EDIT: Post updated 2018-12-14 to reflect current use.Usually, when I spend some effort in editing images, it is because
I need to keep them for subsequent re-use - e.g. (say), as image attachments when making a post in the DC Forum.
So I like to keep searchable meta-data with them, for easy search/find at a later time.
The usual constraint there is that
you can only add metadata directly to JPG files. For me, that would sometimes
necessitate considerable mucking about and thus, editing images always seemed to become an arduous task and was accompanied by the creation of separate metadata notes
and the proliferation/duplication of image types for the same image. Then I realised that
CHS might be able to help me, and I adopted what - for me - has been (from experience)
a really simple and time-saving approach:STEP 1: Install
CHS (Clipboard Help & Spell).
In
CHS Options | Image Capture- set the preferred application you want as the External Image Viewer - I use irfanview - which is also a good image file/folder manager and editor in its own right.
- set the preferred application you want as the External image Editor - I use SC (Screenshot Captor) - which is considered by many to be one of the best image clippers/editors out there.
STEP 2: Determine what image clipping/snipping
tools you are likely to want to use, and have hotkeys set up to invoke each of them separately, as required, at the press of 2 or 3 keys.
I use:
EDIT: Updated 2018-12-14 to reflect current use- frequently OneNote Clipper - e.g., using Shift+Win+S, which captures into both OneNote and the CHS database..
- frequently SC (Screenshot Captor) - e.g., I use Alt+PrtScr to capture specific Windows into the CHS database.
MethodWhen you clip an image using
OneNote Clipper, the image is copied not only into the default set (a
OneNote notebook page), but also
always into the CHS database. Having the image in the
CHS database, the user can:
- switch straightaway to the full CHS view (Ctrl+Alt+A),
- locate and select the relevant image clip in that view (shows in the Clip Image tab),
- click on the editing tool icon for that image (the tool is set as SC),
- edit the image in SC and when done save it to the original file (which is still in the CHS database), thus overwriting the original image file with the edited image (which is usually what one wants) - thus updating the image in the CHS database and without changing the the file name. So CHS still points at the same (but now updated) image file.
- you can then select in CHS the Clip Text tab for that now edited image and copy the file path from there (path for that image), to use to send it, as below,
- whilst you are in the CHS Clip Text tab, you can add in some metadata about the image, for subsequent search/find and for reference (IMHO you can never have too much metadata, so don't be afraid of littering) - this all goes into the CHS database.
Then
switch to where you want to send/copy the edited image - e.g., (say) the DC User Forum post you are working on - and paste into the attachment field the path to that image that you already have from above.
One needs to try this out a few times to appreciate:
- (a) how much time/trouble it can save one,
- (b) how useful it can be for consolidating the image with its metadata in the CHS database - it literally becomes a consolidated part of one's set of knowledge/data that one could probably not previously achieve so readily/easily and have readily accessible/searchable.
So, thanks to
CHS (and
SC), and credit to
@mouser for some excellent tools that work well together.
The really useful thing about
SC for clipping images is that the user can set
SC to automatically save image clips
to the Clipboard, which puts them into the
CHS database for subsequent editing by SC. Incredibly useful/efficient!
What about collecting images by Year/Month?IMHO, this is a useful thing
if it can be automated, as it avoids accumulating images into one humungus bucket folder, which would then be
slow-as-molasses and take forever to search in a file Explorer, but could still be viewed as a flat file - e.g., (say) in
xplorer².Because I always initiate
SC to manipulate images saved in the
CHS image files (database) folder, and because
CHS is set to update image folders by
Year/Month,
SC is (usually) already always pointing at the last current CHS Year/Month folder where it was last invoked for operation.
What this means is that
the user can forget about Year/Month as it is managed/controlled automatically by
CHS, and
SC gets the correct folder to use by always invoking
SC from within
CHS.
For housekeeping:- Any separate spurious/unwanted duplicates that the user may cause SC to make in its own set/default location can be periodically quickly searched for and deleted using (say) Everything, based on the SC default filename - e.g., which will be something like: Screenshot - 2018-12-12 , 23_31_40 -.png
In my case these are in the default SC save folder, currently defaulting to the CHS folder:C:\UTIL\Windows utilities\FindAndRunRobot\Plugins\Clipboard Help+Spell\Database\Files\2018\12\
- Thus, spurious/unwanted duplicate files of the form 2018-12-12 , 23_31_40 -.png can be readily identified and expunged.
