How to handle a large influx of scanned images

Zanotti · October 13, 2016

I recently broke down and ordered the 1000 scan box from ScanCafe. I am excited because I went through on old drawer of photos, looking at many, but simply adding boxes of negatives or slides just waiting for the gems that may result.

Perhaps not the most efficient way, but there will be a mix of years, people, and places.

So I will get back 1000 or so scans, and I will open a new gallery and dump them all into Smugmug - my first desire.

Now, how do I best sub divide into different galleries without reuploading? I can go through and add key words on all but then how do I sort into new galleries from the keyword?

My goal is to upload once, the divide the uploaded gallerie into relevant sub galleries?

Z

denisegoldberg · October 13, 2016

Zanotti wrote: »

how do I best sub divide into different galleries without reuploading? I can go through and add key words on all but then how do I sort into new galleries from the keyword?

You can create galleries based on keywords.

See the help page Can I create galleries based on keywords?

--- Denise

Jtring · October 13, 2016

The move function in the Organizer works well for easily moving batches of photos from one gallery to another.

Load everything into a source gallery.
Create empty destination galleries where you want to parcel out the various photos.
In the Organizer, highlight a batch of photos in the source gallery you want to move to given destination.
Drag those photos to the new destination in the gallery tree at the left, and when the Move/Collect box pops up, choose Move.
Repeat for each destination gallery.
That's it.

SamirD · October 17, 2016

This is essentially the workflow I had on even the old smugmug without the organizer. I would upload all the photos shot from the day into one gallery and then move the photos to the individual event galleries.

colourbox · October 20, 2016

Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but I would get all those images straightened out on my computer first, in a program like Lightroom, including all metadata I would like them to have, such as title, caption, keywords, people names, map locations, copyright, filenames, anything I would like to enter or edit only once ever. Do a small upload test batch to make sure the info shows up online as you want it to.

Once they are all annotated and organized on the local computer, run a backup of all of that work.

Then upload to Smugmug in whatever structure is needed, even if it's just a matter of dumping them all into one big gallery, and later making smart galleries based on keywords or whatever.

But I think it is important to prep them on the local computer first, because then they carry the correct information inside them from that point on, no matter where you send them or who you send them to.

If they are not organized until after uploading into Smugmug, I think it would take longer, be harder to do, etc. If things haven't changed lately, I don't think you can even retrieve originals from Smugmug with the online annotation edits included. I'd much rather have that information live in the originals.

SamirD · October 20, 2016

I agree with colourbox if you're going to be doing anything to your images before uploading. That's a much more extensive workflow which should be thought out end-to-end with the upload and publishing on sm as one of the pieces.

My volume was so high that if a shot wasn't perfect I just hid it--no post, no processing, just publish on sm and on to the next weekend of events.

How to handle a large influx of scanned images

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