Digital Camera Photo Storage



Digital Camera Photo Storage

By EDR

Purpose

Make photos easy to find while giving each file a unique name to avoid over writing your files.

Goal Statement

The following document will outline one approach to storing and organizing digital photographs. All photographs will be stored in subfolders under the folder My Pictures.

Software needed

These instructions include the use of two free software programs. Each does a simple step in a very easy straightforward manner.

Rename - This purpose of this program is to rename image files obtained from digital cameras, scanners, etc... All image files in a given folder may be renamed or only image files in the folder that match a selected file type. 

JAlbum is a web photo album generator. It will take a series of photos from one folder, make the thumbnails and the larger photos for your album. You can control the size of both the thumbnails and the larger photos. Download the version for Windows that includes Java VM.



Photo storage directory setup

1. In your My Documents folder click on the folder My Pictures. Make a new folder, in the My Pictures folder called My Camera. It is in this folder that the photos downloaded from the digital camera will be stored.

2. Before you download photos from your camera go to the folder named My Camera and make a new folder and name it today’s date in the form 2003 02-16. By using this naming convention your folders will be in chronological order.

3. By following this procedure each set of pictures is placed into its own folder and each folder is dated so that each time you download your photos you know where to put them.

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Transferring photos from your camera to your computer

1. Following the procedures outlined in “Photo Storage Directory Setup” above made a new folder inside the My Documents/My Pictures/My Camera directory and rename it with today’s date.

2. Plug in your camera and prepare to download your photos.

3. Double click on the folder representing the camera and all subfolders until your photos are listed in the right panel of Windows Explorer. In the screen shot below the camera is “Removable Disk (G:)”

4. Adjust your display in Windows Explorer until you can see the folder My Documents/My Pictures/My Camera/Today’s Date in the left panel.

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5. Highlight the photos on your camera in the right hand panel

6. Right click on the highlighted files and choose copy from the menu

7. Put your pointer on the My Camera/Today’s Date folder

8. Right click and choose paste

Your photos will now be in two places, the camera and your computer. By using copy and paste you reduce the chances of accidentally dragging and dropping the photos in the wrong place. By using copy and paste you still have the photos on the camera, so if an accident does occur you can always go back to the camera and copy them again. After you have verified that the photos are on your computer go back and delete them from your camera.

Renaming your photos by year and number

By renaming each photo with the format year/event/number you will assure that each photo on your computer has a unique file name. I am currently recommending the program “Rename”. This is a simple program to use and a very small file to download. It is a free download from

The following description is taken from their web page.

Rename - Rename Image Files

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This purpose of this program is to rename image files obtained from digital cameras, scanners, etc.. All image files in a given folder may be renamed or only image files in the folder that match a selected file type. 

Rename has the following features:

• Image File Type to be renamed may be specified.

• Leading character filter may be used to select files to be renamed.

• New file names are formed from a "Base Name" and "Starting Number".

• Confirm dialog is displayed before files are renamed.

• Has its own self-contained "Help".

Using Rename software

This program renames all the files in one folder and consecutively numbers them. If all of the photos you just downloaded from your camera are of the same event you can start in that folder and rename the photos. But if you have pictures of several events in that folder you may need to put them into separate folders according to event, see the next section for a detailed description of this procedure. We will assume that all photos in the folder are of the same event.

Renaming your photos

1. Open the Rename program

2. The program opens to the last folder you were in, so you should be close to the correct folder

3. Use the down triangle after the Look in: box to change directories.

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4. Now that you are in the correct folder you can rename the photos.

5. In the dialog box Base Name type the date and event. Usually just the year is enough but to distinguish between the snow storms of 2003 you need to put the date.

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6. Click on the RENAME button and preview the new file names.

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7. Click OK and the files will be renamed. Press the F5 key to display the photos in the proper order.

Changing the order of the photos

1. To reposition the photo Snow003 after Snow001 highlight the picture Snow003

2. Press the F2 key, to rename

3. Press the right arrow key to go to the end of the file name

4. Press the BackSpace key to delete the number 3

5. Type 1a, so that the new file name will be Snow001a

6. Press the F5 key to reorder the photos.

7. The new order will be Snow001, Snow001a, Snow002

8. Click on the RENAME button to preview the new file order. You will see that the files are now placed in the desired order

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9. You can reorder groups of files by naming them Snow001a, Snow001b, Snow001c, etc until you get the photos in the desired order.

You must rename all the photos in the folder so make sure that the folder contains only the photos of that event. You can also continue to rename the photos until you have them in the desired order.

Grouping photos into descriptive folders

After you have put each of your photos in a unique folder with a chronological name you may want to rename the folders with a descriptive title to make it easier to identify each group of photos. You may want to move these folders up one level out of the My Camera folder so that the My Camera folder contains your newly transferred photos and your descriptive folders are in My Documents/My Pictures folder.

One possible folder structure could be:

• Jack

o Jack at play 2003 02-12

o Jack at the park

▪ Jack on the swings

▪ Jack on the slide

o Jack at Disney World

▪ Vacation 2003

▪ Vacation 2004

▪ Vacation 2005

Renaming your photos by description

After you have given each of your photos a unique chronological name you may want to rename them with a descriptive title to make it easier to identify each photo. You have to be more creative than I am to think of that many file names.

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Quick start

Assuming you have installed and started JAlbum successfully, let's create our first web photo album.

Before starting I suggest that you make two folders. One with the photos you want to put in the album and one for the finished album. The name of the folder for the web album will be the name used on the album’s fist page. The file name of each photo will appear under it in the album. While I like to use dates and file numbers if you give each photo a descriptive title this will appear under the photo in the web album. Copy the web album up to your web server, make a link and you’re done.

1. Select image directory

Creating an album is really simple. Drag and drop a folder/directory containing images to the "Image directory" section of the JAlbum window. (JAlbum reads JPEG, GIF and PNG image files and many movie files)

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2. Select output directory

To select output directory, simply drag and drop a folder/directory of the "Output directory" section like you did with the image directory. This is why we made the directory before we started. As an alternative you can check the "Output to image directory" checkbox to have the album generated in the image directory instead.

3. Select album style

Under Appearance click on the down triangle at the Skin dialog box to choose a different layout for your web photo album.

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4. Size images and thumbnails

This section fine tunes your album. For the first couple of times just use the defaults. Then come back and try some of these suggestions.

Under generation set the maximum size for your larger photos by typing in 640x480. This is a good size because most computer screens are set at 800x600. If you choose 800x600 you will have larger photos, but they will not all fit on an 800x600 screen. Under index pages type in the size thumbnail you want to make. Using the default size of 120x120 you can see 5 across on a screen set for 800x600, so you might want to change the Columns from 6 to 5.

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5. Advanced tab

This section fine tunes your album. For the first couple of times just use the defaults. Then come back and try some of these suggestions.

Click on the Advanced tab. Click on the check mark in the box next to Extract Photographic data. This keeps the camera setting details from showing in the album

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6. Press "Make album"

You can now select the appearance of your album by selecting different skins and styles (variations to a skin). Finally press the "Make album" button. Wait for generation, then press "View album" to view the new web album in your browser. If you like to adjust things, do that and press "Make album" again followed by "View album".

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