Adding Information to photos, and scanner calibration

Hi Everyone, I'm going through the process of archiving a whole bunch
of family photos, and I have some questions about the process.

Can someone recommend a program to calibrate my scanner. If I'm going
to be doing so many photos I might as well have it calibrated
correctly. I'm planning on going with Kodak i1220 in case that helps.

Secondly, is there a way to add information to the file of a photo.
For example, I want to be able to add names of people in the photo,
and not by tagging photos but by actually adding it to meta data or
something. Any suggestions? This process would need to be fairly easy
and quick and be readable by many programs.

Thanks.

On Sun, 3 Feb 2008 10:13:14 -0800 (PST), wrote:

Hi Everyone, I'm going through the process of archiving a whole bunch
of family photos, and I have some questions about the process.

Can someone recommend a program to calibrate my scanner. If I'm going
to be doing so many photos I might as well have it calibrated
correctly. I'm planning on going with Kodak i1220 in case that helps.

Secondly, is there a way to add information to the file of a photo.
For example, I want to be able to add names of people in the photo,
and not by tagging photos but by actually adding it to meta data or
something. Any suggestions? This process would need to be fairly easy
and quick and be readable by many programs.

What software will you be using to edit the images? Naming files with
multiple individual names will be difficult, but there are image
editing programs that allow you to enter file information like this.

Adobe Elements is inexpensive and allows you to do this. FileFile
Info. The name entered can be keywords for locating images.

Several ways to calibrate your scanner are findable by Googling
"Scanner Calibration". You don't need a program to do so.




--

Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

Hi Tony, thanks for the reply.

By using Adobe Elements to enter in the information, does it make it
viewable by other programs too? I don't want to do all this work and
not be able to make use of it by other programs. And I don't mind a
more expensive program... I'm doing this with so many photos I have
the budget for it.

And about the scanner calibration, would you be able to recommend
anything specifically?

Thanks again

On Sun, 3 Feb 2008 10:52:33 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

By using Adobe Elements to enter in the information, does it make it
viewable by other programs too? I don't want to do all this work and
not be able to make use of it by other programs.

Yes, I see you thought this through. Ideally you need a
proper DAM program rather than a "Photo Album" sort of
application to ensure that the data you enter is properly
embedded in the images rather than just held in a
proprietary database on your PC.

And I don't mind a
more expensive program... I'm doing this with so many photos I have
the budget for it.

I'm glad you don't expect good software to be free, although
there are examples of free or inexpensive software that can
do this job properly. Have a look at Idimager as the best
example of this genre.

I've used the expensive but once-excellent Iview MediaPro to
do this sort of thing for years, but sadly it's now well
past its sell-by date and owned by Microsoft so I can no
longer recommend it :-(

--
John Bean

On Sun, 3 Feb 2008 10:13:14 -0800 (PST), wrote in
:

Secondly, is there a way to add information to the file of a photo.
For example, I want to be able to add names of people in the photo,
and not by tagging photos but by actually adding it to meta data or
something. Any suggestions? This process would need to be fairly easy
and quick and be readable by many programs.

1.

PhotoME
http://www.photome.de/

2.

ExifTool
http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

3.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/photoinfo.mspx

Microsoft Photo Info enables easy editing of "metadata" for digital
photographs from inside Windows Explorer

Published: January 22, 2007

Microsoft Photo Info is a new software add-in for Microsoft Windows that
allows photographers to add, change and delete common "metadata"
properties for digital photographs from inside Windows Explorer. It also
provides enhanced "hover tips" and additional sort properties for
digital photographs in Explorer (in Details view).

Microsoft Photo Info runs on 32-bit versions of Windows XP (with Service
Pack 2 or later) and the Windows Vista operating systems.

Free download after Validation.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

On Sun, 3 Feb 2008 10:52:33 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

Hi Tony, thanks for the reply.

By using Adobe Elements to enter in the information, does it make it
viewable by other programs too?

No.

I don't want to do all this work and
not be able to make use of it by other programs. And I don't mind a
more expensive program... I'm doing this with so many photos I have
the budget for it.

And about the scanner calibration, would you be able to recommend
anything specifically?

No. I don't calibrate my scanner. I scan directly into Photoshop and
do any adjustments necessary in Photoshop.


--

Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

John Navas wrote:
On Sun, 3 Feb 2008 10:13:14 -0800 (PST), wrote in
:

Secondly, is there a way to add information to the file of a photo.
For example, I want to be able to add names of people in the photo,
and not by tagging photos but by actually adding it to meta data or
something. Any suggestions? This process would need to be fairly easy
and quick and be readable by many programs.

1.

PhotoME
http://www.photome.de/

2.

ExifTool
http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

3.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/photoinfo.mspx

Microsoft Photo Info enables easy editing of "metadata" for digital
photographs from inside Windows Explorer

Published: January 22, 2007

Microsoft Photo Info is a new software add-in for Microsoft Windows that
allows photographers to add, change and delete common "metadata"
properties for digital photographs from inside Windows Explorer. It also
provides enhanced "hover tips" and additional sort properties for
digital photographs in Explorer (in Details view).

Microsoft Photo Info runs on 32-bit versions of Windows XP (with Service
Pack 2 or later) and the Windows Vista operating systems.

Free download after Validation.

Microsoft's exif manipulation seems to have a few problems I wouldn't
trust,see:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=21925564

Dave

--
"...voters are not apathetic; rather, they are too deeply concerned
with the nation's serious problems to be interested in the
candidate's trivial proposals" Barry Commoner

Dave wrote:
John Navas wrote:
On Sun, 3 Feb 2008 10:13:14 -0800 (PST), wrote in
:

Secondly, is there a way to add information to the file of a photo.
For example, I want to be able to add names of people in the photo,
and not by tagging photos but by actually adding it to meta data or
something. Any suggestions? This process would need to be fairly easy
and quick and be readable by many programs.

1.

PhotoME
http://www.photome.de/

2.

ExifTool
http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

3.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/photoinfo.mspx


Microsoft Photo Info enables easy editing of "metadata" for digital
photographs from inside Windows Explorer

Published: January 22, 2007

Microsoft Photo Info is a new software add-in for Microsoft Windows that
allows photographers to add, change and delete common "metadata"
properties for digital photographs from inside Windows Explorer. It also
provides enhanced "hover tips" and additional sort properties for
digital photographs in Explorer (in Details view).

Microsoft Photo Info runs on 32-bit versions of Windows XP (with Service
Pack 2 or later) and the Windows Vista operating systems.

Free download after Validation.

Microsoft's exif manipulation seems to have a few problems I wouldn't
trust,see:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=21925564

A number of exif (and what's the other one for journalist's info?) data
writers have minor inconsistencies and it's common to not be able to
read data written by on in another so be cautious before spending a
bunch of time on this.

Paul Furman wrote:
Microsoft's exif manipulation seems to have a few problems I wouldn't
trust,see:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=21925564

A number of exif (and what's the other one for journalist's info?) data
writers have minor inconsistencies and it's common to not be able to
read data written by on in another so be cautious before spending a
bunch of time on this.

Not being able to read exif data in another program is one thing,but
this thread at dpreview talked of not being able to open the file period
after using MS Photoinfo,eg. change a date and try to open it in
Photoshop and get corrupted file or missing ICC profile messages.
True the thread is a year old but one of the developers from MS was
involved in the thread and part of the response in MS links he cited
sounded like typical MS.."Microsoft is working to inform hardware and
software developers of this new feature and encourage them to update
their tools".
In other words ...not our problem.

Dave









--
"...voters are not apathetic; rather, they are too deeply concerned
with the nation's serious problems to be interested in the
candidate's trivial proposals" Barry Commoner

On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:46:55 -0500, Dave wrote in
:

Paul Furman wrote:
Microsoft's exif manipulation seems to have a few problems I wouldn't
trust,see:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=21925564

A number of exif (and what's the other one for journalist's info?) data
writers have minor inconsistencies and it's common to not be able to
read data written by on in another so be cautious before spending a
bunch of time on this.

Not being able to read exif data in another program is one thing,but
this thread at dpreview talked of not being able to open the file period
after using MS Photoinfo,eg. change a date and try to open it in
Photoshop and get corrupted file or missing ICC profile messages.
True the thread is a year old but one of the developers from MS was
involved in the thread and part of the response in MS links he cited
sounded like typical MS.."Microsoft is working to inform hardware and
software developers of this new feature and encourage them to update
their tools".
In other words ...not our problem.

I believe the tool was updated since then.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)