on:** July 02, 2003, 05:44:41 pm »

Can one rename from tags with image files? How does it deal with lists in tags?

Is there an easy way to copy the orig file name into another field? Just so that you still have it?

OT: Can one use Lists "foo;bar" in any tag in MC? I have some albums with multiple artists. So and so... featuring someone else. Will this work here? Will it cause incompatibility with other programs?

nila · « **Reply #64 on:** July 03, 2003, 12:21:36 am »

I'd personally rather be able to customise it myself personally (sorry to be a pain).

Maybe give us some way of customising how that field displays via some 'advanced' options that u have to specifically click on advanced for.

Dates are a really important area that are tricky but once worked out properly will be an important part of MC.

We also still need some soft of way of managing 'imported date' - like we do with the normal date field where we can split it by month, year etc - this would allow me to do exactly what I want with having a view scheme designed to allow me to keep track of songs by when I added them to my collection rather than by when they were released.

I'd have this as my view scheme (and I've been wanting this since v9 when better date controls were promised)

Imported Date (year)/Imported Date (month)/Imported Date (day)/Artist/Album

There needs to be a 'date' field type that we can create ourselves and that we can then access each part of using the format: fieldname (year), etc.

We also need to be able to format how this is displayed used etc.

It's tricky I know and it's alot of work for something that seems so unimportant but dates are really an important area - esp. with images and home video's but also with music even if to a lesser extent.

sraymond · « **Reply #65 on:** July 03, 2003, 06:35:07 am »

Quote

I'd personally rather be able to customise it myself personally (sorry to be a pain).

I can't imagine anyone would disagree - wouldn't it be great to be able to use regular-expression-like patterns?

But it's been about three weeks since I made the plunge to use MC for photos (vice APA) - and I need to rename some photos for archival purposes.

For the short-term, a single calculated field [Date(filenamefriendly)] would be MOST welcome.

Scott-

nila · « **Reply #66 on:** July 03, 2003, 11:53:38 am »

date (filefriendlyversion) button here with 'customise' on it - where we can then do regular expression type building for editing how this filefriendly version looks - whatever programming language u are using is going to deal with the dates like this so it shouldn't be too hard to translate whatever we input into the code that the language is going to use?

sraymond · « **Reply #67 on:** July 07, 2003, 06:42:21 pm »

I should probably start another thread, but here is as good a place as any.

I have a request that I think is pretty essential to using MC for photo management:

If I need to edit a photo (using, say, Photoshop Elements) with the "send to (external)" command, I can easily touch up newly acquired photos. It seems I end up doing a lot of "auto colors/levels/contrast" and "red-eye-removal" these days. But what MC is missing is a "feature" similar to APA. What APA does is this:

When editing a photo, the original photo is copied to OriginalPhotoName_edited.jpg. When changes are made to the edited photo and control returns back to APA, the original photo is "replaced" by the edited photo in the album. Of course, the original photo renames unchanged on the drive.

What I think MC should do is leave the original photo unchanged in the library. There could be an "edit" menu item that first copies the original file to OriginalName_edited.jpg and then sends this "edited" file to the external program. Upon return to MC, the "edited" photo is automatically imported into MC. If the tags are saved in the file, the newly imported photo would have the same tags as the original. If the tags are not saved in the file, I guess that would make it a little more difficult - but the tags should be somehow automatically copied over to the new file.

I hope this makes sense! It took me quite some time to "fix" my 100+ vacation photos because I had to first manually copy the files to be edited (renaming them) and then import them into MC.

APA seems to use a much better way.

Does anyone agree?

Scott-

P.S. What's the status of the [Date(filenamefriendly)] field?

nila · « **Reply #68 on:** July 07, 2003, 11:39:06 pm »

Scott,

I'm not quite sure if I follow you?

Whats the advantage of this over just right clicking, sending to external program, editing and saving and then MC will still be pointing to the right file as u've just edited it?

To then update (write the tags back to the file), right click and choose update from tags, always.

This will then give u your files, edited?

Also, just a suggestion - if you find yourself doing a lot of auto colour, auto contrast, etc to your pics, why not use photoshop to create a droplet action, save it as 'Auto Color.exe' - then set it up as one of your external programs to send to.

You can then right click on a file and 'send to/auto colour'.

It'll then just fix the colour for you automatically without having to do anything?

sraymond · « **Reply #69 on:** July 08, 2003, 06:33:38 am »

Quote

Whats the advantage of this over just right clicking, sending to external program, editing and saving and then MC will still be pointing to the right file as u've just edited it?

What happens to the original file? You should keep an archival original somewhere, right? So, you could copy the original as OriginalFilename_original.jpg - but it's sill a manual step.

Quote

why not use photoshop to create a droplet action

Sounds cool! How would I go about doing that?

Scott-

JeffreyK · « **Reply #70 on:** July 08, 2003, 06:39:28 am »

I agree with Scott, this would be a huge help.

The advantage, Nila, is that you can keep the original file untouched - I like to keep the original scan or digital picture as it came off the camera and then store secondary images after edits (I have this belief that things like red-eye reduction tools will get better in the future, and resizing and recropping is destructive).

-Jeff

nila · « **Reply #71 on:** July 08, 2003, 10:49:36 am »

U create a new action of you doing the colour correction, then go to File/Automate - create droplet,
export the action as a .exe - then just set it up in MC.

sraymond · « **Reply #72 on:** July 08, 2003, 11:58:58 am »

Thanks Nila... works great. Now if JRiver can provide a way for keeping an original archive copy of the file edited, things will be good.

Scott-

kiwi · « **Reply #73 on:** July 08, 2003, 03:27:02 pm »

Could you not have your droplet save the original file as blablabl_bak.jpg (or whatever the suffix is supposed to be)? Sure it's not as clean a solution but it might work for the time being...

kiwi

sraymond · « **Reply #74 on:** July 08, 2003, 05:37:50 pm »

I just learned about the droplet functionability of Photoshop. I'm going to play some more with it - as saving a copy of the original would work OK for the time being. Thanks for the suggestion!

Scott-

Matt · « **Reply #75 on:** July 09, 2003, 05:42:29 am »

Just so you know, the [Date (filename friendly)] field is in the latest MC 9.1.

sraymond · « **Reply #76 on:** July 09, 2003, 05:57:03 am »

Quote

Just so you know, the [Date (filename friendly)] field is in the latest MC 9.1.

Thanks again Matt! I really appreciated it. I've now got a sligh inconsistency (my old photos are YYYYMMDD-HHMM-SS and the new ones are YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS), but beggars can't be choosers!

Does Find and Replace support single-character wildwards?

Scott-

Matt · « **Reply #77 on:** July 09, 2003, 06:37:21 am »

Quote

Does Find and Replace support single-character wildwards

No, but I think rename (from the DOS prompt) may.

nila · « **Reply #78 on:** July 12, 2003, 05:18:56 am »

sraymond,

Do automate your droplet to save a backup try experimenting with the 'save as a copy' feature.

If you didn't mind the one with the 'original_file_name copy.jpg' being your edited (enhanced) image you could probably set this up as your action in photoshop:

AutoColour
Save As (select checkbox 'as a copy')

it would then leave your original and save the enhanced one as a copy - not sure if it'd work as I dont have photoshop on this machine to test it but Ithink it should.

Unfortunately your new one wouldn't be in MC though

sraymond · « **Reply #79 on:** July 12, 2003, 09:07:33 am »

Nila,

I wouldn't mind renaming the oringinal - at least that way, I wouldn't have to reimport the edited version back into MC.

I guess I'd have to do two "save as" actions - one for the original (unedited), and one for the edited.

I wonder if that would work? I'll play some this weekend.

I also wonder if MC will redo the thumbnail...

Scott-

JC · « **Reply #80 on:** July 12, 2003, 09:25:20 am »

Quote

Nila,

I wouldn't mind renaming the oringinal - at least that way, I wouldn't have to reimport the edited version back into MC.

I guess I'd have to do two "save as" actions - one for the original (unedited), and one for the edited.

I wonder if that would work? I'll play some this weekend.

I also wonder if MC will redo the thumbnail...

Scott-

Actually the save for the edited version wouldn't be a "save as..." just a save, if you are planning to keep the same name, that is.

nila · « **Reply #81 on:** July 12, 2003, 10:36:30 am »

Ok,
here's what u can do - this works but it has ONE big downside - if a file already exists with the same file name it'll probably just over write it.

Create an action that does this:

Auto Levels
Save
Select Previous History State (use the history palete and just click on the previous state (freshly opened and unchanged)
Save As (now choose a folder u want to create all your backed up files in) and save it - but dont touch the file name.

Then create your droplett from that for:
Auto Colours
Auto Balance
Auto Contract
All 3

Then add them to MC to be able to automatically do that for any of your pics.

That'll automatically save the updated one back in it's original place and save the original file, unedited into a backup directory.

Hope that does it

sraymond · « **Reply #82 on:** July 12, 2003, 10:58:00 am »

Quote

That'll automatically save the updated one back in it's original place and save the original file, unedited into a backup directory.

Might that create a problem if you "edit" the file twice? Wouldn't the second edit overright the original file with the first edited version?

I'd think it's best to save a copy of the file by appending "_original" to the filename. That way, second (or n) level edits get another "_original" added on to the filename.

Man... this is definitately harder than it needs to be.

JRiver: Any chance of having MC do the dirty work here?

Scott-

nila · « **Reply #83 on:** July 12, 2003, 12:06:53 pm »

Your right it would.

The best solution would be to save each backup copy with something appended to the end.

Possibly the date of the change?

But there's no way to do this with photoshop

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Author Topic: Photo Management and MC (Read 16355 times)

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