My Pictures 3 alpha

[reven]

Will this be so that I can mark pic 1 from dir1 and pic 2 from dir 4 to be on a pic playlist?
This would be awesome!

nope, by playlists i mean music playlists.

Categories are: family, familymember, "fewer pics to show friends" , travel to X, Travel to Y, chistmas year X etc.
It is possible to add several categories to any picture which then makes me able to click on several categories before presenting a slideshow.

a good file structure would solve this issue (im a big believer in good file structures, its the best and easiest way to do things like this, manually marking a file is just annoying).

[reven]

How's those grades coming along did you grad yet from UNITY yet?

UNITY? huh? i got a A+ for language implementation and A for internet programming and a DNS for Computer Graphics (opengl well the physics killed me, i was never good at physics ). so last semester now (if i pass.....).

[jasjol]

a good file structure would solve this issue (im a big believer in good file structures, its the best and easiest way to do things like this, manually marking a file is just annoying).

Yeah I agree about that one should set up a good file structure - but if you have100+ pictures from your vacation - you might want to look att all of them yourself - but when showing them to different friends - you need to select a few.

this can be done by copying the selected pictures to another folder - with the drawback of getting a lot of copies of the same picture.

Thats why I think setting categories on the pictures would be good.

but I think I will create videos containing pictures and videorecordings instead - gives a better presentation of for example vacations - but with more effort :-)

[reven]

well thats just your fault for having a crappy file structure. if you sorted them as you went you wouldnt have the huge task of now sorting them out, categories would also you mean you have to mark them one at a time, and with categories you have to do repeat the same process in every application. with a file structure, no matter which application you use the pictures will be sorted correctly, sorry im just never going to do categories.

[A_Brass]

but when showing them to different friends - you need to select a few.

this can be done by copying the selected pictures to another folder - with the drawback of getting a lot of copies of the same picture.

Thats why I think setting categories on the pictures would be good.

I have a thought on this. If My Videos would recognize windows "shortcuts" (filename.lnk) as the picture its pointing at, as Windows XP does, You could manually create sorted list's any way you wanted. Most Photo management software will let you select multiple images, then copy, go to a "slideshow" folder and "paste as shortcut". Add the "Slideshow" as a virtual root and presto. You can create custom photo "playlists".

What do you think Reven, is it possible for my pictures to recognize, .lnk files as the photos they shortcut to?

[reven]

nah i dont like the idea, its a whole lot of redundant files. im cant get around the idea that you want a specific file in a slide show but you dont want all of the same images in that slideshow.

like if i wanted to view my holidays photos, i would want to see them all (or a sub category, which i could use a subfolders to do this), i dont see why you would want say one from my holiday, one from my graduation, one from my mates and me getting pissed, one from err something else. whats the point, of these specific photos? and why not just put them into the correct folder? if you want to view random photos, you can. i just dont get it, a good folder structure still seems the best idea.

[A_Brass]

nah i dont like the idea, its a whole lot of redundant files. im cant get around the idea that you want a specific file in a slide show but you dont want all of the same images in that slideshow.
if you want to view random photos, you can. i just dont get it, a good folder structure still seems the best idea.

You are correct, a good file structure is a great way to go but its not going to get around this issue we are talking about. If your not interested, that's fine. The plugin is turning out great as it is.

But, look at it this way.

Pictures of my son, all in one folder.
c:\my pictures\My Son
Sub folders:
c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\Birth
c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\Birth\web
c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\Birth\Edited

c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\Baptisim
c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\Baptisim\web
c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\Baptisim\Edited

c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\Summer Party
c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\Summer Party\web
c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\Summer Party\Edited

c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\Grandmother's birthday
c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\Grandmother's birthday\web
c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\Grandmother's birthday\Edited

c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\4th of July
c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\4th of July\web
c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\4th of July\Edited

c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\1st Birthday Party
c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\1st Birthday Party\web
c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\1st Birthday Party\Edited

The "web" folder is images reduced for web display and the "Edited" is images that have been edited for printing or other modifications.

Ok so I have what I think is a good file structure. However, being a digital photographer, (no film to waste) I take lots of pics. I mean LOTS. I tend to shoot much more then I would want display for friends or family. I tend to Edit a few to make them look better, and some I just reduce the file size for upload to the web. So in this arrangement the same image is actually in the folder or sub folder a few times. In additon I might not want to look at all the 1st birthday photos. Lets say I took 200 picts, but only 50 of them are worth looking at. I'm not going to delete the un-perfect ones, Photographers tend to keep everything.

I'm pretty sure I can guess what your going to suggest, add two more sub folders:
c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\1st Birthday Party\GOOD
c:\my pictures\My Son\Year1\1st Birthday PartY\BAD

This would work, but now you yet another subfolder to search when your looking for that all important picture of your son with his face buried in his grandmotthers birthday cake.

I hope this helps you understand the perspective.

[reven]

i get what you are saying, but i dont see how in the end the two methods will be different, ie for categories, you will have to show them in different "virtual folders" and one folder will be the "good" folder and one the "bad" folder, so in the end it doesnt make any difference, except that they wont be stored in different folders on the hdd.

heres what i think the advantages/disadvantages would be

adv
- No redundant folders

dis
- Unique to every application, so for MCE you would have to repeat the process, mediaportal you would have to repeat the process, ACDSee you would have to repeat the process
- You have to manually set this up for every picture within "my pictures" and a remote interface for this will be a lot harder than using a mouse (mouse = mulitple selections, easy drag/drop)
- It will be slower! a database would have to be maintained, and this would hold the file structures, so if you delete a file it would have to check for this, and if you add a file, it would NEVER be able to tell.
- navigation, either you would have to get rid of the entire file like structure or add another item to the VR like "albums" or another button, which just makes it slower

at the moment the benefits in my mind arent all that good, the costs are huge. im really trying to get this, like if i knew that it would infact be a great feature i would add it, but i just still dont see how this will improve my pictures, i think it will infact make it worse.

[jasjol]

well it is a hassle to mark all pictures - Sitll I do that for a lot of pictures in Photoshop Album 2.0.


But for showing the pictures the TV set is better - so I use My Pictures for that.

Let me give another example:
I have 4 kids - if I set up a good file structure as A_Brass mentioned I will have one folder per kid.

And another for different family pictures. And another for vacations.

Now I want to create an album with some photos during this year which contains photos of different familymembers from different occations. and I set up another album for each one of the kids - for them to have when they are older. This I normally do with paper pictures in a "real" album.

I would also like to be able to do this with digital images - that's the reason for me bringing this issue up.

For me it would be smart having "shortcuts" - this way I do not use up all the harddiskspace - with several copies of pictures.

[reven]

ok ill add support for windows shortcuts, this should solve solve the photo albums issue.