Image Maintenance Guide: adding photos and descriptions

1. How a photo gets onto the site

Every photo on the site is made of two things, which must agree with each other exactly:

1. The photo file: a JPEG saved on the NAS (the project's shared network storage), in a folder for its collection and its page (or tray, or box).
2. A row in the archive spreadsheet, Archive Index Numbers.xlsx, on the sheet for its category, saying which collection, which page and which file, plus its description and date.

Then an admin clicks Import on the Image Browser's Admin Panel. The import reads every row, finds each row's photo file on the NAS, and puts both on the site.

The row's three name columns must match the photo's collection folder, page folder and file name exactly.

The collections at the moment are:

2. What you need

• Access to the NAS share that holds the collections, from your computer: in Windows File Explorer, it's a network location such as \\NAS-DS920\docker. Your admin can set this up and tell you the user name and password.
• The archive spreadsheet, Archive Index Numbers.xlsx. It lives on the computer that runs the Image Browser, in its data folder (on the centre's Image Browser PC: C:\image-browser\data\Archive Index Numbers.xlsx). Your admin will tell you how to reach it.
• Excel or the free LibreOffice Calc, to edit it.
• Your scanner's software, set to save JPEG files.

3. Scanning and saving photos on the NAS

Where each photo goes

Each collection has a folder of its own on the NAS, with an images folder inside it, and inside that a folder for each page (or tray). Normally that's:

Not sure where a collection's folder is? Each Image Browser can be set up to read a collection from anywhere on the NAS. The Admin Panel lists the exact folder for each collection, under Collection Images; ask your admin to read it out to you, and use exactly that folder.

Step by step

1. Scan the photo, and save it as a JPEG (.jpg). The Image Browser only shows JPEGs. Keep a TIFF too if you like, for the archive; save it beside the JPEG with the same name.
2. Name the file following the collection's pattern, for example image-P12003.jpg for the third photo on page 12. Each file name in a page folder must be different. Stick to the collection's own pattern, so no name is ever the same as one in another collection.
3. In File Explorer, open the collection's images folder on the NAS, and the page's folder inside it. If it's a new page, make the folder: right-click → New → Folder, and name it like the others (Page 12).
4. Copy the JPEG into the page folder.
5. Write down the three things you'll need for its row: the collection, the folder name and the file name, exactly as they are on the NAS.

Replacing a photo with a better scan is fine: save it over the old file with exactly the same name, and the next import picks up the new one.

4. The archive spreadsheet

The spreadsheet has one sheet (the tabs along the bottom) for each category. A photo appears on the site in the category of the sheet its row is on.

The TOPICS, BOX_FILES and ARTEFACTS sheets aren't shown on the site (they're the archive's records of topics, box files and artefacts), so don't add photos there. If you can't tell what a photo is of, use UNKNOWN_UNIDENTIFIED.

The columns

Row 1 of each sheet holds the headings. These are the ones the Image Browser reads; the other columns (such as Photo/Copy post card or PUBLISHER) are the archive's own, and you can fill them in or not as usual.

5. Adding a row for each photo

Here's part of the AVIATION sheet, with two existing rows and a new one (row 74) being added. The yellow cells are the three that must match the NAS exactly.

Row 74 is an example of a new photo; rows 72 and 73 are real.

1. Close the spreadsheet everywhere else, then open it.
2. Click the sheet tab for the photo's category (see the table in section 4).
3. Go to the first empty row after the last one (Ctrl+↓ in column A jumps to the last filled row).
4. Fill in Collection, Folder/Page No and Image File Name, copied from the NAS, then the DESCRIPTION/ NOTES and DATE if you know them.
5. Do the same for each photo: one row per photo.
6. Save (Ctrl+S) and close the spreadsheet. In LibreOffice, when asked, choose Use Excel 2007-365! to keep it as .xlsx.
7. Ask an admin to run an import.

How it will look on the site

The import puts the category's name in front of your description, and the date after it, so row 74 above is shown and searched as:

[Aviation] - Biplane on the beach at low tide, crowd watching from the jetty (1912)

So you don't need to write the category or the date into the description itself. A row with no description still appears (as just [Aviation]), so you can add the photos first and the descriptions later.

6. Getting your changes onto the site

Nothing you change appears on the site until an admin runs Import from Spreadsheet on the Admin Panel (see the Admin Guide). Make sure the spreadsheet is saved and closed first.

Afterwards, ask the admin what the summary said, or for the full import report (a text file). Two lines in it are about your work:

Then open the Image Browser and search for one of your new photos to check it's there.

7. Finding a photo's row with the Info button

To correct or add to a photo that's already on the site, you need its row in the spreadsheet. The Image Browser tells you exactly where that is.

1. Find the photo on the Image Browser (search for it, or browse) and click it to open it full size.
2. Hold the mouse over the blue i button in the top right-hand corner (or click it). A box opens with the photo's details:

   

   

3. Note down all four lines. They tell you:

   Info box line	Where to look in the spreadsheet	Example
   Category	The spreadsheet sheet tab the row is on	BEACH_AND_SEAFRONT
   Collection	Column Collection	W-Thomas-Negatives
   Folder/Page No	Column Folder/Page No	Page 3
   Image File Name	Column Image File Name	image-P03007.jpg

   The same four lines also tell you where the photo's file is on the NAS: …\collections\W-Thomas-Negatives\images\Page 3\image-P03007.jpg.
4. Open the spreadsheet and click the sheet tab named in Spreadsheet Sheet Name.
5. Press Ctrl+F and search for the Image File Name (image-P03007.jpg).
6. Check the row it finds also has the same Folder/Page No and Collection: the same file name can be used on another page, or in another collection. If they don't match, press Find Next until they do.

8. Correcting a description or date

1. Find the photo's row, as in section 7.
2. Change its DESCRIPTION/ NOTES or DATE. Leave Collection, Folder/Page No and Image File Name as they are.
3. Save and close the spreadsheet.
4. Ask an admin to run an import. The photo keeps its place on the site, with the new description.

Visitors can't change anything themselves, but they can tell you about a photo using its Info box (the User Guide asks them to): those four lines take you straight to its row.

9. Moving, removing or renaming photos

An ordinary import adds and updates, but never removes anything from the site. So these changes need an admin to run a Full Reimport afterwards, which rebuilds the whole site and takes a long time (see the Admin Guide). Save them up and do them together, and let the admin know.

10. Checklist and common mistakes

Before asking for an import

• ☐ Every new photo is a JPEG, in its collection's images folder, in the right page folder.
• ☐ Every new photo has one row, on the right category sheet.
• ☐ Each row's Collection, Folder/Page No and Image File Name match the NAS exactly (capitals, spaces, .jpg).
• ☐ The spreadsheet is saved as .xlsx and closed.

Common mistakes

Image Browser · Burnham-on-Sea History Project · Image Maintenance Guide. Other guides: User Guide (finding and looking at photos) and Admin Guide (running imports and the admin password).