Linux Format forums

[nicebloke]

Hi, (first time poster)

I've got a photo collection that has got out of hand - several Gigs worth. I need to organise them so I can get a good backup.

Does anybody know of a program that will rename a file based on the EXIF date of the image *and* change the Modified Date of the file to the same EXIF date? My last attempt at a backup before I wiped my PC last - managed to set all the file dates to when the DVD was burned

Also - I've managed to get myself several duplicate images spread across my entire collection (yep, I really messed up) each with different filenames. Any idea how I could sort them (maybe with EXIF data again) without having to look at a few thousand photos?

If it helps - I'm using FC6 64bit and I'm not scared of the command line.

Thanks in advance,

NiceBloke

[phorneker]

Since you are using FC6, you have two of the best pieces of software for digital photography: The GIMP and F-Spot, both of which should be in the Graphics menu. F-Spot does sort your photographs by date, and much more.

As for changing the Modified date, I have been looking for that feature for some of my photographs in both DigiKam and F-Spot, and I have not come across one that does the modification date.

However, within the F-Spot (http://www.f-spot.org) site, there could be a plugin that can do the job for you.

Note: F-Spot also allows you to assign custom tags, and then has a search function that allows you to show and select only those images with the custom tags. This is one method that could help you in sorting out images for DVD backup.

I have used this function to put together a CD-ROM presentation of a digital photo shoot of an event I attended at the end of last month.

Hope this helps.

Patrick

[nicebloke]

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for replying so quickly. I do have F-Spot installed and I think that is the software for me - though Digikam looks good as well. The thing I found was, when I imported all of my photos - they all got dumped into the same directory - because they have the same Modified Date. At last count I had over 6000 photos, I'm not sure tagging them is a viable option now.

Is there a particular site for F-Spot plugins that I should look at - maybe somebody has already written the perfect one for me

NiceBloke

[spottedcat]

Have a look at gThumb. If it's not already installed it should be in the repositories. It's got a nice little file rename utility. That should be in the Tools menu but, for some obscure reason, in some distros it isn't and you have to right-click on the selected photos in the right-hand pane of the gThumb window instead - which can make the feature hard to find if you're not used to the app.

There's a %d variable for "image date" which I guess comes from the EXIF data although, to be honest, I haven't tried this for myself.

In my Gentoo version there's also a 'Change Date' function in the Tools menu which looks as though it might change the file dates in the way you want. Again, if it doesn't appear under Tools in Fedora, do a right-click on selected images.

[nelz]

exiftool is handy for manipulating all EXIF settings and a few others.

I find KPhotoAlbum's tag system good for organising and finding photos.
_________________
Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.

[spottedcat]

Just an update. Out of curiosity, I've just had a fiddle with gThumb and the %d variable in image date and the change date functions do indeed do what you want very nicely. I'll be finding that handy for myself sometime, no doubt.

[nicebloke]

Thanks everybody - I'll be checking out all these ideas when I get home.

gThumb is sounding like the way to go. I'll report back here if I find anything more.

[nicebloke]

Hi All,

Its a couple of weeks later and I just thought I'd confirm that gThumb was the way to go. I've sorted through the majority of my photos now and have tracked down about 1000 that need their 'modified date' changing. gThumb can do this (it uses the American date format).

Thanks again for all the replies.

NB