Importing Digital Images 2010

(User Manual)

(using Graphic Converter 6)

The overview for the method of importing digital images into the database is the following:

1. Copy the raw images from the camera to a particular folder on the hard drive.
2. Use Graphic Converter (Mac) to review the files and rename them according to the PARP:PS digital numbering scheme.
3. Run an Automator script on the images. This will make copies of several sizes of the images for archiving, importing, and web serving.
4. Import the images into the database. This is also scripted so the database also imports the two sizes of thumbnails as well as the metadata from the images and parses it out to certain fields. Handling the metadata of the image requires a plug-in for Filemaker and will not work from all computers, so make sure that the first three steps are all done on the one main computer.
5. In the Media List layout of the database enter a caption and any necessary numbers that will link the subject of the photos to their records in the other data tables.
6. Export any caption data from the database and insert this into the IPTC data field of the archival and web-sized versions of the images.

More detailed instructions follow:

1. These instructions presuppose that you are using the main ‘server’ Mac and have several folders in place, relative to the user: incoming on the desktop, images on the desktop (with subfolders named full, 320 and 1024. Since this computer serves the pictures via a website, there also needs to be a folder at /Library/WebServer/Documents/pompeii/private/image/1024/. The script that extracts the data that the camera supplies to the image (including the date) relies on a plug-in to FileMaker (Troi_File.fmplugin) and is not part of the normal installation. A copy of that software is on the ‘server’ Mac. You also need the Automator application named DealWithParpImages. 
2. To make sure that the computer will behave as you expect when you attach a digital camera to it, launch the Image Capture program from the /Applications folder. Select Preferences from the Image Capture menu and next to “When a camera is connected, open:” select Image Capture (the default is iPhoto). This only needs to be done once.
3. When you connect the camera and turn it on (some models also require that you be in View mode), Image Capture will launch and offer to download the pictures. Make sure they download to the incoming folder and select Download All.
4. Open the folder in Graphic Converter. This is done easily by dragging the incoming folder to the Graphic Converter icon in the dock, but you can also open Graphic Converter and select Browse Folder from the File menu and then select the incoming folder.
5. You should look through your photos in Graphic Converter before importing them into the database. Double-clicking the image will open it up to view it larger, and you can use the Rotate left and Rotate right buttons on the Graphic Converter toolbar to orient the image correctly. You can delete images by hitting the delete key and Graphic Converter will ask you to confirm your decision before moving the images to the trashcan.
6. Once the images are triaged and oriented correctly, select them all in the browser window and select Rename Selected Files... from the Other icon in the toolbar. This is where it can get confusing.
• Photos need to be renamed so that the various cameras don’t produce duplicate file names. They also need to be able to live in a single folder for web delivery and other uses.
• Photos no longer need to be arranged in complicated folder structures, all of that information will be put into the database instead of renaming images.
• The standard prefix for PARP:PS photos is ‘ps’. Since there are several cameras and it would be easiest to keep track of the highest used number of your own camera, the field images from 2008 onwards can reflect the camera letter. So we will now had ‘psa’, ‘psb’, etc.
• Photos from I.1 have an additional prefix of i1 so they can be isolated from the older viii.7 photos.
• The small, albeit abstract file names are easier to reference in your notebooks and reports.
• The web sized images can be browsed as they are during the winter so the 1024x768 versions can be available to supervisors for their final reports, which will help decrease file size of the final report. 
7. The Graphic Converter rename function can be daunting but there are only a couple of things to change before renaming the files. The only two tabs that matter are the Index and Name tabs. The Name tab is where the ‘i1ps+camera name’ is entered. The Index tab is where you tell Graphic Converter what number to start with.
8. If Graphic Converter is set up like the following screen shot then all should work. The only thing that needs to be changed is the Offset number underneath Add Index. The Offset number is not the first number you want to start with, but the last number that you used. This confuses many people. If you don’t keep a running list of image numbers in your notebook you can search the database for all records from your camera (i.e. ‘i1psa’ in the File Name field) and go to the last record of the found set to find your offset number. At the bottom right you can see what the new file names will be. All that is left is to hit OK and Graphic Converter will rename the files. Graphic Converter remembers these settings so the next time you use it all you will have to do is check the name prefix in the Name tab and the Offset in the Index tab and things should work.
9. After renaming, you can run the Automator script, which will do the following:
• archives a copy of the raw images so you can redo the steps if necessary (makes a folder named incomingBackup.zip)
• copies the full-sized image to the ~/Desktop/images/full/ folder. This archives the full-sized version
• changes the size of the images to 1024x768
• copies the 1024 images to /Library/WebServer/Documents/pompeii/private/1024/
• copies the 1024 images to ~/Desktop/images/1024/ folder
• change the size of the images to 320x240
• imports the images into the database
• moves the 320x240 images to the 320 folder
• clears the incoming folder
10. Each picture should have a caption. This is where you describe, basically, why you took the picture. For several pictures that might have the same caption you can type up the first caption, go to the caption field in the next record and type command-quote (⌘-”) which will enter the same information as the previous record. 
11. If there is something specific about an image, that is if the image is of a particular SU, feature, or find that has a number, those numbers should be entered in the column on the right under Subject(s). For finds, each find in the photograph gets entered here in its own line. For SUs, if you want to call attention to multiple SUs in a photograph, each SU gets entered in its own line. If the image is a vague trench shot, just the number of the trench will do. This subject field is the only way we have to link the image to the other data in the database. It is very important that this be filled out.
12. You can export the IPTC data all at once or in batches. The database script runs through each record and assembles the necessary data for the export. So if you export them all at once, it could take a while to run. To do so, simply run the Export IPTC Data script from the script menu. Export it as a tab-separated file and make sure it has a .txt extension (FileMaker will try to make it a .tab extension). Place that text file in the folder with the full size images and from Graphic Converter select Convert & Modify from the File menu, then from the function pop-up select Insert IPTC. Select your text file and hit Go. After Graphic Converter is finished you can move the text file to the 1024 folder and do the same thing.

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