Working with digital images

[neen]

hullo...I am working on a family history project and have a question relating to saving group photos...I have a group photo (size 3Mb) with 3 people in it...do I save this photo 3 times on my computer, in each person's folder, using up 9Mb space, or is there another way I can save it so that it will still show in each person's folder, but only use up 3Mb of space on my computer?

[ShutterbugGail]

Hi there neen and welcome to the Q&A Forum,

If I understand correctly, you have a photo that you'd like to duplicate and put in three separate folders.

If you want to save hard drive space, you can use a photo editing program to compress a photo. Your digital camera most likely came with software that let's you compress an image...but don't use too much compression as it can degrade image quality.

Don't forget, always edit a copy of an original image file. If you make a mistake, you'll always have the original to go back to and start from scratch.

If you need more help, let us know.

[bdery]

Hi!

I just want to add to what Gail told you. Her advice is good, but it might be that reducing the quality of the picture (by reducing its resolution) is not an option for you.

It's hard to give accurate advice as I don't know enough about your "family project" to really understand the specifics of what you want to do.

However, there is a simple solution while creating multiple folders with duplicates files. You can store the file in a specific folder, then create a shortcut (in Windows, right-click->create shortcut) and place that shortcut in the numerous other folders you need to create. Each shortcut takes about 1kb of memory, so that would achieve the objective you aim for. However, if for instance you plan on burning CDs or DVDs with the pictures, and give them to all your family members, you will need to replace the shortcuts with the actual files before distributing the pictures, otherwise people will end up with shortcuts containing no information.

Another option, that might or might not work for you (again, it depends on your objectives) would be to use a Photo archiving software (such as ACDSee, Adobe Lightroom, Picassa) and tag the pictures with the various names of the people they refer to. Then, you could access the correct pictures by calling only those with specific tags.

I hope this helps you!

[neen]

 
Thanks guys...this should be very helpful!
Neen

[MikesPix]

hey neen,

One way to achieve what it sound's like you want to do without buying new programs and making shortcuts in folders that are hard to give descriptive info might be to have a MS Word (or other) document (not a 'text' file '.txt' - at least a 'rich text' file '.rtf').

You can make the following parts/pages (and see the last improvement for integrating other aspects):

• Give each person a page that lists the photos they are in.
• Have a page(s) with a list of the pictures and a description of what each picture is about.

Now, you can put links in each photo filename (similar to a shortcut) so when you click on that photo name in the document, the picture will pop up in a window so it can be seen quickly and easily.
You can then make a few changes and put the document and pictures on cd's to share with all people involved.

(There are glitches that can pop up when doing all this, but I can help if you want.)/me

[ShutterbugGail]

Thanks for the very good information MikesPix! We welcome you to the Q&A Forum.