Labels for a beginner

[bobfey]

I have found myself somewhat confused, maybe because of terminology and lack of one step at a time training or help.

I first heard of this product in a labeling article http://www.rideau-info.com/photos/labelling.html and also http://www.rideau-info.com/genealogy/di ... oning.html within the first article one of the programs he suggested was the XnView.

Now I am here and have some questions. Yes I have used the Info button, been browsing the forum, FAQ's, and still confused. I have played with the Metadata, IPTC, and I find comments in the forum about clicking on this or that, but when I look into my program I don't find those buttons and actions.

1. Should I start with a copy of the original saved in a new name? Or will that take place somewhere along the line as I complete the labeling steps.

2. Is this 'free' program short of some of the 'purchased' programs functions?

3. Is there some point for point list of starting with a photo, adding basic labels, and saving them? A walk through that brings one through the basic steps and then that will allow beginners like me to expand on that knowing the basics will work.

The examples in the links above demonstrate exactly what I want to do. Take a photo, add basic labels to the bottom so that it can be picked up by most photo programs and display the photo and ID label.

Once I get going a bit further I will probably have more questions.
.

[bobfey]

OK, I have made some progress but still need more help if I can get it. Here is what I have discovered so far.

XnView Labels for photo's

Steps for placing labels on or beside photo's.

Place text within the photo.

Actions:

Tools-Sequence convert-General tab

Directory, Click on box at right-follow file tree to photo.

Transformation

Add text-Add

Type text in box below.
Select Text color
Select Font, Click on 'Choose'
Select Font, Style, Size-Click OK.
Select Position.
Click GO

Check the finished photo and label. If not satisfied redo the procedure, make corrections, and transform again.


Place the label below the photo.

Need help.

[XnTriq]

Place the label below the photo.

Need help.

Tools » Batch Processing... (Ctrl+U) » Transformations:

1. Image » Canvas resize » Parameters:
   • (●) ( )
     Width = [   ]
     Height = [ 32 ] (= height of border in pixels)
     [   ] Keep ratio
     [   ] Follow orientation (switch W/H)
     [×] Use above values as size delta
     Position [ Top-Center ]
     Background color █
2. Image » Add Text » Parameters:
   • [ <IPTC:Caption> ]
     Text colour █
     [   ] Text back colour █
     Font: Tahoma / Regular / 16
     Position [ Bottom-Center ]
     X [ 0 ] Y [ -4 ] (= padding of text in pixels )

[bobfey]

XnTriq, Thanks for this help. I will start with what you have given me and see if I can carry on to a finished product. Maybe, maybe not.

It appears that -- Tools>Batch Processing or Tools>Sequence Conversions will take you to the same next screen called Batch Processing. So what is the difference from the one start point or the other?
.

[XnTriq]

Hello bobfey

It appears that -- Tools>Batch Processing or Tools>Sequence Conversions will take you to the same next screen called Batch Processing. So what is the difference from the one start point or the other?

This has always been a source of confusion. In the new multi-platform version of XnView, which is currently under development, the dialogs for Batch Processing and Sequence Convert have been merged.

…batch convert OR sequence convert (never could figure out just what the difference was between the two).

• Originally, Sequence convert stood for a bunch of files having a numbered naming… Example in our Manual :

With the "Sequence Convert" command -from the "Tools" menu-,
you can convert an increasing numbered order file-group like:
• file001.png
• file002.png
• file003.png etc. …

Auto-population of the Input field in the Batch Processing dialog can be customized:

• Tools » Options » General » Misc.
  • If no files are selected, use the following files for actions
    • Convert
      • None
      • Use all image files in current folder
      • Use all image files in current folder and its subfolders

2. Is this 'free' program short of some of the 'purchased' programs functions?

No, registering the software doesn't give you more functionality.

[bobfey]

XnTriq, your advice actually helped. For a long time I was thinking you had not given me the good news. So I just started to trying different things. Try and delete. Try something else and delete. Change more numbers and delete. Then finally i noticed something good happening. I ended up changing the margin from 32 to 75 and got a white margin on the bottom. Then I changed the font point size up to 36. Now I have what I was looking for.

I can now just post on the photo or create a white field below the photo for the text to lay on.

Of course I always get those banners sitting below the photo but they are not read by my other photo programs while the two I just described will carry over and show. I have the Batch Processing General Tab set up to rename my photos when transformed. This way I will always have the original photo for whatever I choose. I end up with double the number of photo's If I choose to label all of them.

So thanks for the startup booster.
.

[XnTriq]

To get the knack of it, I had to go through some a trial & error myself, because the border's height is set in pixels, while the unit for the font size is points.
Of couse, these values have to be adjusted to match the dimensions of your photos. (For my tests I used rather small images.)

Instead of enhancing the "Resize canvas" transformation this might become an own transformation e.g. "Add border". This might be clearer than providing fields for entering a delta value in "Resize Canvas". Or it could be provided both in "Resize canvas" and as extra transformation. I prefer the latter.

There are also a couple of things you need to consider when (re)saving the processed images in order to avoid or minimize loss of metadata and generation loss:

1. Where do the pictures come from (digicam or scanner)?
2. Which format are the original photos in (e.g. RAW, JPEG, TIFF)?
3. Which format do you use for output (lossy or lossless)?
4. What are your settings (compression etc.) for this format?
5. Do you save your settings to an XBS file?

[XnTriq]

• Ken Watson
  • Digital Cameras and Genealogy » Digitally Labelling Photos
  • All About Digital Photos » Labelling Digital Photos

[hiviking]

I have been using this method to get my Picasa captions added to my photos for display on a TV. To overcome the overscan problem and see the entire photo on the TV screen I use the Canvas Resize to add black borders at 114% of the photo size. Before that I add the IPTC caption (Bottom Center with y=-20). To read the caption on the TV I need to use a large font, and here is the problem: I cannot see a way to make the text wrap around. When the caption is longer than the image width it simply gets truncated. Is there a way to make it wrap around?

[hiviking]

I have searched some more for a way to wrap around the captions in XnView and there doesn't seem to be any way to do this in a batch mode. There are quite a few people out there who have the same problem. Manually editing the captions is not an option when you have many image files to label. I am hoping that the XnView developers will fix this shortcoming in a coming version of XnView.

In the meantime I have written a couple of scripts that will automatically insert line breaks in the IPTC caption for all JPG files in a folder. It works under Windows XP (and probably for other versions of Windows as well). The script files are available at http://www.ullerup.com/files/captions.zip. The archive contains a readme.txt file that explains how to use the scripts.