This page contains notes about my work flow for photos, plus notes and technical information about how photos are handled.
Work Flow
I use ACDSee and until recently Picasa3 to organise and sort the images from our photo collection. Picasa 3 was a wonderful application that made organising your images easy. One feature I liked was its automatic face detection. But now Google have dropped it and it’s hard to even find a site to download it from.
- Photos are graded according to the photo ranks below using ACDsee (Ultimate 9 version) and is then copied to the file meta data using Tools/Embed Meta data.
- The original file names are saved under Iptc.Source.
- Files are renamed to yyyy-mm-dd_xxx.jpg
- Author, key words and Caption information are entered into the ACDSee database.
- ACDsee caption is copied to the ACDsee notes.
- ACDsee database data is copied to the IPTC (it also gets copied to EXIF) using the template.
- Fill in the additional IPTC fields as required (there are many more than ACDsee.
- Keywords are copied from IPTC to the ACDSee database. (The user interface for IPTC keywords is different and better in some ways than the one for ACDsee’s keywords for some reason).
Gallery 3, WordPress Website or Koken?
As the Gallery 3 project is no longer going images will be either put into WordPress galleries or uploaded to the new Koken site at photos.eatonfamily.au.
The Gallery 3 site had some great features like searching and restricting access to photos either individually or groups. Koken doesn’t offer searching from the front end at unless you buy a template. The only access controls available are to make photos private and then only the administrator can see them.
So far the WordPress site is coping okay with the number of images in one folder. WordPress doesn’t use different folders for images unless Organise my uploads into month- and year-based folders is checked. And then the only option for folders is to use the dates; and folders are created even when there’s no content for that date. Very difficult to manage.
NextGen Gallery
Using NextGen gallery has helped a lot in managing images on the website. There only two versions of each image rather than WordPress creating a version for every image dimension you have installed. At installation WordPress makes three versions of every image.
There are a number gallery templates to use and it’s easy to make your own just by creating a PHP file under theme-folder/nggallery.
Exporting for Facebook
Facebook does not have watermarks available so add them with ACDSee using Batch Edit. Picasa does a better job and it’s less work for the user but Picasa is now no longer being supported by Google and it’s difficult to find a download site for it now.
- Using ACDSee label the photos Blue for Facebook and Purple for the website.
- Filter to starred photos and edit as required.
- Sort the order if required and rename them to the sort order.
- Using Batch Edit export to a maximum of 1500px, select copyright notice if desired, and include order in filename. (Gallery also provides this feature and it’s a better way to go)
- Upload the photos, create an album on Gallery and then import the photos.
Meta data is best in the Image File
I bought a USB HDD to replace the many CD’s and DVD’s I use for archiving and copying them along with the information in the database has proved a real problem with ACDsee Pro 6. Having since upgraded the application keeps crashing and it has highlighted the importance of keeping data in the image.
So after using labels (as below) once the images are archived the label data is going into the IPTC data as keywords. The same goes for ACDsee’s “categories” as shown below.
The images are marked as uploaded to FaceBook, website and other locations using ACDSee’s categories as these are not added to the meta data.
Labels
ACDSee provides coloured labels and they are great for organising your photos. You can only assign one colour for each image, so for concurrent groupings or meta data another method is needed.
I use the following colours with corresponding meanings.
| Label Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Red | Temporary organising |
| Yellow | Temporary organising |
| Green | Temporary organising |
| Blue | To be uploaded to website and/or FaceBook. |
| Purple | Has been uploaded to website and FaceBook etc too possibly.
(This is important to make sure photos haven’t been uploaded twice.) |
Fields
| Image metadata (JPG, PNG only) | WordPress | ACDSee DB | Windows Live Gallery and Explorer | Google Photos | Flickr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iptc.Application2.ObjectName | Title, Caption (1) | Caption (1) | Title | Description/ Title | Appears under “Info” | Title |
| Iptc.Caption | Caption | Title | Title | |||
| Iptc.Description | Notes | Appears under “Info” | Description | |||
| Iptc.Creator | Author | Authors | Account name | |||
| Iptc.Caption or Abstract | Description (1), Alt Text (1) | Description | Subject | Description | Description | |
| Exif.ImageDescription | Notes | Description | ||||
| Exif.Artist | Author | Authors | Account name | |||
| Exif.Copyright | year Author | Account name | ||||
| Ratings Note: No standard. | Stored in ACDSee database. (2) | Stored with XMP | ||||
| Iptc.Application2.keywords | Att. Tags (1) | keywords (3) | tags | Tags |
Notes:
- There’s no direct mapping, it’s all done with pre-sets created by the user.
- Can be embedded using Embed Metadata command.
- Words are separated in the database.
Gallery 3
Gallery 3 has been removed as it’s no longer up to date with current web technology. It only had a few fields that mapped to other systems as shown.
| Image meta data (JPG, PNG only) | Gallery 3 |
|---|---|
| Iptc.Application2.ObjectName | Title |
| Iptc.Creator | Artist |
| Exif.ImageDescription | Summary/ Description |
| Iptc.Application2.keywords | keywords |
Title, Caption and Description
Title and Caption are essentially the short version of the Description. I copy the title to the description and not use them close together on a website’s page layout. Typically either Title or Caption goes above the image and the more detailed Description goes underneath. Using only the Description above the image is acceptable but they can get too long.
Unfortunately Facebook displays the Title/Caption followed immediately by the description.
Photo Ranks
Used to grade photos as per table below:
| Rank | Criteria | Photo use |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Bad composition or bad technical errors such as out of focus or over/under exposed, making the image unusable.
Errors unrecoverable by software. | Photo is deleted |
| 1 | Composition OK but has technical errors. Possibly recoverable with software. | Photo kept for archival purposes. |
| 2 | Composition ok but spoilt by technical errors, or an information sign. | May be used for the gallery after editing if no other shots available and subject is needed. |
| 3 | Average photo, composition good and no unrecoverable technical faults. | May be used for the gallery after editing. |
| 4 | Very good photo, no unrecoverable technical faults. | Gallery and print use. |
| 5 | Excellent composition and no unrecoverable technical faults. | Gallery and print use, and possible framing. |
Currently the grade does not appear in the Gallery, although it may sometimes appear in the description. There is no special field for it.
Cameras
| Camera | Make | Model | Owner | Dates | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Practica LTL3 | Practica | LTL3 | Glenn | 1979-1990 | Purchased duty free. A good camera which still works. Used for all of my slides. |
| Olympus Trip | Olympus | Trip | Karen/ Hans | 1980-1993 | A brilliant point and shoot camera. Clear and well exposed images. Had a problem of the back opening. |
| Ricoh Shotmaster Ultra Zoom Super Date | Ricoh | Shotmaster Ultra Zoom Super Date | Glenn | 1993-2002 | Easy to use, with many features. |
| Sony Digital Video Camera | Sony | DCR-TRV16E | Glenn | 2002 | Mostly video but it can take low resolution stills. |
| Fuji Film FinePix 2400 Zoom | FUJIFILM | FinePix2400Zoom | Glenn | 2002-2007 | Our first digital camera. Nicely focussed and exposed photos. |
| PENTAX Optio E40 | PENTAX Corporation | PENTAX Optio E40 | Karen | 2007- | Great camera. Made the mistake of not getting the lithium battery version. |
| Nokia 6070 | Nokia | 6070 | Glenn | 2007-2010 | |
| Nokia 5800 | Nokia | 5800 Xpres | Glenn, then Karen | 2010-2014 | Still works. Very convenient camera shortcut. |
| Aldi Camera | CAMERA | 6MP-9J5 | Peter/Bern | Strange colour reproduction. | |
| Samsung s2 Mobile Phone | SAMSUNG | GT-I9100 | Glenn | 2012-2015 | Still works but it has memory issues and is unreliable. |
| Apple iPhone 4S | Apple | Phone 4S | Peter | 2012- | |
| Nikon D3100 | Nikon | Nikon D3100 | Evan Richardson | 2011 | On loan to try out Nikon before purchasing a DSLR. Used for taking Metro train driving course photos. |
| Canon 600D DSLR | Canon | Canon EOS 600D | Glenn | 2011- | Excellent DSLR. |
| Nikon COOLPIX S3100 | Nikon | COOLPIX S3100 | Connor | 2012- | Great compact camera. |
| SAMSUNG ES80/SAMSUNG ES81 | SAMSUNG | SAMSUNG ES80/SAMSUNG ES81 | Kyle | 2012- | Disappointing image quality and screen. |
| Apple iPhone 5c | Apple | iPhone 5c | Kyle | 2015 — 2018-10 | Great camera. Screen broke and entire phone failed. |
| Samsung s5 Mobile Phone | samsung | SM-G900I | Glenn | 2016-2019 | Excellent colour reproduction. |
| Epson Perfection V370 Photo scanner | Epson | Epson Perfection V370 Photo scanner | 2015- | Used mainly for slides and sometimes negatives. | |
| Epson Workforce 545 Scanner | Epson | Epson Workforce 545 Scanner | 2015- | Print scanning | |
| Oppo | OPPO | R7sf | Connor | 2016-2021 | Broken on a trip to Phillip Island |
| Motorola G5s | motorola | Karen | 2018- | ||
| Motorola G6 | motorola | moto g(6) play | Glenn | 2019-2021 | Used temporarily by Connor to replace broken Oppo |
| Motorola G9 plus | motorola | moto g(9) plus | Glenn | 2021- | Apparently a good camera but sometimes things don’t look right. |
Notes:
- Most images scanned only have the scanner name.
Categories
These are used by ACDsee but for the site they are merged with the keywords above. The ACDsee photo software we got with the Pentax camera only provided filtering on categories, but with Pro 6 keywords are searchable and preferred, as other software can access them.
| Group | Sub Group | Description | Keyword |
|---|---|---|---|
| Camera Effect | Panorama | An effect provided on my old Ricoh film camera. This function was rarely used as the photo was only masked off top and bottom. Processing was extra for what was effectively an enlargement of a normal photo with the black masked areas cropped off.
It is also used for the wide images that are created with smartphones. Image may be low resolution. No panorama shots have been attempted with the DSLR and Photoshop yet! | panorama |
| Polarising Filter | Polarising filter used (makes the sky darker and reduces glare from water). | polarised | |
| Printed | Photo has been printed. | printed | |
| Publishing | Website | Tagged to appear on the website. | website |
| Flickr | Now redundant as Flickr charge to store more than 1000 images. Only used for off website image hosting. | ||
| Koken | |||