I am organizing my picture folders. Usually I just move the folders from my camera onto the hard-drive. The camera puts 100 pictures in a folder.
I would like to have a button in directory opus, that would work like this:
1.) click the button
2.) opus creates subfolders named yy.mm.dd based on the dates the pictures were last modified
3.) opus will move each picture into the newly created folders based on the modified date
So eventually in the folder that contained 100 jpg files, there will now be directories named yy.mm.dd and the files will be distributed in these directories.
Can you please help me make an equivalent in directory opus? I tried searching - but I couldn't find the solution. Please be explicit in your instructions (if there is actually a solution) as I am not very advanced in terms of making buttons in directory opus.
I don't think Opus allows manual manipulation of things like date formatting of selected files for use in other operations like what you want to do here. The only way I'm aware this will work is if you first set Windows regional settings for 'Short date' to be the yy.MM.dd format you're looking for... Then, you can create a rename preset in Opus by:
opening the advanced rename dialog, and turn on the the check box for Enable file information fields
set Old name: to *
set New name: to {modifieddate}*
clicking the Add button to the far right and providing this preset with a name
You can then create a button that runs the command Rename PRESET=newpreset where "newpreset" is the name of the new rename preset you create above. This should do the trick...
Edit Note:
This also won't work the way you want it to if you have the Preferences->Folders->Options->Show day names in date columns if date is within one week option enabled... the folder that gets created by the rename operation will be Today, Monday, etc etc as a result of this option being turned on.
I had to change the regional settings to get the correct way of naming the folders, but it all works just like I wanted it.
Btw - why aren't we allowed to just specify {modifieddate|yy.MM.dd} in the file rename options dialog? That way I wouldn't have to change the regional settings.
On a related note - is it possible for dopus to actually extract from the .jpg image file the date when the picture was taken? If I right click the .jpg I can find this information in the properties window, but I don't see it being an option in dopus to choose this information as a sorting tag.
It becomes useful when I import picture files from older backed-up cds. For some reason when they were burned the modified/created date was changed to the date that the cd was burned - so now all those pictures have the same date. However they still preserved the "camera date" in their exif info.
Others here know much more than I do about using EXIF data... but I believe the functionality you're looking for in this area is gonna be a feature request. And yes, it would be helpful to be able to manipulate the date format in the manner you've suggested... If I'm not mistaken, we have requested this (I think just after the initial 'file information' features were added to rename - being the ingrates that we are ).
And download the nearly free (all he wants for payment is a postcard sent to him) Exifer program, a pretty neat EXIF display/manipulation program, you can use it to quickly reset the last modified dates of all your JPGs to their original shooting date and time. Assuming those dates and times are contained in each picture's EXIF data that is. You can also do a lot more with Exifer, such as using it to embed comments about each picture. Using a combination of Opus, Exifer, 4NT and ExifUtils I'm doing everything imaginable with my digital pictures EXIF information.
And download the nearly free (all he wants for payment is a postcard sent to him) Exifer program, a pretty neat EXIF display/manipulation program, you can use it to quickly reset the last modified dates of all your JPGs to their original shooting date and time. Assuming those dates and times are contained in each picture's EXIF data that is. You can also do a lot more with Exifer, such as using it to embed comments about each picture. Using a combination of Opus, Exifer, 4NT and ExifUtils I'm doing everything imaginable with my digital pictures EXIF information.[/quote]
John - this is absolutely amazing! Thank you for this hint - I have just reset about 2000+ images from a summer vacation that I would have otherwise had to manually edit! I will definitely check out the other programs you list - I have just started organizing all my photo collections - and I'm trying to use picasa for organization - my photo collection is getting too large, so I need to bring some order
steje - thank you as well for all your help! You guyes are awesome!
Exifer is a gem of a program isn't it? By the way if you happened to have cropped some of your images along the way Exifer can also recalculate and change the EXIF image size data as well.
The last two products I mentioned, 4NT and ExifUtils, are command line scripting tools. If you're not into "batch files" so to speak, they won't do you any good. But if you are, the sky is the limit for whatever you want to do with EXIF.
Oh one more thing since I'm big into digital photography too (not as a pro just an enthusiastic amateur).
I agree Picasa is a handy image managing program, and you sure can't beat the free price, but FWIW I use Opus to organize all my digital photos now. I usually end up with about 1500-2000 "keeper" photos each year, and I use Opus to store them by year. For example I like to use a directory pattern similar to the one below for storing images each year.
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Family
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Seasonal 1 Winter
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Seasonal 2 Spring
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Seasonal 3 Summer
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Seasonal 4 Fall to year end
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Vacations\2005-05-27
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Vacations\2005-05-28
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Vacations\2005-05-29
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Vacations\2005-05-30
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Vacations\2005-10-21
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Vacations\2005-10-22
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Vacations\2005-10-23
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Vacations\2005-10-24
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Vacations\2005-10-25
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Vacations\2005-10-26
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Vacations\2005-10-27
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Vacations\2005-10-28
D:\Mine\Photos\Years\2005\Vacations\2005-10-29
I take most of my pictures during a year's time while I'm on vacation which is why I have a separate folder for each vacation day (that's named by the vacation date). All in all it works very well for me and with the power of Opus I can view or find any image I want quickly. If I want to open a folder of images in Exifer, I just go to that folder in Opus and use the following button command:
C:\Program Files\Exifer\Exifer.exe {s}
A side note totally unrelated to this. A little over a year ago when I discovered the magic of raw photography, (no steje, that doesn't mean I'm shooting nekkid), my interest in digital photography exploded from a casual hobby into a full time passion. Raw images coupled with a good raw converter (I use RawShooter Premium) allows me to do things with pictures I've never been able to do before. So now days I'm almost always on the prowl looking for new photo opportunities with my camera. Good thing too, because the war department, A.K.A. the little woman, would have my head on a stick if I wasn't getting good use out of that expensive new Canon DSLR with the 17/85mm IS-USM lens that I bought last year.
If you're just planning on sorting with the EXIF information rather than actually editing then Opus does this. You can add columns to a lister with all sorts of EXIF information.
Tools Menu / Folder Options
then go to the columns tab and choose pictures from the dropdown. All sorts of fields are available.
I have a Favorite Format set up in Prefs/Folders/FolderFormats called "Photos" which I can easily change to when viewing a directory of pictures. I much prefer this manual method of changing formats to the automatic content recognition.
[quote="tanis"]If you're just planning on sorting with the EXIF information rather than actually editing then Opus does this. You can add columns to a lister with all sorts of EXIF information.
Tools Menu / Folder Options
then go to the columns tab and choose pictures from the dropdown. All sorts of fields are available.
I have a Favorite Format set up in Prefs/Folders/FolderFormats called "Photos" which I can easily change to when viewing a directory of pictures. I much prefer this manual method of changing formats to the automatic content recognition.[/quote]
That's true - there are many options for column sorting based on exif info. Unfortunately in my drop down list - none of the options are for the actual date that the picture was taken. There are options like focal length, iso, contrast, shooting time - but either they forgot to add "date taken" or I just don't have it there. Btw - I'm using version 8.2.1.0
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