Tutorial2 Categorising Images

Tutorial 2 - Categorising Images

In this section of the tutorial you will learn how to categorise new images. You will categorise the images imported in the previous step. You will perform these operations on your own images, so you will need to use your own names for categories etc. This is the most complex (and arduous) step.

If you have not already done so select View - Database and clear any selected categories (you can use Categories - Clear All). You should now see thumbnails of the imported images. As they have no categories associated with them yet, they are displayed when no categories are selected!
Right click one of these images and select Edit Image Properties. You should now see a dialog box with no information in it except the index location and file extension which are all taken from the image file name. If there are already some selected categories and other data then you must have hit OK instead of Cancel in one of the earlier steps when viewing this dialog. If that is the case then clear all the old data out of the fields except the Index field and unselect all of the categories. You can use the two Clear buttons to achieve this. Then click the Show All button if it is displayed.
Now you need to create some categories. So lets start with a location, after all, all images were taken somewhere! By all means create your own categories at this stage rather than using Location. To create a Location category Click the Add button in the upper left and type Location. Check the Place at root box and click OK. Actually as this is the first category it will be placed at the root by default. Note these categories will be available to all images and will not have to be entered again, so this is a task that has only has to be done once, but can be modified later. Only checked categories will be associated with this image and we will do that in a minute! Note that before you start categorising large numbers of your images into your final database you should stop and think very carefully how you want this category tree to be organised.
Now we will add a sub-category under Location. Click Location so that it is highlighted - don't check the box just click the text and it will be highlighted.
Click the Add button and type the name of the actual location of this image. It is probably best to keep this fairly broad at the moment. For example you might have something like Africa and then add a more specific location as a lower level of sub-category. Click OK and you will now see this new category nested under the Location sub-category.
Click the check box for this new category. You might add other sub-categories as this stage if you choose.
Now lets add a Subject category with an appropriate sub-category for this image. Again create your own named categories if you wish. Repeat the steps 3-6 for Subject and an appropriate sub-category. You might add and check more than one subject sub-category for example the image might be of a flower with a mountain in the background so you might add and check two sub-categories Mountain and Flower.
Again if you want to add some other categories go back and repeat the earlier steps. Remember you will only need to do this once. When we edit subsequent images all of your new categories will be available. The category tree that you use can be built progressively as you find the need for more new categories. However careful thought to get the basic structure in place at the start will pay off later!
We will just add one more bit of data at this stage. In the caption field type an appropriate caption. We will leave the other fields, as they are not required at this stage, though you may choose to enter appropriate data now whilst you are there. Do not change the index field as this is based on the file name and changing it will change the file name as well.
Click OK. You will return to the thumbnail view but now that image will have gone as it now has categories associated with it. We will come back to view it later though!
Now right click the next image and select Edit Image Properties. You will immediately see that all the same data has been copied from the previous image with the caption highlighted. This is designed to make the categorisation process as painless as possible. Typically you are likely to be editing a sequences of images of similar (or identical) subject matter, and you may be able just to hit enter again or maybe just edit the caption to continue.
Change the caption if necessary. If it is another image of the same subject there is no harm in having the same caption, the index will still uniquely identify the image.
Check or uncheck the categories as appropriate and if necessary add more. Maybe it is a different location so add a new sub-category under Location. Maybe it is a different subject so add a new sub-category under Subject.
Continue to repeat these steps with the other images that you have imported.
Return to normal database viewing by selecting View - Database. We will now examine the category tree that you have created.

Go to the next step

For more information on the categorising images go here.