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Structured way of entering and retaining metadata

heinz eheinz e Registered Users Posts: 5 Beginner grinner
edited August 11, 2006 in SmugMug Support
I do use Smugmug, Picasa and (seldom) Photoshop.

I use one good film camera (Konica Hexar) and a simple
digital one (Minolta G400).

I have found out that Picasa will embed captions as IPTC in
file at export. IPTC data is imported and shown by Smugmug.
Accordingly also retained for photos on CDs/DVDs ordered from
Smugmug or at file download? If I enter or add to captions inside
Smugmug then the information is lost at export (true??).

I also learnt that Picasa exports in a proprietary format (in paralell)
which does handle "international" characters.

Is there a way to add an EXIF to a jpg-photo which does not have
an EXIF and then fill in an arbitrary (film) camera make and camera
model? My guess is no. I suppose that make and model are numbers/
codes/ indexes into make/model "tables". Is that true?

Does geotagging go into the EXIF information?

Do you have ideas for how to do this in a future safe manner with
maximum compatibility? Are there any joint standadisation efforts
by photo storage sites / camera manufacturers etc?

One day you may want or be forced to move your photos elsewhere.
It would be good to know the information entered with a lot of time
invested is not lost or partially lost.

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    pat.kanepat.kane Registered Users Posts: 332 Major grins
    edited August 11, 2006
    Head over to my post in this thread for an explanation of IPTC metadata

    http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=35616

    Yes, you can edit EXIF data. Do a google search for edit exif and you'll find a lot of options. One of them is Exifer.

    I doubt that smugmug's geotagging goes into the EXIF, but that again is another item you can handle on your own. I use WWMX Location Stamper.

    Here's a long e-mail that I sent to my brother explaining my download and geotagging process. I'm too lazy to edit it to be more specific for your questions. If it doesn't make sense, please let me know.


    e-mail begin
    Here’s my process:

    1. Turn on Garmin Foretrex 101 GPS (it is small enough to fit on my 20D camera strap), shoot pictures, turn off GPS

    2. Download photos using an external card reader and Downloader Pro from Breeze Systems, http://www.breezesys.com/

    Well worth the $30. Here’s why – Downloader Pro

    a. recognizes all images on the card, which is easier than downloading each directory of 100 images

    b. uses a Job Code, e.g., Athletics vs Mets (13 Jun 2006), which can be used for various things, such as
    b.1. creating the download directory name
    b.2. filling in some of the IPTC fields, e.g., Object Name, Headline, Caption

    c. renames files to date/time stamp of yyyymmdd-hhmmss.jpg. If you try the software, the filename code is %Y%m%D-%t_%l


    d. automatically makes a 2nd copy of each image to a backup drive


    3. Download GPS track using WWMX TrackDownload (free), http://www.wwmx.org/Download.aspx

    4. Tag photos with their GPS location using WWMX Location Stamper (free), http://www.wwmx.org/Download.aspx. NEVER interrupt this process as Location Stamper will corrupt your image. If I make a mistake, I wait until the images are tagged, then restart the process.

    5. Sort into keep, maybe, delete categories using ThumbsPlus Pro 7.0 ($$).

    To set this up, create a folder structure similar to:
    C:\Pics\_Downloaded (occupies space 0 in the favorites list)
    C:\Pics\1keep (occupies space 1)
    C:\Pics\2maybe (occupies space 2)
    C:\Pics\3delete (occupies space 3)

    Then add each of the folders, in the above order to Favorite Places in ThumbsPlus (menu item Tree > Add to Favorites).

    To use, double click on the 1st image in the directory, and press the period key followed by the number key (1, 2 or 3) and the image will be moved to the corresponding folder. The next image should automatically show up on screen (if not, it’s one of the options in Preferences).

    After the first pass is complete, I review the 2maybe folder and push either .1 or .3 for each of those images. All 1keep images are moved back to their original folder and the 3delete images are flushed (remember that a backup copy was already created).

    6. Using ThumbsPlus, select multiple photos and send to Adobe Photoshop ($$$) to crop and adjust levels.

    7. Assign specific keywords to each image (generic keywords were added during download by Downloader Pro). I use a combination of ThumbsPlus, NotePad and AutoHotKey (free), which is available at http://www.autohotkey.com/. I’ll send a separate e-mail on this later.

    8. Move the image folder out of _Downloaded and into its final location, e.g., C:\Pics\2006\060616—Graduation

    9. Upload images to smugmug using a Windows XP program called Send To Smugmug (free, but consider a donation), http://wiki.shahine.com/default.aspx/MyWiki.SendToSmugMug

    The above should be fairly comprehensive. I must have missed something. I’ll verify the process after the next download (Disneyland!).





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