Modify File Info...

[Birthe Søjberg]

I shoot insects, and I use the ThumbsPlus to write the name of the place where I found them. Later I need to write the name of the insect, and possibly also other information.
How do I prevent the program from repeating what is already there, when I add new info?

Example:

[Daan van Rooijen]

> How do I prevent the program from repeating what is already there, when I add new info?

Set it to Replace instead of Append. This will overwite existing comments by what you type in the box. Or keep it set to Append, but delete the contents of the box when you enter new information there.

Alternatively, you could use Image | Batch Edit Metadata to enter your information in different fields.

[Birthe Søjberg]

I do use Replace, which means that I have to copy what is in the box to a notebook and add the new info. Then delete the content of the box, copy from notebook to the box. It is very time consuming.
There are different info to each photo of which I have some thousands and more are added every day, so I cannot use Batch.
You can see some of my photos at soejberg.com.

[Daan van Rooijen]

Hi Knitter,

Do you add the information one photo at a time, or do you add it to multiple photos simultaneously?

If you edit the photos one at a time, I think you should be able to set it to 'Replace' and just add your new information to what is already in the edit box.

If you add the information to multiple photos at the same time, you could set it to 'Append' and clear the edit box before you put the new information in it. However, if that new information was already present in one of the images, it will be duplicated there. I don't think that there's a way around that.

---

One thing that might help you to avoid the problem, at least in theory, is if you use the 'Annotation' database field to contain a copy of the comment. When you make the Annotation field visible in your thumbnail listing, you will see if an image already has the information that you plan to add.

To auto-copy the Comments to the Annotations: Options | Preferences | Metadata | Load Database Annotation From: Image Comment. And: Options | Preferences | Metadata | Load DB Annotation When: Always. Note: you will have to re-make the thumbnails of existing images to copy their comments to the database. Just select them and press F3 (or start with a few to see if it actually works).

To make the Annotation field visible, click on the yellow lamp button above the thumbnail listing and mark 'Annotations'.

In my quick-and-sloppy testing, it seems to work, except that when a Comment has had information added to it more than once, only the first part will be visible in the annotation. It seems that when a comment is appended, ThumbsPlus separates it from the existing comment with some kind of line break character, and anything behind the line break character is not copied into the Annotation field..


Great photos btw! When I have some time, I'll visit your site a bit longer.

[Birthe Søjberg]

Hi Daan

I put my photos in folders marked undetermined (dipterans, hymenoptera, butterflies, hoverflies and more)

On dark and rainy days I search the internet for names for my insects (The Netherlands have some excellent sites on Zweefvliegen btw.) so of course I add the info to one photo at a time as I rarely have more than one or two photos of the same creature. Then I move them to the appropriate folders, and if I have used the annotation box the info will be lost.

It seems like TP is not quite able to do what I want it to which is a pity as I know others who could use the program if it had been easier to use. Some people could use it like I do, and others could use it for a family album, to note who is on the photo, and where and when it was taken.
I myself have used the program for many years, in fact I still have the booklet "The HitchHiker's Guide to ThumbsPlus6" :-)

I could use it for a family album myself, but I dont feel up to fighting with the program to remove the empty space that occurs when the photos are taken with a pocket camera.

Thank you for your nice comment to my photos. :-)

[Daan van Rooijen]

> On dark and rainy days I search the internet for names for my insects (The Netherlands have some excellent sites on Zweefvliegen btw.) so of course I add the info to one photo at a time as I rarely have more than one or two photos of the same creature.

Well, in that case you can simply do this:

[*]Set it to Replace
[*]Put your cursor in the edit box, at the end of the information that is already there
[*]Now type or paste the information that you want to add
[*]Press OK and the old and new information will both be in the image comment.
[/list]

No need to copy anything to a notebook. Or am I missing something? :)


> Then I move them to the appropriate folders, and if I have used the annotation box the info will be lost.

Not if you use ThumbsPlus to move the image! In that case it will update the thumbnail record (including the annotation) with the new location of the image. If you use Explorer or a different program to move the file, ThumbsPlus can't know what you did, and so the connection between the file and its thumbnail record is lost.

Still, it is better to use the comment field (like you do) or an IPTC field (if you would use the meta data editor), because then the information will be stored in the images file itself. But you can combine both methods as I explained earlier.

> I myself have used the program for many years, in fact I still have the booklet "The HitchHiker's Guide to ThumbsPlus6" :-)

I still have a few of those too :-)

> I could use it for a family album myself, but I dont feel up to fighting with the program to remove the empty space that occurs when the photos are taken with a pocket camera.

I'm not sure what you mean.. or maybe it is this: Images from pocket cameras typically have a 4:3 proportion (for example: 3200x2400 pixels), whereas most SLR images have a 3:2 proportion. Depending on the proportions of your monitor, there may be 'empty space' when you view them full screen. Is that what you mean? If so, you could either crop those images to suitable proportions, or zoom into them, or view them 'windowed', or use a different monitor. This problem is not related to ThumbsPlus though.

[Birthe Søjberg]

Sorry for the delay. Real life needed my attention. :-)
> Well, in that case you can simply do this:
>

>

[*]Set it to Replace
> [*]Put your cursor in the edit box, at the end of the information that is already there
> [*]Now type or paste the information that you want to add
> [*]Press OK and the old and new information will both be in the image comment.
> [/list]
>
> No need to copy anything to a notebook. Or am I missing something? :)

I must have done something wrong earlier. It works now.

> > I could use it for a family album myself, but I dont feel up to fighting with the program to remove the empty space that occurs when the photos are taken with a pocket camera.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean. This problem is not related to ThumbsPlus though.

I can't reproduce the problem, so it must have been solved in the meantime, but it looked like this

and I had to use both backspace and delete key to get rid of the empty space. If I didn't use both, the space would be back after reboot.

I thank you so much for your help. You have shown me some useful things I didn't know about.