Downloading from camera/card

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Driek Heesakkers
Posts: 0
Joined: Fri Mar 16, 2012 5:15 pm

Downloading from camera/card

Post by Driek Heesakkers »

Hi Thorsten and colleagues, I've started to use GC to download images from camera/card, after using native Canon SW for years - that SW is getting old in the tooth and I don't want to wait years for mountain lion compatability. Besides I'm already using GC for the rest of the workflow - starting with the renaming tool, very handy and efficient. Of course, now that I'm using this functionality (using the current app store version), a number of thoughts come up. 1 is an interface inconsistency, that I think would be a useful addition in general. The other two very minor feature requests, whether you consider them worth putting development time in is up to you. 1. the 'download' option does not always appear when browsing pictures on a memory card. When GC is running and asks if I want to browse a new found volume, the toolbar with three buttons (download selection, download all, options) appears. But when I start from a new or already open browser, then navigate to the card volume from there, the bar does not show and I don't see a way to open it. It would be handy to have a toggle to open this in any location. Even better would be if there'd be a way to detect whether the volume you're browsing is on a card or camera and automatically show it. The way it is now, I have to unmount & mount the card again, which is not very elegant, and takes time when the card is full. 2. my photo archive folder hierarchy (which is quite large) has been organised following a naming convention hardcoded in the Canon SW: YYYY / YYYY_MM_DD. Usually I manually added some text to the folder name. GC offers a number of options when downloading, but none that can be configured in a year / day hierarchy. The closest comes YYYY / MM / DD. There are a few options (adding a leading zero, adding the month name) but not to omit the month folders. I understand that you don't want to add special features for a very small group of users, but with the renaming tool, there already exists a mechanism and GUI for a very flexible and powerful function that is quite similar. Maybe in the longer term the import function could be reworked as a variation on the renaming, simplyfying both the interface and the code base. Just floating an idea. Meanwhile, if anybody has a script handy that automatically move the YYYY / MM / DD folders one level up and rename them, I'd be glad to hear. My coding skills are a little rusty... 3. Finally, the Canon SW did a trick to mark images as already downloaded, giving the option to select only new ones (with the cmd-N shortcut, making it very efficient). Either this was marked in the jpeg metadata itself, or in a separate file on the card (canon cameras write a folder hierarchy to a card on formatting). iPhoto does something similar, though it probably uses its own database to maintain what's been imported already and what not. It would be a nice-to-have (low priority). Cheers, Driek
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