Tag Archives: Digital Photography

Automatically Upload Photos to Flickr

Here’s how this will work: you’ll plug in your card reader or digital camera and all your photos & videos are automatically copied to the folders of your choice in about 3 to 5 seconds. Once the photos are copied to the PC, they are automatically removed from the card (this is optional, but recommended). After they have been deleted from the card, they are automatically uploaded to your Flickr account (as private, public, tagged, not tagged, whatever). All in the background without you having to do a thing.

I set this up because my photography workflow had turned into something horrid: I have two digital cameras that we use. One of the two has video, but I don’t use Flickr for my videos, I use Motionbox. So to get photos or videos off the cameras involved the following:

Plug in each card
Copy the pics from the card to the PC, name the folders, etc
Copy the videos to the My Videos folder
Delete the photos & videos from the card
Use the Flickr Uploadr and hope it successfully uploads all the pics
Upload videos to Motionbox.
Come back later and delete the photos & videos off the PC after they got uploaded

I decided to put a little thought into it and get a better setup. I now do the following:

Insert flash card into card reader right after taking pictures – pictures & videos download automatically in less than 10 seconds – card automatically formats (optional, but recommended)
(photos are now uploading to Flickr in the background – so I leave )

I’ve completely eliminated my involvement with the computer. I simply plug in the card reader (or camera) and the computer takes care of the entire process of copying the photos over to the computer, then deleting them from the card. It then automatically uploads the photos to Flickr as private. All in the background without any of my involvement.

You can modify the batch file to upload all photos and videos to Flickr.

There are several steps you’ll need to take in order for the process to be completely automatic. Here is an outline of what all is involved. Start to finish the process takes about 15 minutes.

Give Digital Cameras persistent drive letters (E:, F:, G:)
Download Python
Download the “Uploadr” python scripts
Download the batch file for your camera
Install TweakUI and add Batch file to the AutoPlay menus
Configure AutoPlay for your digital camera
Test it out

First Step

Give Memory Cards and Digital Cameras persistent drive letters (E:, F:, G:)

In order for you to be able to reliably copy images from a particular card or device, you should set it up so that every time you plug in the device it uses the same drive letter. With your memory card or device plugged in, right click My Computer and select Manage:

Select Storage ⇒ Disk Management (see picture)

In the right panel, your devices will be listed, probably with letters like E, F or G. Do not change the drive letter of the C: drive, and you probably shouldn’t change a D: drive if you have one either. Right click on the flash drive that you need to change and select Change Drive Letter and Paths: (see picture)

The next box shows you the letter that is already assigned. Just click Change:
change_drive_letter_box

This box will ask you what letter you want to assign to it. I start from the bottom, in this case, Z: (see picture)

It will ask you to confirm this. Click Yes. (see picture)

Repeat this for each card or camera that you would like to setup for this.

Now if you go to My Computer, your drive letters should be updated to the new letters.

Next Step

Download Python

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How to Batch Resize Photos in Picasa

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How to Batch Resize Photos in Picasa

If you want to resize your photos using Picasa, there is an easy way to do it. The tool you will use is called “Export” and it is located at the bottom of the Picasa screen. Export will make a copy of your photos, and will give you the option of what size you want the new copies to be, and where you want to save them. Don’t worry, your original photos will stay right where they are.

To get started, we will need to choose the photos that we want to resize (or Export). We do this one of two ways. The first way is by Control-Clicking your photos (by holding down the “Ctrl” key on your keyboard while you click photos). Control-clicking will put a blue border around your photos that will be exported (remember, the original will stay there, but it will export a small copy). Here is what the blue border looks like when you have your photos selected:

Once you have them properly selected, they will appear in the Picasa Tray in the lower left corner of the Picasa window. The tray works just like a printer queue and holds files there until you are ready to perform an action or do something with them:

If you want to hold photos in the tray, simply click the Green Tack, and it will hold them there until you are ready to Export. When you have selected all of the images you want to Export, click the Export button at the lower center section of the Picasa window:

This pops up the Export dialog box and asks you where you want to save the small copies of your photos. It also gives you a convenient slider to choose how large you want your photos. The default is 800 (which means the longest edge of your photos will be 800 pixels long). 800 or 640 would be good sizes to choose if you are going to e-mail your photos. The more photos you plan on e-mailing at a time, the smaller you will want this setting to be:

Picasa saves the “Exported Photos” to a folder in your My Pictures folder by default, but I don’t think this is very helpful, or easy to find, so I recommend saving to the Desktop. Click “Browse” and another box will pop up asking you where you want to save these new photos:

Click Desktop at the top, then click OK. This takes you back to the Export window. Click OK and it will save your photos to their new location. When it is done, it will pop open an Explorer window showing the location of your new photos:

How to Tile Windows Vertically

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How to Tile Windows Vertically (or Horizontally) in Windows XP

If you are just learning Windows XP, or are starting an ambitious project of getting your photos organized, it is helpful to know how to move your Windows Explorer windows around on the screen. You might compare this to sorting laundry inside the basket, or being able to create piles on the bed or a table. Windows XP allows you to move your explorer windows around so they are easier to use.

When I am organizing my photos, I like to tile the windows vertically. For example, if you have two explorer windows open, and they are stacked on top of each other like below, you’ll have a hard time ‘dragging & dropping’ photos between the two folders:

So what we want to do is select the two windows so that we can tile them vertically. We do this by clicking one of them in the taskbar at the bottom of the screen (notice that only one is darkened, or selected):

Then to select the other window, we hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard and then click the other button in the taskbar for the other window. This will select both windows (they will be dark).

Then you right-click with your mouse over one of the buttons and a menu will pop up giving you the option to Tile Vertically:

After you click Tile Vertically, the selected windows will fill the screen and be visible. Now you can drag and drop!

How to Show Picture Tasks in Windows XP

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How to Show Picture Tasks in Windows XP

If you are trying to manage your digital photos using Windows Explorer, the built-in file manager for Windows XP, you’ll want to have a helpful tool turned on called “Picture Tasks” (officially called “Common Tasks”). Open up your official My Pictures folder. It should look like this:

MyPictures

Notice the menus on the left? There are a lot of helpful tools that you can use in there. But if you opened up My Pictures and didn’t see the Picture Tasks, yours probably looked something like this:

NoCommonTasks

So if your Picture Tasks aren’t showing up, do this:

Right-click on My Computer (usually found on the desktop) and click “Properties”:

Then select the Advanced Tab and click the Settings button under Performance:

Scroll down in the white box until you find “Use Common Tasks in Folders” and check that box. Now click OK.

And you’re done! You should now have Picture Tasks when you open My Pictures.

Brock Angelo

@gmail.com