Sorting Digital Images

A full day of recording rock art will create several hundred images. Organizing the images involves uploading the images from your camera media, rotating those that require rotating, sorting the images by cluster/panel or other category, selecting the images to be used for computer recording, creating backup copies, and transmitting or uploading the images to the DigitalRockArt application.

Performing these tasks requires both digital camera and computer expertise as well as the software to do the job. You may have received software with your digital camera, operating system (Windows, Apple OS/X, or Linux), purchased specialized software, or downloaded open source software from the internet.

The task of sorting images is made more difficult because the images were not taken in any particular order, only a few of the images will show the pre-numbered cluster markers, and there are several images for each panel surveyed. But once the sorting and selecting task is complete, the quality of the results will prove the value of taking many photos of each panel.

This page describes the tasks and software that may be used on a Windows based computer. If you are already familiar with alternative software that will do the required job, then by all means use your existing software.

Alternative Software

You may wish to find and download copies of these free software programs. Some of these packages may have both free and commercial versions. In general, the free versions have all the capability that is required.

Irfanview

If you have Windows/XP and have used the Windows Image and Fax viewer, this is the adult version. It has similar ease of use but much more capability. This program allows your to browse through a folder of images one at a time and rotate those images that need rotating with a JPG lossless rotation function. The lossless rotation is a feature of the Irfanview plugins, so you must download and install both the Irfanview program and the plugins.

Image Guider

This is a small utility that helps you sort images by copying them from one folder to another. This is easier to use tha MS Windows Explorer because you may set the image thumbnail size at up to 256 pixels (vs. 64 for MS Windows Explorer), it does not create those hidden thumbnail.db files all over your hard drive, and the thumbnails images are scrolled in a more sensible arrangement. Note this software has both free and commercial versions. Also see Xplorer2 below.

Xplorer2

This utility is an alternative to MS Windows Explorer. If you are comfortable with using Windows Explorer in the "classic view", this program is similar, has more capability, and is much faster when working with large and deep folder structures (thousands of digital images, for example). This program is preferred over Image Guider but is more difficult to install, set up, and master. This is a good program to use for sorting images because you may set the thumbnail size to any dimension. Note this software has both free and commercial versions.

The Gimp

This is a powerful image manipulation package. It has a reputation for being difficult to install and use, but the latest versions are both easier to use and better documented. Important features include the ability too set the compression/quality level of JPG files and to convert JPG files to PNG should you need to do extensive image manipulation. There are three large packages to download and install -- GTK (Gimp Tool Kit), The Gimp, and the Gimp Help.

Create a Folder Structure

screenshot using Xplorer2

Upload the Camera Media to the PC

screenshot using Xplorer2

Review and Rotate Images

Irfanview

Sort Images by Cluster

Xplorer2, Windows Explorer for comparison

Select and Rename Images

Xplorer2

Copy Renamed Images

Xplorer2

Backup All Images, Erase Camera Media

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Create a CD-ROM for Transmittal or Upload Images to DigitalRockArt

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