Cataloging Period Photos, Suggestions, Software, And Method.

I think I hit on a image name structure that will make it easy to know content of image without opening the image.

Going on what I said earlier:

I have a naming scheme that I worked out nicely, fill out as much as possible.
(aircraft type)(identifier)(location)(note)
Note: (location) AF -Air Field, IA -In Air, GF -on airfield with Gear Failure, BL -Belly Landed off AF, WK -Wreck.
ex: Spitfire GBoA AF getting ready for mission

It will be like this:
(Image #)(set ID, 2 letters)(aircraft type)(identifier)(location) the “(note)” part I will discard.
(#####)(aa)-(Do17z)(5U+xx)(AF)

The key is first 2
Image # = 5 digit (or more) sequential code, gives me at least 99999 images in library.
set ID is it ID different scans of same image, as I will very likely take multiple scans of same image, sometimes including back. This will be letter codes as follow:
“12345aa” = full images scan at 600 dpi (maybe 300dpi if subject is very small, then an “ac” is used)
“12345ab” = full image of back side (IF something on back worth scanning. 300 DPI)
“12345ac” = High resolution on area of interest.
“12345ad” = higher resolution on area of interest, and so on.

Now, if there is a series of related images (like same aircraft at same time (likely taken on same film roll))
“12345ba” the first letter of course indicates new image, even though the # is same.
“12345bb”
“12345bc”
Doing that will keep closely related images grouped, and the historical relation is maintained.

OK, why am I doing this?
A few times with other catalogs I made the database / organization programs became obsolete, or the file became corrupted, or had to migrate to new platform, or whatever, and I ended up having to spend a lot of time fixing thing, or starting over.
With this name scheme I have at least some organization even if I loose all the details in a database.

Very productive discussion!

Hi everybody!

Very interesting topic for me – as I have experienced the same challenge(s)…

Based on my experience so far (archiving fotos for more 40 years, 25 years of which in electronic form) I would recommend two things:

a) Don’t mix a key (unique identifier of a photo) with descriptive attributes, i.e. – as Mark12 wrote – start with 1 and number sequentially. Add all other information on a photo as additional attributes (or fields). Based on my extensive experience as a member of an organization department of a large multinational country almost all “meaningful” keys will prove as insufficient sooner or later for various reasons – so don’t try to do this.

b) Don’t try to find a “fancy” application software for the cataloging job – stick with the simple features of the operating system (or file explorer, etc.) of your computer. Otherwise regular updates with the need for adaptation of your existing data – or even the software provider going “belly-up” – may prove an unnecessary “pain in the a..”. Using MS Office applications – like Mark12 recommended – MIGHT BE acceptable (because it is a global standard unlikely to disappear or change too much in the foreseeable future), but as somebody who had to upgrade MS Word formats at least 5 times already (about 50.000 documents in total), I would advise to be careful even with these applications!

Generally speaking: Keep your “system” as simple as possible.

Regards and good luck
Thomas

I somewhat must disagree, Thomas.

I need the photo to have a few descriptive elements that will allow identification by name.

That said, I do agree it would be follow to include a complete descriptive list. This is where a unique ID number will be needed.

There is another issue, and that is if the catalog file or program are not longer accessible, then all that work will have to be either recovered, or rebuilt from scratch (and happening once is once to many).

Maybe using the Google tools (Docs and Picasa) could be a good combination, or just Doc’s for its easy of access and portability.

Flying Pencil, may I ask if the discussion could be broadened to include what may happen to personnel collections in the event of the untimely, or timely, demise of the owner? I don’t mean to sound morbid, but there must be many collections which have been thrown out due to no prior arrangements having been made. Regards, SFF.

That is a good topic!
Suggest you start a new topic for that. Never knows when something unfortunate happens.
Cheers!

To be continued….

As these are scans wouldn’t it be simpler just to load the whole lot to Flickr and use the Tag system to cover all the content features (OK, the one word restriction on Tags would mean you’d end up with “gearuplanding”)?

Rather than adding the tags in Flickr, use appropriate software to add the tags to the jpg files. Flickr (and other environments) read the tags embedded in the file, and use them – in Flickr’s case, additional flags can be added in Flickr itself (which aren’t then embedded in Flickr’s copy of the file).

For instance I use Adobe Lightroom to catalogue my photos (as do many professionals). It has tools to manage tags, including a hierarchical structure and settings about which tags get written to exported files.

If you download the ‘Original’ of one of my Flickr photos, the jpg you get includes the tags in the file that I loaded. The tags that Flickr auto-added (and any manually added in Flickr) are not included. You can see tags in jpg’s in most file utilities eg Windows Explorer, often you have to add the field ‘Tags’ to your viewing window to see them.

e.g. https://www.flickr.com/photos/errolgc/25636836708/
The tags without the grey background were auto-added by Flickr on upload.

The tags in the file are:
Ardmore; Auckland; Aviation; DHC-1 Chipmunk Mk22 ZK-SAX WK551; DHC-1 Chipmunk T.10 ZK-RFS WB693; NZAR; New Zealand; Static; Warbirds Open Day Nov 2017; de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk;

Lightroom is smart enough to let you mange the Keywords (tags) hierarchy. For instance, “de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk” is not explicitly attached to Lightroom’s catalog entry for that photo. The keywords for the two Chipmunks are, and they are under the keyword “de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk”, which is flagged to be exported. That keyword is in turn under “Post-WW2”, which is flagged to not be exported, so it isn’t in the jpg – it is just part of how I organise my keywords within Lightroom.

I’m not sure if it is any help, but I use a visual database software called “Tap Forms” to catalog various different databases. It’s the same as a normal database software, but you can create your own custom graphical user interface including whatever types of content fields to suit your requirements in any kind of custom layout. All of my databases require detailed textual information alongside photographs which are easilly dragged onto the photo fileds as and when I find new photos. All fully searchable and it can be viewed across all of my devices via the cloud wherever I am. It is completly customisable to cater to any style of database you might need, it’s cheap’ish and I really only scratch the surface of it’s capabilities for what I need it to do.

https://www.tapforms.com/

Here is a random screen shot of my current and incomplete WIP databases. I have not gone much into customizing the look just yet. What you see is pretty much the default style.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]258169[/ATTACH]

Flying Pencil, may I ask if the discussion could be broadened to include what may happen to personnel collections in the event of the untimely, or timely, demise of the owner? I don’t mean to sound morbid, but there must be many collections which have been thrown out due to no prior arrangements having been made. Regards, SFF.

Hi everybody!

Very interesting topic for me – as I have experienced the same challenge(s)…

Based on my experience so far (archiving fotos for more 40 years, 25 years of which in electronic form) I would recommend two things:

a) Don’t mix a key (unique identifier of a photo) with descriptive attributes, i.e. – as Mark12 wrote – start with 1 and number sequentially. Add all other information on a photo as additional attributes (or fields). Based on my extensive experience as a member of an organization department of a large multinational country almost all “meaningful” keys will prove as insufficient sooner or later for various reasons – so don’t try to do this.

b) Don’t try to find a “fancy” application software for the cataloging job – stick with the simple features of the operating system (or file explorer, etc.) of your computer. Otherwise regular updates with the need for adaptation of your existing data – or even the software provider going “belly-up” – may prove an unnecessary “pain in the a..”. Using MS Office applications – like Mark12 recommended – MIGHT BE acceptable (because it is a global standard unlikely to disappear or change too much in the foreseeable future), but as somebody who had to upgrade MS Word formats at least 5 times already (about 50.000 documents in total), I would advise to be careful even with these applications!

Generally speaking: Keep your “system” as simple as possible.

Regards and good luck
Thomas

Let the ‘Find’ facility on Microsoft Excel 2010 be your friend.

50 plus years of accumulating and collating negatives, copy-negatives, slides, downloads and prints from pre-computers and scanning to current, my systems accommodate an estimated .25m items.

Start at 0001 as first entry, then columns in the following – Type, Serial number, Registration, date in year month day order (2017/01/28), Location, Images source, Comment.

Care has to be taken that the ‘Find’ request is exactly as in the cell

Mark

As these are scans wouldn’t it be simpler just to load the whole lot to Flickr and use the Tag system to cover all the content features (OK, the one word restriction on Tags would mean you’d end up with “gearuplanding”)?

Moggy

Cant really help too much, only to say that a friend needed a specific programme to suit his needs, and there was nothing available.
So he wrote his own using Visual Basic. An option if you are computer savvy.
I expect you have searched for Photo Catalog programmes ?. There are a number available, but perhaps don’t meet your needs ?

The naming scheme you use is best matched to your requirements with regard to sorting and storing these images. Which parameters are important for you to be able to find photos easily? I use a mix of registrations, name of copyright holder or date to store images in a structured way but that is what works for me (so far). If you are looking at large numbers of images and you want to keep things structured, work out something on a piece of paper first. And remember that your computer will sort everything primarily based on the first part of the file name. So use the most important parameter that you search for first.

Just my two cents.