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Author Topic: Flash Pipe Feature Requests  (Read 170409 times)
mhwarner
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« Reply #15 on: September 24, 2009, 11:38:01 PM »

I guess we all have our own ways of doing things.  I have been doing it this way for 10 years and have no intention of changing.  I suspect that there are many professional photographers like myself who would disagree with you as well.  While I often add descriptive words to the subfolder date, (2009-09-24 Arizona) to identify a particular shoot or location, I have no trouble navigating through my folders with ThumbsPlus or Adobe Bridge and find it much easier to remember the date I took some pictures rather than the date on which I actually downloaded them. 

I hope you will reconsider this request as an option in the future.
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hedwards
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« Reply #16 on: September 25, 2009, 01:37:42 AM »

I still don't know why anyone would choose to make things more difficult by creating so many subfolders that you spend most of your time switching folders to find what you want.  I think once you try it the FlashPipe way, you will agree that you don't need such "subfolder profusion".  I think the only people who are asking this are the ones who have been used to doing it the hard way for so long.  The subfolder should be generated by the date of the download.  You separate your photos by date using prefixes on the file names.  Much easier to navigate and find photos!
A few reasons, first off, it makes it easier to split up a collection of photos between DVDs. I like to have a copy of my old photos on DVD as a backup against my online backup and hard disk copies going bad. And second it tends to be much faster to load when you've got huge numbers of pictures in your catalog.

And it's not necessarily that much of an issue to find photos for those of us that use programs like iMatch to catalog the images.

My personal plan is to use FlashPipe to download the images to my hard disk and then something else to copy them to a final resting place.
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« Reply #17 on: September 25, 2009, 02:39:32 PM »

I guess we all have our own ways of doing things.  I have been doing it this way for 10 years and have no intention of changing.  I suspect that there are many professional photographers like myself who would disagree with you as well.  While I often add descriptive words to the subfolder date, (2009-09-24 Arizona) to identify a particular shoot or location, I have no trouble navigating through my folders with ThumbsPlus or Adobe Bridge and find it much easier to remember the date I took some pictures rather than the date on which I actually downloaded them.  

I hope you will reconsider this request as an option in the future.

You still have the date either way.  Why can't you remember the date by looking at the date prefix in the file name rather than manually navigating to a "one folder per day" structure?  The FlashPipe way, you have the best of both worlds.  You have both the date that you downloaded the photos (which could be important) and you also have a sensible file structure that automatically sorts by date by just using the file name.  

With files sortable by date within each download folder, you can look at the download folder and know which range to pick.  If you have an 8/30 folder and a 9/15 folder and you are looking for shots from a three day shoot that you did the first week in September, just choose the 9/15 folder and you know all three days will appear, sorted by date, and you can easily browse all three days together in any program and select the photos you want.

If I shoot a lot of pictures and, on average, take shots about half the days in a year, I can't imagine dealing with the mess of having 180 separate folders at the end of a year.  It just isn't necessary.  No matter how you look at it, you can easily separate photos by day without having to have this folder profusion.  Want everything shot on September 12th?  Go to the 9/15 download and select all the files that start with 2009-09-12 or 09-12 or whatever your choice for naming.  This makes a lot more sense because the download date is not arbitrary: people generally download a set of pictures when they are done with a certain event or when they have time and they know they have a batch of photos that they want from the card.  Separating photos by date, many times, would make no sense because days are arbitrary.  You could have taken a three day trip to Paris and now your photos are split into three different folders.  Just download them and then you'll see all your files by day in one folder:

09-12 0024.jpg
09-12 0025.jpg
09-12 0026.jpg
09-13 0027.jpg
09-13 0028.jpg
09-14 0029.jpg
and so on

And the best of both worlds is: you can see your whole trip and browse through the entire trip easily with any program, or you can just look at the files that start 09-13 if you just want that day.  I really still don't see the need for the folder profusion.

Edit: not trying to berate or belittle mind you.  Sort of playing "devil's advocate" right now.  I'm trying to separate need from habit so I can build something better than what is already out there.  I think there may be a better way to do this that satisfies everyone.  As a programmer and one who must support users, I really don't like the idea of your image files dictating arbitrary folders where you've really lost control over where things are going.  I did have one thought.  Since I'm still convinced you can easily separate files by date within a single folder, what about if instead of creating one folder per day, FlashPipe creates a folder that tells you the date range of photos that have been downloaded.  Example, instead of creating seven new folders for a week's worth of pictures, you get one folder named "2009-09-01 to 2009-09-07" or "September 1 - September 7" or some other user configurable format.  That way the folder shows the date range of the photos that are within that folder.

Mike
« Last Edit: September 25, 2009, 03:10:44 PM by Mike Chaney » Logged
Terry-M
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« Reply #18 on: September 25, 2009, 04:05:56 PM »

Quote
Sort of playing "devil's advocate" right now
Mike, you are certainly making me think about how I do my folder structure.
Quote
what about if instead of creating one folder per day, FlashPipe creates a folder that tells you the date range of photos
I do something similar now manually, but each download is in a sub-folder within that date range folder because I usually am able to d/l after each photographic outing.
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or some other user configurable format
Could that include the ability to include some descriptive text? I realise that introduces a manual element for each download but could be useful too.

One thought/problem to overcome with date range folders: supposing you downloaded a card to a new date-range folder but didn't clear the card. Then some more photos were added at a later date, what would happen when the card was downloaded again, a new folder created with just the new images, or ...? I'm sure you can sort that one out; if you can make FP ping, you can do anything  Grin
I can see I'm going to be able to simplify the whole process soon Cheesy
Terry.
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mhwarner
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« Reply #19 on: September 25, 2009, 04:20:06 PM »

I guess your suggestions might work for casual or non-pro photographers.  But I don't see a lot of pros wanting to lump multiple day shoots into a single folder.  I do horseback ride event photography (sometimes for a week at a time).  I may utlimately end up with 500 files in a folder (and I often end up splitting the folders into things like "Wednesday Ride" and "Wednesday Evening" to make them even more manageable.  I sell the photos at the ride and print out the numbers on the proof sheets.  With a filename like "Img_6402", it's easy for the user to enter "6402" on an order form.  There is no way somebody is going to enter a filename like 2009-09-02_D40_Img_6402 on the form.  Yes, I can see pick the last 4 numbers, but it's not always going to happen.  And I doubt that many pro photographs hunt for their photos by filename.  I think most of us use some sort of image management program and use thumbnails and keywords. 

But hey, it's your program so I guess you can do it however you want.  So far, I'm not seeing any real value in it for me but I could represent a very small percentage of your potential market.  I sort of doubt it, though.
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« Reply #20 on: September 25, 2009, 06:50:16 PM »

I guess your suggestions might work for casual or non-pro photographers.  But I don't see a lot of pros wanting to lump multiple day shoots into a single folder.  I do horseback ride event photography (sometimes for a week at a time).  I may utlimately end up with 500 files in a folder (and I often end up splitting the folders into things like "Wednesday Ride" and "Wednesday Evening" to make them even more manageable.  I sell the photos at the ride and print out the numbers on the proof sheets.  With a filename like "Img_6402", it's easy for the user to enter "6402" on an order form.  There is no way somebody is going to enter a filename like 2009-09-02_D40_Img_6402 on the form.  Yes, I can see pick the last 4 numbers, but it's not always going to happen.  And I doubt that many pro photographs hunt for their photos by filename.  I think most of us use some sort of image management program and use thumbnails and keywords. 

But hey, it's your program so I guess you can do it however you want.  So far, I'm not seeing any real value in it for me but I could represent a very small percentage of your potential market.  I sort of doubt it, though.

I really don't think being a "pro" or part of some "elite" club has anything to do with it.  It's all about doing the file naming like you want/need so that you don't have to switch folders to find things that relate to the same event.  When I go on a seven day horseback ride and come back, I don't want to have to traverse a tree to seven different folders to find photos from that event.  Having everything in one folder would allow you to select only the day you want, two days, one evening and the next morning, and so on without having to bounce back and forth.  Plus I may not remember the exact day that everything occurred: much easier to sort them by day and just have them all display where I can quickly scroll through the photos without having to remember a date.

In your example, if you wanted to display or print photos from Wednesday evening and a continuing ride Thursday morning, you'd have to go to your 2009-09-02 folder, select Wednesday evening photos, back up to the containing folder, select the 2009-09-03 folder and then select the files from Thursday morning.  It's much easier to go to one folder and select 2009-09-02 [6402] through 2009-09-03 [6649] within one folder.  If you can tell people to select 6402 on an image that says IMG_6402.jpg, you can just as easily tell them to select the number in brackets when you have 2009-09-02 [6402].jpg.  But like I said, a lot of people are used to doing it the hard way and now they insist on it.  Sometimes it's not easy to change bad habits.  Wink

Mike
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Seth
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« Reply #21 on: September 25, 2009, 07:50:58 PM »

I see the reason to seperate each day's shoot also.  In sporting events like auto racing, track & field championships, boat racing, etc.  you usually wind up with multiple images of the same car/boat/person.  Immediately knowing the date shot lets you reference the heat sheet, qualification times, etc.  Adding the feature would avoid the necessity to use BreezeBrowser, etc. to sort the images in the folder by date then doing a Move to Folder to break them out.  Sorting in this way does help with databasing in programs like iMatch.

It would also simplify backing up each date to its own CD/DVD.
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Seth
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« Reply #22 on: September 25, 2009, 07:51:22 PM »

One thought/problem to overcome with date range folders: supposing you downloaded a card to a new date-range folder but didn't clear the card. Then some more photos were added at a later date, what would happen when the card was downloaded again, a new folder created with just the new images, or ...? I'm sure you can sort that one out; if you can make FP ping, you can do anything  Grin
I can see I'm going to be able to simplify the whole process soon Cheesy
Terry.

Terry,

Yes, that's just one of many problems you can run into when allowing images/files to dictate where they are going.  Since FlashPipe can transfer files other than just photos and videos such as indices, control files, movie thumbnails, voice annotations and other image database type files that might be on either a photo card or an AVCHD card, you can run into the "where did my files go" syndrome which is one of the things I'm trying to avoid.  Believe it or not, even the latest model cameras sometimes create non-photo files that have no EXIF date and have no valid file date!  Where do you put those?  Where will old images go that you've left on the card?  Where will they go if you forget to turn off the "image dictates its own subfolder" feature when transferring files from one large hard drive repository that contains images from a span of years?  You might say, why should I care?  If people really want to create the subfolder mess, let them.  Well, right now, FlashPipe is foolproof.  There's no way you can inadvertently overwrite files, no way to lose them to some folder that you won't recognize, no way a file will ever be deleted from the card until it is first verified to have been copied to the destination, and so forth.  As soon as I put code in that allows the files themselves to dictate their own subfolders, even if it's hidden in an "advanced" menu somewhere, I'll start getting complaints "FlashPipe lost all my files".

That plus the fact that date cutoffs are totally arbitrary is why I don't think it a good idea to do a "subfolder per day" approach.  I've shot professionally before at weddings, receptions, anniversary parties, golf tournaments, parties, vacations, etc. and I've never found an instance where it is OK to arbitrarily split my photos by day.  When I did a wedding and the reception ran until 1:30am, do I really want to look in a second folder to find the last hour and a half of the event?  When I shot a two day golf tournament, am I going to remember which shots happened on which day, or would I rather go to the folder and quickly scroll from day 1 to day 2 and so on?  And I don't think that's just me.  I think for a lot of people, once you do it "right", you won't go back.  When I download photos from the card, that's the decision that merits creation of the subfolder: that's the point where the subfolder should be made because when I'm ready to download it generally means I'm finished with that event and those photos should be grouped together.  Then if I need day beyond that, I just scroll and select the day I want.

Mike
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« Reply #23 on: September 25, 2009, 08:02:07 PM »

I see the reason to seperate each day's shoot also.  In sporting events like auto racing, track & field championships, boat racing, etc.  you usually wind up with multiple images of the same car/boat/person.  Immediately knowing the date shot lets you reference the heat sheet, qualification times, etc.  Adding the feature would avoid the necessity to use BreezeBrowser, etc. to sort the images in the folder by date then doing a Move to Folder to break them out.  Sorting in this way does help with databasing in programs like iMatch.

It would also simplify backing up each date to its own CD/DVD.

Years ago I shot a powerboat race in Ocean City, Maryland.  The event was covered by ESPN and I was just there to shoot for fun, but I did get photos from three days.  I've also shot the IronMan competition in Clearwater, FL including the practice/trials the day before.  In no way would I want either of those events in two or three different folders.  I didn't have FlashPipe then but if I did, it would have come up with (for example) 2008-11-07 as the subfolder.  I would have probably added to that so that the subfolder was 2008-11-07-IronMan.  Now I have the IronMan trials and the actual race in one folder.  I can select all the files from the day of the trials, print them, copy them, etc.  I can select only the files from the day of the race.  Make a DVD of those, copy those, etc.  People seem to be ignoring the fact that within the folder they are already sorted by date and then image number: FlashPipe has already created the file names to cater to that.  There is simply no downside to this, but there is an advantage.  If I want to print all the photos from both the trial day and the race day of one particular athlete, I can go through that folder without concern for day, and just pick the photos, create a DVD, print them, etc. without having to "travel" across my hard drive to do it.

In your scenario, I wouldn't want to have to search across several folders in order to give a guy all shots of his boat either.  I could just open Qimage and quickly select all of his boat, regardless of day.  Then if he just wants all shots from heat 1, I just select all the ones of his boat that start with 2008-05-21.

The only thing I might be able to rationalize is creating day subfolders under the event folder.  For example, you start with a subfolder based on the download date and then within that subfolder, a folder per day is created.  At least that way you have one "container" for the download you just did without stuff (potentially) flying all over the place.  I could see that for certain events that are mutually exclusive per-day.  Then my complaint about not knowing where your images are really going until they are processed would go away.

Mike
« Last Edit: September 25, 2009, 08:13:44 PM by Mike Chaney » Logged
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« Reply #24 on: September 25, 2009, 08:59:48 PM »

BTW, just wanted to say I do appreciate the feedback and I'm not blind to what you guys are trying to accomplish.  I just want to find a better/safer way of doing it that satisfies a larger group of people, so this conversation could lead to something even better than just a "folder per day" option.  Obviously I find the topic interesting and am willing to take on the challenge as this is my third post in a row.  Wink  It's a good thread though because it brings out the ways that everyone is using folders and/or other imaging programs and that gives me a clearer picture of what is needed for the majority of people rather than just focusing on what one person is doing.

So this is just to encourage the dialog to keep going.  I still think I can find a clever alternative that does something similar while addressing my concerns.

Anyway, thanks to those who are throwing their thoughts in here.  I think there is a happy medium.

Mike
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Seth
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« Reply #25 on: September 28, 2009, 12:09:19 AM »

Okay, what we do now in a major event (read that-many photogs) Photo Mechanic DLs all chips to a folder for the day, like Indy Quals 1, or something.  Each card then DLs to a subfolder by photog which it gets from the camera serial numbers.  It does not seperate by camera; it just starts doing SIR001, SIR002, SIR003, etc.  This is about the limit of what the FP request would be.  We format the chip before re-use or just use another, so dupes is not an issue.  It would wreak havoc.

(Each folder is looked at and some images are copied to Selects which have images from all photogs.  Edits and transmits come from there.)

If that helps...
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Seth
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« Reply #26 on: September 28, 2009, 04:05:19 PM »

It might just be my computer or the software I use to view images, but large folders of hundreds and thousands of images tends to cause problems.

One sort of compromise solution to this, which would probably get to the nub of it for me at least, would be if FP would be able to look up the size of the directory it's going to put the files into, then move onto the next one if it exceeds a particular size. Bonus points if one can select the size and double bonus points if there's a list of the popular optical disk sizes.

I'd love to be able to label my directories like:
DVD_00-2009_03-2009_05
DVD_01-2009_05-2009_07
DVD_01-2009_07-2009_09

Or something similar, even if it were just the first bit, it would be quite helpful.
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mhwarner
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« Reply #27 on: September 29, 2009, 06:34:02 PM »

So far you haven't convinced me that FP's current scheme is going to give me what I want to end up with.  I do NOT want to download to a single giant subfolder with God only knows how many pictures in it, which I might or might not be able to identify by name.  If the folder contains images for a location or an event, I typically add something descriptive to the date subfolder after it is created.  And I use ThumbsPlus to do view the folder thumbnails or do keyword searches.  Other than printing out orders, the filenames are irrelevant to me.  But in the hopes that you can come up with something better for FP, and I have no doubt that you will, here is another suggestion.

As an option, could you give us a list of all the dates for the files on the card and allow us to specify multiple subfolders per date, IF WE WANT THEM.  Otherwise, the default could be one giant folder with the download date.  Then the folks who like large folders with lots of pictures in them (and you, apparently) could be happy and those of us who prefer more organization (or "folder profusion" as you call it in your "What Sets Us Apart" blurb) would be satisfied as well.  I would love to have the ability to customize names of the folders at download time instead of after the fact as I do now.  So if I am on a trip I might want pictures taken on 2009-09-29 to be downloaded under 2009 folder to a folder called "2009-09-29 Grand Canyon" and those from 2009-09-30 to be downloaded to "2009-09-30 Lake Powell".  Setting that up at download time to SEPARATE folders would be very cool. 

Anyway, just some thoughts.  Obviously you can't be everything to everybody and maybe you are target the average everyday user market who doesn't like lots of subfolders and who typically doesn't have an image management program.

Thanks for listening.
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Anthony
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« Reply #28 on: October 03, 2009, 07:30:39 AM »

Any chance of being able to enter the paths manually or the ability to save "profiles" which store different paths? I deal with two separate cameras weekly and the difference in the paths is just two letters, whereas they are miles away from each other when you have to browse to them. Thanks for the renaming option - made a big difference

Best - Anthony
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Fred A
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« Reply #29 on: October 03, 2009, 09:23:59 AM »

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Any chance of being able to enter the paths manually or the ability to save "profiles" which store different paths?

Anthony,
Could you please clarify the question; perhaps an example of paths/profiles that are being copied?
Fred
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