Hi All,
Our research project had one grad student adding descriptions (Mac user) and now another student (Window user) is taking over. The new grad can see the metadata files, but not the images. The images are stored on a network drive. These are the steps we tried to map the images to the files.
File > Import > Photos
We located the network directory and the 1,600+ images
We chose several images as a test and opened them.
The images loaded, but separately from the metadata files. So there were two files with the same filename (image and metadata) listed.
We thought of merging them, but we don’t know how to do it as a batch for 1600+ images
I’m thinking we not importing them or mapping the images correctly.
We would so appreciate your help.
Thank you, Tara
If you import the photos a second time, you will end up with duplicate photos, so instead you should ‘fix’ (or ‘consolidate’) the existing photos. Simply, this just means to update the path to the photos stored in the database. In most cases this should work mostly automatically, however, the fact that you’re switching from Mac to Windows with a different file system might make it more difficult.
Anyway, first, I’d try to move the photos the conventional way. To do this, just open the project on the target computer and select any photo for consolidation like it says in the documentation: Tropy will prompt you to locate the photo in the shared drive and, once you’ve done that, ask if it should try to consolidate other photos automatically. If successful, this should fix all the photos in your project.
If this does not work, I would suggest the following workaround:
- On your source computer (the Mac), move the project file to the shared drive with the photos (if it is not already there)
- Open the project file on the shared drive, and enable developer mode in Tropy’s preferences
- Back in the project select ‘Rebase project’ from the developer menu (just click this once!), wait for a few moments and then close the project.
- Now try to open the project file on the shared drive on the Windows computer and it should find all the images.
At this point, the project is using relative paths to the images, meaning, the project file needs to stay on the shared network drive with the photos. If this is inconvenient or causes performance issues, you can select ‘Rebase project’ again from the menu – this will replace the relative paths with absolute paths again, and you’ll be able to move the project file elsewhere on the target computer.
Thank you, Inukshuk. We went through all of the steps and unfortunately we still are not able to view the image files. I saved two log files in the process. Can I email them to you? - Tara
Sure. You can also post them here publicly, or by sending me a direct message.
If you send me your project file, I might be able to check everything and make sure the project is portable.