You
should carefully read this
reference before using the Optimizer!
Purpose
The
Optimizer is designed to take various actions on all the pictures
in one or more directories. It is useful for both pictures
downloaded from your camera or from the Internet. However, the
options choosen for each will likely be different and are provided on
different tabs.
In general, its a
bad idea to use the options under Download for your camera photos.
Some of the option under Download will remove important metadata
informaton from your photos. This is all explained below.
I recommend that you try the Optimezer on copies or files you don't
care about first. Look at the files in thier directory before
running the Optimizer. After running the Optimezer review the
report and see what the Optimzer actually did with your files.
Don't use the Optimizer on your important files until you are
comfortable with it.
Selecting Directories
The Directories tab allows you to select the directories to be
used. If you select various directories in the JIBS Viewer file
tree and then right click, you can bring up the Optimizer pre-filled
with the selected directories. You can also bring up the
Optimizer with only a single directory or with all the directories in a
particular tree that way.
Add
|
Brings up a dialog box to select
a directory. Adds the choosen directory.
|
Add Subdirectories
|
Brings up a dialog box to select
a directory. Adds the choosen directory and all of its subdirectories
(and thier subdirectories, etc). |
Remove
|
Removes the selected directories
from the list.
|
You can reorder the list of directories by dragging directories to
where you want them. The order is important when you are deduping
across directories (disucussed below).
Download
vs Camera
In general, use the "Download" tab for pictures you downloaded
from the Internet and the "Camera" tab for pictures you download from
you camera. The reason is that several of the Download options
will remove the EXIF information from the pictures taken by your
camera. You don't want that to happen because photo editors can
use that information to improve you pictures. Specifically, any
time you resize or make image adjustments the resulting file will not
contain the EXIF information.
Camera Tab
Rename
Unique
|
Unique will ensure that every
file in every directory choosen is unique. For example, if you
have downloaded multiple camera sessions into different directories,
but all the files are labeled starting with P000001.JPG , you can't very well
move the files between directories because the you might overright a
different picture with the same name. This feature solves that by
renaming the file adding a unique identifer. The identefier is in
the form of -jibs000001 .
The -jibs is used by JIBS to know which files it has already made
unique. The number is a simple counter of all the files you have
renumbered. You can see what the next number will be by looking
in the View Setting menu. If the file as named P000001.JPG , it would be renamed
something like P000001-jibs000001.JPG.
|
EXIF
|
Most digital cameras include
extra information with the picture. This information is refferred
to as metadata. EXIF is a popular method for storing
metadata. This option will read the metadata for the picture and
use it to rename the picture. No action is taken if no metadata
is included or JIBS does not unstand the metadata. If JIBS
understands the date time metadata information, it will rename the file
with that information. So P000001.JPG
becomes 2004.01.03-16.54.51.jpg
beding the date and time the picture was taken to the second. Caution: If you
use a burst mode you could have more than one picture in the same
second. My camera does not have that feature, so I have not
tested JIBS in that configuration. It should only rename the
first file it comes to and leave the name of the other files the
same. However, I suggest you try it on a copy first.
Also, let me know the results so I can update these instructions.
|
Operation
Press "Start" to begin renaming the files. You will see the
progress just below the Start button. When complete, you can
press "Report" to see what was done.
Download Tab
Remove Duplicates Options
Dedup
|
If you have been copying your
files, crawling web sites, or doing mass downloads, you may wind up
with several copies of the exact same file. This does a binary
comparison and will delete the duplicate files if they are exactly
alike. If they are even one bit different, this will not remove
the files. This will leave the first copy of the file found and
remove all duplicate found later in processing. The processing
order is not guaranteed to be alphabetical.
|
Across
Directories
|
If this option of off, the dedup
will only dedup with each directory and will not delete duplicates
found in another directory. If this option is on, files will be
deduped across all selected directories. The directories are
processed in the same order they are presented in the Directory tab
from top to bottom. So if a file is duplicated in the top and the
bottom directory, the file in the bottom directory will be removed.
|
Remove Non-Image Options
Strain
|
If you walk a web site and want
to delete all non-image files, this option is for you. It will
also remove all image files which JIBS does not understand. Since
JIBS understands all the image files Java understands, this usually
means the image file was defective in some way. You should generally
use this option togehter with the Move to Park Directory option.
Without the Move to Park Directory option, this option will permanently remove
the file. It will not be in the trash can or be
recoverable. Do
not use this option with critical files, like pictures taken with your
personal camera.
|
Move
to Park Directory
|
Instead of deleting a file to be
strained, the file will be moved to the park directory. On
Windows machines, this works best if the park directory is on the same
drive. If a difficulty is encountered in the move, the file will
not be deleted and you will need to manually delete it.
|
Rename Options
Unique
|
Unique will ensure that every
file in every directory choosen is unique. For example, if you
have
downloaded multiple camera sessions into different directories, but all
the files are labeled starting with P000001.JPG ,
you can't very well move the files between directories because the you
might overright a different picture with the same name. This
feature
solves that by renaming the file adding a unique identifer. The
identefier is in the form of -jibs000001 .
The -jibs is used by JIBS to know which files it has already made
unique. The number is a simple counter of all the files you have
renumbered. You can see what the next number will be by looking
in the
View Setting menu. If the file as named P000001.JPG , it would be renamed
something like P000001-jibs000001.JPG.
|
Enforce
Windows File Names
|
I saved some files on my Linux
partition and Windows was not particularly happy with the names.
Seems there is a little more naming flexibility in Linux. This
cleans up those Linux file names so Windows can read them. More
specifically, it strips the following characters out of the file name:
\ / : * ? " < > |
|
Clean
Up Endings
|
Sometimes uploaded files have a
unique number at the end. For example, sample.jpg001 . This naming
works fine in Linux, but is a pain in Windows because Windows can't
figure out that type of file it is. This will rename the file to sample.jpg . It should then
work in Windows.
|
Adjust Size Options
Resize
|
Resize will shrink larger
pictures to the size indicated. Resize will not grow
pictures. It is used when you capture photos at a greater
resolution than your screen display and to want to get them all to fit
on your screen. This is not recommended for your Camera photos
because you will lose resolution that you will never be able to get
back. The lost resolution will be important when you get prints
of you photos from you printer or the drug store. JIBS will
automatically show your photos at the correct size during slide shows
without making any permant changes to them.
|
Width
& Height
|
Width and Height are set in
pixels. For reference, the settings for a full screen display at
your current resolution are shown to the right.
|
Image Adjustment Options
Repack
|
If you have a set of photos that
takes JIBS a long time to dipsplay, this function may help.
Technically it is doing an Affine Transform using the repact factor
indicated as the scale. Basically this causes the file to be
saved in a format which seems to be more easily read by JIBS. I
suggest not using this unless you have files which have exhibited the
problem. Then experiment with copies of the files and see if you
like the results.
|
Repack
Factor
|
For the best results this should
be between 1.0 and 0.8.
|
Operation
Press "Start" to begin taking all the selected actions. You
will see the progress
just below the Start button. When complete, you can press
"Report" to
see what was done.
View
Settings
You can view and change the next number to be used for unique
renaming. You can also change the location of the Park
directory. Note that changing the location of the Park directory
changes it both for the Optimizer and the Viewer.