We have been working on a suite of modules to help with Image Management, the first of these are ready for Alpha testing, if you would like to try these you can download them from the downloads page
What are the these Modules?
The first module will be the main engine for all other modules and will allow you to import images and data to folders, we do not use a database or ask for the input of username and passwords, as we believe that most photographers work in batches so we only need a small set of data at any given time in the workflow
The first three will allow you to import images, use the data on the web, and export the data to Excel
So how does it work?
The Import Module
We open your image file and read the IPTC data to an xml packet file, and create a small jpg Thumbnail 120 x 120 pixels, then we use this data for our export, we do not write back to the original file so the process is non destructive
The Export Module
You can open a thumbnail folder and import all or selected images, choose which image data columns to export to Excel
The Web Browser Module
The Browser is a standalone module where you can open any website like Alamy, select or enter the image number and retrieve the data and drag and drop this into web input boxes
The Import Module
Download the install package, the software will install when you run the setup, this uses the standard Windows Installer and can only be Un-Installed via the Control Panel > Add or Remove Software, Install the software and from your menu choose Programs > Adeptris > Image Management > Image Import
First thing we need to do is enter our Photographers names or Pseudonyms, enter the text and press the Add button, these will be saved to a file and populated each time you run this application, these are not mandatory but help if you are going to Export the data to Excel later from the Export Excel Module
When we upload a batch of files , the images are often grouped with similar images as a result of a shoot, so we can set other defaults for this upload to save time, this can be updated on a per image basis later if required
We can select and existing Gallery and Album or create new ones for this upload, we are going to upload a folder of images of London, so we have named our Gallery as Alamy and our Album as London, we can press the add to create folders for later use, or these will be created when we upload any images to the Album
Next we just Select the Image Folder or Images to Import into this Album
A progress bar will be updated and the Image being Imported will have a thumbnail created which will be displayed and the IPTC data written to a xml data packet file
When the Images have been Imported you will see the Keyword section, while uploading the keywords were put into sections in the order they were saved in the original file
If the you want to re-arrange the Keyword Order then you just drag and drop the keywords, and the three keyword boxes are calculated based on the changes, you move these until you are happy and the different sections in the list are color coded
Just press the save icon and the xml package is updated with your changes
On the General and Detail tabs you can update the other data and save the changes
Export Module
Although this Module was designed with Alamy in mind we have made it flexible giving you a choice of which columns and files to Export to Excel, you will see as Default the columns for Alamy are all selected, the All Keywords column if selected will output all keywords as a semi-colon ; seporated list
You can choose to add folder or selected thumbnails to the image box
The Images are by Default selected for export, un-check any that you want to exclude
Press the Excel icon and a file will be created
Save the file before viewing to release the resources
The Excel file will be opened with your data
The Web Browser
This Module will open with the Alamy page by default, you can add other URL's as you co along,the Icons from left to right, show - hide detail, lookup a thumbnail, get Image, Caption, Essential, Main, Comprehensive, all Keywords, Description, Location, Day, Month and Year, all these have the annoying tool-tips to guide you
To retrieve the image data, use the lookup or just select and copy the file name, and press the Camera icon
If you view detail you will see if you have found a match, the other icons tool-tips have been updated to tell you if they have any data attached to them, hide the detail if you want to
Just mouse down over the caption icon (Speech Bubble) keeping the mouse down just drag the mouse to the caption box and release, the data will be transferred to the web page
Repeat this for the other icons, if there is no data the tool-tip will tell you
Repeat this for other Images and just save as required