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All pictures transferred from an old computer to new came in folders by date taken - 1130 folders with just few pictures in each.
There is no way for me to sort them somehow manually.
Is there any (free) software that allow me to group them by month??
At least I would have few dozens grouped in one folder and I could sort them one at the time.
How to save them so they stay that way? They were all grouped before...
I use Windows7
Oh, not to mention that I have a lot of duplicates and triplicates, because every time I edit a picture in Picasa ( that/s where I had all my albums ), Picasa saved original. By getting all my pictures from picture folder, I also got all Picasa saved originals. ( 10K photos or more, now )
I'm looking into just placing them all in one folder and organizing them Using EXIF/IPTC Elina.
This works in My Pictures and you might have to switch the folder type if it's not for images.
In the upper right there is icon for changing the folders dispaly options. If you switch it to content it will give the "date taken" information. This is different than the file date and is embedded in the image by the camera when you take it.
You can also use the details view and add or subtract what columns you want.
What is interesting here is you can select multiple pictures, to do that select one and then hit the shift key while selecting another. Alternately you add or subtract single files by holding the ctrl key while selecting.
Right click your selections and then select properties, then go to the details tab. you can add information for every image you have selected. For example title might be Christmas 20XX.
From there you need a viewer that will be able to search these meta tags. not sure what kind of options are available in Win7 out of the box. Instead of going to a folder you'd just type in Christmas 20XX to bring up all those images. You can do the same thing with subject matter, for example naming people. You'd type there name and could bring up all images they are in...
A bit confused here. You transferred them from computer to computer or you transferred them from computer to computer using Picasa?
Transferring directly from computer to computer shouldn't cause this. If you used an intermediary program (Picasa) I would eliminate it and go directly form one to the other then move/copy them to Picasa.
Being someone who doesn't use the cloud (Picasa) I may be misinterpreting what you are doing.
I actually transferred them from the HD to a thumb stick, when I was also transferring all other files from a computer that was about to die. The file with pictures was copied to a separate thumb driver in attempt to make it easy for me.
All my pictures were neatly organized in Picasa and I ASSUMED that they were stored in HD folder the same way. I didn't check how they were stored there. I was under time pressure when I copied the HD.
So, the pictures were already stored unorganized in HD ( not sure why, because when I organized them in Picasa i saved my work to the HD ) or they became scrambled when copied to the thumb driver.
I spent most of yesterday by grouping them by year. I might proceed and start to group them by month - it would be much easier if done in Picasa where I can see all the pictures and move from folder to folder pretty fast. However Picasa does not let me import the pictures from a specific location. When I deleted Picasa and all the mess, and started from scratch, I noticed that at start Picasa gives me only two options: to search the WHOLE computer for pictures ( that will include hundreds additional icons, symbols etc ) or import them from My Documents, My Pictures and Desktop. That would mean I will be back to the mess, duplicates and such.
I wish, I could import them from a specific folder after I get them partially organized and eliminated the duplicates for a later view.
I hope ^^^ make sense...
So, actually I am looking for a program that allows me to do that, step by step till I got them all in order...
All my pictures were neatly organized in Picasa and I ASSUMED that they were stored in HD folder the same way. I didn't check how they were stored there. I was under time pressure when I copied the HD.
I don't use Picasa, but I've used other programs that did what Picasa probably did: The program sorts and displays the pictures internally, but does not make any changes to the file system on the drive. That is why I never use a program like that to sort my pics. I always do my sorting and saving on the drive first, then I let a program display them for me.
To do the grouping manually you can probably use the search feature and search by a date range and extension (.jpg, etc) then copy/paste the resulting list to a single folder.
Sounds like a humdinger of a job - sort of like me spending an inordinate amount of time correlating my music that was copied from multiple computers to a single server. That was quite a mess.
I don't use Picasa, but I've used other programs that did what Picasa probably did: The program sorts and displays the pictures internally, but does not make any changes to the file system on the drive. That is why I never use a program like that to sort my pics. I always do my sorting and saving on the drive first, then I let a program display them for me.
To do the grouping manually you can probably use the search feature and search by a date range and extension (.jpg, etc) then copy/paste the resulting list to a single folder.
Sounds like a humdinger of a job - sort of like me spending an inordinate amount of time correlating my music that was copied from multiple computers to a single server. That was quite a mess.
It does make changes to the files in HD. I tested that part a while ago when I was deleting a bunch of pictures, and wanted to make sure they are also gone from HD. It makes changes, when I edit a picture. However it saves the original version too... which is actually very helpful, when mistake is made.
But when you have to import your pictures from the HD - you get two sets - the edited and the originals. And if you edited few times, you get all originals saved too. That's the whole reason why I have a mess now.
When imported my pictures back to a new computer, I got them ALL in my folders. Plus saved originals and duplicated. Every change I made on them...
Normally when importing pictures from a camera or stick it will mark duplicates and you have a choice not to download them. But when you import the FIRST time pictures from your HD to Picasa, you don't have that option. I wish they would include it...
I think it's possible that Picasa saves the originals in a separate folder, but I didn't think about when making the HD copy. Putting this folder in a different stick would save me a lots of grief.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tek_Freek
There might be something in the midst of all these programs that will help...
Thank you!!
They are all organized... by date, but like I said... there are several originals and duplicates in same date folder.
Looks like nothing will help and I will have to do it manually... one by one...
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