Photos, photos and more photos

A brief, limited post about many photos!

A lively Twitter chat #ANZAncestryTime about photo digitization and storage provided some ideas and prompted me to find a couple of previous posts I had written on this topic, this one back in 2014 on Organising photos and another on sharing photos via Flickr and Trove.

Time and software move on but some simple methods for preserving photos and the information about them are worth revisiting.

Adding data to scanned photos

I regularly use a simple Paint program on my Windows computer to add extra white canvas to a photo and then type in as much detail as known about the photo. This is in addition to adding the metadata in the details fields of the photos.

1. Copy the photo, open Paint and paste

2. Drag the bottom corner either sideways or down to create extra canvas. You may need to zoom out in order to see the bottom of your photo. Here I have zoomed out to 12.5%.

3. Select the Text button to type in the details

Adding white space in Paint

Most photo editing software packages have this function to add extra canvas for typing but as Paint is part of Windows and extremely simple to use this is a very quick method for adding text.

In the free Irfanview the option is under Image > Change canvas size.

Two free online options that do not need a login are Lunapic and Pixlr.

File naming

Early in my photo digitization process, I realized the need for a consistent file naming pattern. A simple spreadsheet helps me name files consistently. The clip below shows the details to be added, then the final column, in this case, column H puts the data together generating the file name to copy. The simple formula used here is CONCATENATE to join all the columns that have data in them. 

This works for a wide variety of photos as one need only fill in the details available such as the street scene photo listed in row 5. Empty cells are ignored with this formula. Column D has an underscore which separates the name of the photo or the Who from the rest of the more descriptive elements of the file name.

My photos are then stored in surname folders where applicable with the rest filed either by year or place. All photos and data are backed up to external hard drives and cloud storage.

Storage

Physical photos once scanned are added to Albox archival albums which I purchased from Gould Genealogy The photo pages have convenient slip-in labels for adding detail about the photos.

Sharing

I initially used a Dropbox folder for sharing with immediate family but now I have paid storage elsewhere I add photos and documents to Google Drive and share folders from there. Stories using photos in blog posts over on Earlier Years are designed to reach a wider audience.

This post first appeared on https://carmelgalvin.info

Three simple ways to make Family Photo collages

It's August 2021 and many in Australia are in lockdown to prevent the spread of the Delta variant of coronavirus. It is also National Family History Month here, an excellent time to work on some of those unfinished projects.

Shauna Hicks on Diary of an Australian Genealogist mentioned a photo collage she recently made and this sparked the idea for this blog post, an activity to undertake during NFHM. 

Whether you have endless family photos or just a few, a collage is a quick visual method to generate some extra family interest. Here are three simple methods to assemble a collage whether they be all photos, a combination of photos and document images, or photos of heirlooms. Many of the mobile photo collage apps add a watermark or branding unless you pay or subscribe. These are 3 free options.

Online

There are several online options on sites such as BeFunky and PicMonkey but Canva with an excellent range of free Photo Collage templates tops the list of those available.

From the Canva home page  simply search for photo collage. I prefer to choose from the more menu so that the free ones in each category appear as shown below.

Select a Free template then use the Uploads button on the left to upload your photos. Each uploaded photo can then just be dropped onto the template where it will replace the existing photo. Edit any text or click on any photo to adjust or remove it.

These collages are set at 25 x 20 cm. If you wish to make a larger or smaller size, choose Custom Size from the home page and add the desired dimensions. 

Add and resize the photos until the desired effect is achieved. Add some text and decorative elements by choosing these features from the left side panel.

Download choices include png, jpg or pdf print for a high-quality document.

PowerPoint 

If you have PowerPoint already on your computer it is simple enough to assemble a photo collage. If not, use the free online version.

In a new blank document choose the Design tab>Slide size

On a blank slide, insert photos, and crop to shape to add some interest.

Add appropriate icons and text boxes.

Format the background with another image, colour or pattern.

Export as pdf or image - png or jpg

Trip to central Australia - A4 collage created in PowerPoint

Google Drive

There are two options within Google Drive to use.

Slides is the Google alternative to PowerPoint.

Choose Slides>New

From the File menu scroll down to choose Page Setup

Set your desired dimensions and proceed as above.

Individual pages can be downloaded as either jpg or png.

The other alternative in Google Drive is to use Drawings with a blank canvas. In a similar manner use Page Setup to determine the size of your finished collage. Add pictures, shapes text boxes and more. Similar download options are provided or the completed canvas can be published to the web and then easily embedded in a website or blog.

Here's a collage of four generations of family weddings.

Compiled in Google Drawings

Why not compile some family photo collages this family history month?

This post first appeared on https://carmelgalvin.info

Flickr the family photos to Trove

Here's another method to make those old family photos available to your siblings and cousins.

Sign up for Flickr to get 1 terabyte of free storage for your photos. Photos can be made public, viewable by anyone, or private so they are only seen by you or those to whom you send a guest pass. Usage permissions are set using Creative Commons licencing.  Upload can be automatic from mobile devices and computers or one can use the simple drag and drop interface if family photos are already organised into folders.

Once photos are added on the Choose Photos/Drag and drop screen, one can:

• edit titles
• add descriptions and tags 
• set viewing permissions
• add to an album or create an album.

Edit information on this screen before upload

Once this initial information is added to your satisfaction, photos are then uploaded and will appear in your photostream and in the album you created. Albums can contain both public and private pictures. I recommend making your uploads private until you are ready to share them. I do not advise adding to a group from this screen.

To add further details to the photos, choose Albums then Edit in Organizr. Choose an individual photo to add the date the original photo was taken. Exact dates, single years or approximate years can be added through the date tab shown on the Organizr screenshot below.

Editing options in the Organizr screen

Adding your pictures to the Trove group

Once you have added and edited all the relevant information head over to join Trove: Australia in pictures group on Flickr.

All images included in this group are also made searchable in Trove, a service hosted by the National Library of Australia but built on the collections of thousands of organisations and individuals!

Trove provides the instructions for adding your pictures. All pictures added to the group must be made public. It is worth noting the need for accurate tags and descriptions as these are used in the Trove search. To make the best use of this service, revisit titles, descriptions and tags before adding them to the group as any subsequent edits in Flickr after Trove has harvested your photos and data will only be visible in Flickr not Trove.

Here are some early photos I have added, seen here on a search result screen in Trove.

Photos searchable through Trove

I've added these records to my family lists in Trove. Here's the O'Dea list with the photos now visible.
Thanks to Flickr and Trove, my cousins now have another avenue to find their relatives.


This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2015/12/flickr-family-photos-to-trove.html

Digital photo management

As we gradually accumulate mountains or terabytes of digital photos, some help is at hand. There is no perfect solution but a consistent and steady approach will help conquer the despair one may feel when looking at many years' worth of accumulated files. Much has been written on this topic and some recent up to date posts are listed at the end of this article. The slide show above accompanies a talk presented at Noosaville Library on 24th February 2015.

There are several issues to consider:

• Where are all your photos? Phones, cameras, computers, flash drives, CDs, surely not floppy disks!
• What do you want to do with them? Digital only, photo books, individual prints, keep them to yourself, share with family or with the world - all of these considerations will help you determine best practice for you.
• Where will you keep them? Locally, off site, in the cloud? 
• How will you find them? What search capabilities do you need to have, by file name, keyword, tags, people's names, events, dates?
• What about the future? What if the format of files changes? What media should you use?

Once you have thought about these issues it is time to get started.

1. Gather all photos into one location. Take a critical look and dispose/delete those that could easily be obtained by using a Google search. Is your picture of the Eiffel Tower better than one you can find online?

2. Decide on a file naming system. Probably the most difficult decision but remember the search capabilities of computers are excellent. Most cameras and phones nowadays will have the date embedded and for most purposes, this is an excellent method of naming files.

• YYYY-MM-DD Event Place Person number 2015-02-15_rain_Gympie_001.jpg 

This method will keep all your images well ordered whichever folder they are in.
If your photos are people focused you may like to consider

• SURNAME_Firstname_date_event_Place_number        HOGAN_Janet_1912_schooldays_010.jpg 

This method will file all families and relations together. Whatever the method you decide on, write some guidelines to remind yourself every time you save new images.

3. Add metadata, that is similar to writing on the back of the prints like Mum and Grandma did in the photo albums of previous years. Expensive programs are not needed to do this. See examples in the slideshow. Remember to save! 

4. Back up in at least 3 different ways - at least one external HDD and another one offsite in case of natural or other disasters. How often do you hear of someone losing all their files through a computer crash or a disaster such as fire or flood?

5. Load to the cloud for future proofing. When Apple no longer supported Flash files, the online providers eventually moved their files to HTML5. YouTube has now converted customers' online files for them at no cost. Flickr has billions of images from reputable entities worldwide. The British Library alone has more than 1 million images housed on Flickr.

Keeping things organized 

10 tips to keep your digital photos organised from Techlicious
How can I organise all my digital photos from The Guardian 

10 free photo editor tools from Make Use Of

Free photo editing software for Windows 7/8 by the Windows Club
How to use Spotlight search like a champ from How to Geek
Which cloud service for you? from CNet
Scan your life Create the photo collection you have always wanted
Clipping magic Instantly remove image backgrounds online
A great post on iPhoneography by Darcy Moore

The options I use to preserve digital photos are detailed in the slideshow. Here's another post on the subject I wrote earlier this year. There are dozens of YouTube videos to help with organising your photos. Is there a major player I've missed? Let me know in the comments what you have found useful.

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2015/02/digital-photo-management.html

Experimenting with visuals

Photo Mapo

The Photo Mapo app available for iPad and iPhone adds maps as a background for your photos. A description of 180 characters can be added to give context to the event or photo. This is a great tool to use for your holiday snaps.

The map location is found by the app if location services were turned on when the photo was taken. If not, one can simply search for the location and the data is added. In the app settings one can choose how much detail, metadata, is added to the map.

Using the app for family history

Recently I've been experimenting with some historical images. Here are three of the many layout variations available within the app using the 1907 wedding photo of my grandparents.
I searched for the exact location of the church in which they were married then added the description for the photo. In this case there is no time detail added to the map.

The location of the church was pinpointed exactly even though the surrounding town has now changed so much in the ensuing 107 years. In this final example I saved the image from Photo Mapo then opened it in Pixlr Express - available as mobile app or on web - to add the vintage effect as a more suitable match for the photo. 

If you do not have access to a map of a particular area in the era you need, this is one way to give your family pictures geographical context for your family history blog or book.

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2014/10/experimenting-with-visuals.html

It's a Snap!

Organising photos

Time to get down to some serious organising. Our first digital camera back in 1997 did not serve to improve our photography techniques but did indeed provide a sudden upsurge in the number of photos we took.  Suddenly we had photos on a computer and we followed some basic conventions in naming and grouping them into folders.

As the years passed with new cameras, phones and other digital devices, our world became flooded with digital imagery and in our busy lives some organisation fell by the wayside. The addition of cloud storage has resulted in photos being scattered across multiple places. Add in all those years of print photos to be scanned and this looks like a mega task, but a step by step process will get it done.

Improvements in image software combined with more sophisticated methods of digital storage and retrieval systems all provide for an improved experience once image files are well organised. A systematic review along with an approach that will better facilitate search is needed. I have some ideas to guide the process.

• The more information there is about a photo, the easier it will be to find it again by search.
• Adding metadata is the digital equivalent to writing on the back of a physical photo and the best information on the back of old photos were the dates, names, places, events and comments. Now tags can be added too.
• Backup and off site storage is crucial, no one wants to lose years of photographs in flood, fire,  or some other unexpected disaster such as a computer crash.

Review

1. Make a master list of locations of photos to be sure all are processed. 
2. Decide on file naming conventions year, month, date; event, series or person e.g. folders by year, then events in that year. Consider batch renaming functions to process folders of images about an event.
3. Right click properties on an individual photo to enter basic metadata - use the photo gallery editor in Windows to add further comments and for the facial recognition software embedded in it. Highlight all photos in one folder to add a generic comment e.g. for wedding or other event photos this is a quick method to add detail about the event to all the photos in one go
4. Consider names, date, time, places, source, photographer and other comments
5. Do some quick edits to fix lighting, focus, orientation, crop or one of a dozen other edits: use free software. 
6. Work on and complete one folder at a time. 
7. Backup each time a batch is finished.

Some useful tools

Free software

• Irfanview
• XnView
• GIMP
• Picasa

Free web apps no need to download software

• Pixlr family 
• PicMonkey
• iPiccy

Mobile metadata editors

• PhotosinfoPro - iOS app, excellent for adding metadata
• Photo editor- Android, edit images and metadata

And I'm underway, Day 2 and facial recognition of known people done. Bulk metadata added to comments field in three separate folders.  All those albums to be scanned, arrgh... to be done slowly.

Windows Photo Gallery

Windows photo gallery is part of the Windows Essentials free suite of tools

Open picture in Windows Photo gallery

  

Toolbar - simple metadata entry options, includes quick find by person after facial recognition applied.

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/its-snap.html