Scanned photos from Picasa to google Photo: experiences

[tomos]

EDIT//
Bad news:
Google has disabled Picasa's ability to upload / download / sync photos to google photo.

The Picasa Desktop application will no longer support uploading or downloading photos and videos, creating online albums, or deleting online photos, videos and albums...
If you want to upload photos and videos to Google Photos, you can use Backup and Sync at photos.google.com/apps.

https://productforum...c/picasa/brvRowxSDcM
//EDIT

Sharing scanned photos:
from Picasa to google Photo (& back again) and related stories...

Goal:
to upload / share a large collection of scanned (family) photos, ideally allowing others to comment;
also to be able to share subsets of same images, (ideally via albums created in picasa)

Uploaded 1500 family photos to google Photo (henceforth 'gphoto') over the last couple of months. It's been a challenge, to say the least, and not at all as successful as I would have hoped. But the photos are up, and shared, so I'm happy to have gotten that far.

Here some info about the problems, in the hope that it will help anyone else trying to do something similar.

Google photo will only sort photos by the date the picture was taken.
This is logical for photos, but not so much for scans -- even if you are super-organised it's difficult to get the correct sequence before scanning.
Summary of solution:
make date-time the same for relevant photos; sort by name; re-upload -- there are very important details below: read on if you're going to do this.

I went to a lot of effort (to be described below: with the help of dc user Lintalist) to manually sort the scans locally using my filemanager, and rename them according to a correct timeline. You upload your images to gphoto and they are only sorted by date, so you need a workaround. You can manually move an image in gphotos, but it is not a particularly user friendly process, and not really feasible for hundreds of pics anyway.
The workaround is to change the date field to the same date-time on all relevant files:

• in Picasa:
  First turn off the sync button for the album in Picasa.
  Then select all images in the relevant album or folder that you want to sort by name in gphoto. If focus is in the album or folder, Ctrl+A will do the job.
  menu: Tools > Adjust date and time -- add your new date, and select "Set all photos to the same date and time"
• in google Photo:
  select your images - in the top right corner click the three dots menu: >Edit date and time

Unfortunately, if your pics are already uploaded, they will not resort in gphoto (way to go google):
Then you will have to delete the images online (ensure the sync button is set to 'off' for the album in Picasa first) -- I deleted the online album too (there may be a workaround for this, but if you dont delete the album, and turn on sync for the album in Picasa -- the photos are also removed from the album in Picasa -- the pics were not deleted locally, but I would be very careful here in case: !!backups!! ).
=>
The Picasa album remembers the older date sort, and may default to it, so make sure the album is sorted by name before you turn sync on.
menu: Album/Folder > Sort by name
Then, when you do sync, they will sort by name on gphoto.

To be continued with the topics:

• showing related info (metadata) in the online image (description / caption field)
• face recognition not recognised in gphoto (but album can be downloaded to a local Picasa to read this info - mostly works...)
• manually sorting and renaming photos
• recovering info added in the info panel in google photo (i.e. info added online: this is not synced back to Picasa) [ => see following post ]

[tomos]

Re: Recovering info added in the Info field/panel in google photo (i.e. info added online: this is not synced back to Picasa)

• If you add text to the Description field it is shown online in google photos in the info field
• The field is called 'Caption' in Picasa: but is only shown if the field already has content
• It appears to have different names depending on what app you are using (more thumbs down)

Via Windows Explorer (Win.7):
Right-click file >Properties (or simply Alt+Enter). On the Details tab, the field is shown as 'Subject'. I could not find the field using Windows Explorer's columns (Win.7), well I found a 'Subject' field but it was empty.

Via Dopus viewer: Edit Metadata (from context menu) has it under 'Document properties'




Now, online you can add text to the Info field, but is not saved in the photo -- not is it synced back to Picasa.

Don't know if it'll download any added photo info but you can try Google data download (Link - need to sign in).

You can export and download your data from the Google products you use, like your email, calendar, and photos.

-4wd (January 22, 2018, 06:47 PM)

that did work!
The info comes through as a .json file e.g.
Photo-name.jpg.json

Spoiler

Code: Text [Select]

1. {
2.   "title": "1936 xxxx.jpg",
3.   "description": "1936 Jack and Neil, 1st and 2nd from left. Back of photo: \"xxxx - June 28-1936\". Additional info here please.",
4.   "url": "https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/.../1936%2Bxxxx.jpg",
5.   "imageViews": "0",
6.   "creationTime": {
7.     "timestamp": "1516701602",
8.     "formatted": "23 Jan 2018, 10:00:02 UTC"
9.   },
10.   "modificationTime": {
11.     "timestamp": "1516701796",
12.     "formatted": "23 Jan 2018, 10:03:16 UTC"
13.   },
14.   "geoData": {
15.     "latitude": 0.0,
16.     "longitude": 0.0,
17.     "altitude": 0.0,
18.     "latitudeSpan": 0.0,
19.     "longitudeSpan": 0.0
20.   },
21.   "geoDataExif": {
22.     "latitude": 0.0,
23.     "longitude": 0.0,
24.     "altitude": 0.0,
25.     "latitudeSpan": 0.0,
26.     "longitudeSpan": 0.0
27.   }
28. }

Which leads to the next question:

is there any software that will show the photo and read the info in the json file simultaneously?

-tomos (January 23, 2018, 04:56 AM)

this solution below was suggested by ayryq
Disclaimer: I havent tried it yet

ExifTool might do this automatically? I haven't tested it but see the following thread:
http://u88.n24.queen...dex.php?topic=8154.0

And get the executable from:
http://owl.phy.queen...u.ca/~phil/exiftool/

To clarify: What the command-line ExifTool will do is read the description from the json file(s), and write it to the metadata attached to the picture(s). Then you'll have to find another program that lets you view them together (though this should be easy).

-ayryq (January 23, 2018, 11:14 AM)

[tomos]

reserved

[Nod5]

I went to a lot of effort (to be described below: with the help of dc user Lintalist) to manually sort the scans, and rename them according to a correct timeline. You upload your images to gphoto and they are only sorted by date, so you need a workaround. You can manually move an image in gphotos, but it is not a particularly user friendly process, and not really feasible for hundreds of pics anyway.
The workaround is to change the date field to the same date-time on all relevant files

Isn't there a lot of manual work involved to shift/edit dates for many files in Google Photos? If you already have the images locally with datestrings in the filenames then an alternative approach would be to change the exif metadata date strings to match those in the filename and then reupload in bulk to Google Photos. If the datestring in the filename has the same format for all files then a pretty simple script could do the trick.

[tomos]

I went to a lot of effort (to be described below: with the help of dc user Lintalist) to manually sort the scans, and rename them according to a correct timeline. You upload your images to gphoto and they are only sorted by date, so you need a workaround. You can manually move an image in gphotos, but it is not a particularly user friendly process, and not really feasible for hundreds of pics anyway.
The workaround is to change the date field to the same date-time on all relevant files

Isn't there a lot of manual work involved to shift/edit dates for many files in Google Photos? If you already have the images locally with datestrings in the filenames then an alternative approach would be to change the exif metadata date strings to match those in the filename and then reupload in bulk to Google Photos. If the datestring in the filename has the same format for all files then a pretty simple script could do the trick.

-Nod5 (March 07, 2018, 08:17 AM)

yes, that sounds good:
I manually sorted the files locally: in thumbnail view in my filemanager (dopus) -- which took a lot of work too, but was the easiest solution for me (I think). I was dealing with images that went back as far as the 1880's, most though were 1950 to 1980. So a lot of it was guess-work i.e. no definite date for majority of the images.
Then using Lintalist's script, I renamed (numbered) the files based on their new sequence.

Edit// made the text you quoted a bit clearer in OP (that I did the manual sorting locally with filemanager)

[tomos]

Then using Lintalist's script, I renamed (numbered) the files based on their new sequence.

-tomos (March 07, 2018, 08:23 AM)

the problem with numbering sequentially is if you want to add new images to the collection - i.e. it's not extensible.
I havent really thought about any solutions for this...

[Nod5]

I was dealing with images that went back as far as the 1880's, most though were 1950 to 1980. So a lot of it was guess-work i.e. no definite date for majority of the images.
Then using Lintalist's script, I renamed (numbered) the files based on their new sequence.

Ok, what I meant more specifically is that if the filenames have some consistent date strings, for example "20161001183503.jpg", "2016-10-01.jpg" or "161001 tag tag.jpg" or some such then it would be easy to with a script copy those date strings to each file's EXIF.

I use the YYYYMMDDHHMMSS format for all photos because then you see the date directly in the filename and the files are automatically sorted by date when you sort them by filename. You can always put descriptive tags at the end of the filename to make it easy to find them when searching.

For scans of very old photos where the date is not exactly known one can make a rough estimate and pad with "01" patterns as a reminder that the date isn't exactly known. For example a photo from sometime in the 1950s could be named "19500101010101.jpg".

[tomos]

Ok, what I meant more specifically is that if the filenames have some consistent date strings, for example "20161001183503.jpg", "2016-10-01.jpg" or "161001 tag tag.jpg" or some such then it would be easy to with a script copy those date strings to each file's EXIF.

-Nod5 (March 07, 2018, 01:41 PM)

yes, I got that -
I also didnt like the idea of having to add the (estimated) date string to each file name. Possibly a better solution in the long run, but is going to take a lot of time for 1500 photos.
I'm considering it though, mainly because it will make the naming system more extensible.

EDIT// I was starting to add date tags, e.g. 1953-09-00 for Sept '53 -- but I gave up fairly quickly (it's just mind-numbing doing that again and again...)

[tomos]

recovering info added in the info panel in google photo (i.e. info added online: this is not synced back to Picasa)

-tomos (March 07, 2018, 08:05 AM)

"how to" answered in Reply #1 above
https://www.donation....msg417413#msg417413

[jity2]

BTW, one good website that may be useful to you for Picasa and Google Photo is : https://sites.google...ite/picasaresources/

[tomos]

BTW, one good website that may be useful to you for Picasa and Google Photo is : https://sites.google...ite/picasaresources/

-jity2 (March 08, 2018, 05:52 AM)

belated thanks jity2:
have found helpful tips from there when searching. It's a difficult subject because of all the changes google have made over the last few years.

[tomos]

Google has disabled Picasa's ability to upload / download / sync photos to google photo.

The Picasa Desktop application will no longer support uploading or downloading photos and videos, creating online albums, or deleting online photos, videos and albums (see our update in the blog post here). If you try to upload or download, you may see something like:

    “Failed to download album list”
    “Error: Failed to retrieve URL for upload”
    “Error: Request failed”
    The upload manager staying at 0% progress

If you want to upload photos and videos to Google Photos, you can use Backup and Sync at photos.google.com/apps.

https://productforum...c/picasa/brvRowxSDcM

I will edit first post to reflect this.
I hate google right now :-/

[IainB]

@Tomos: Sorry, but I thought Google's blocking this [API] was already quite clear from the Picasa blog:

Moving on from Picasa
Friday, February 12, 2016 10:00 AM
Update March 26, 2018: The Picasa Desktop application will no longer work online, which means that you will not be able to upload or download photos and videos, create online albums, or delete online photos, videos and albums.
...
Desktop application
As of March 15, 2016, we will no longer be supporting the Picasa desktop application. For those who have already downloaded this—or choose to do so before this date—it will continue to work as it does today, but we will not be developing it further, and there will be no future updates. If you choose to switch to Google Photos, you can continue to upload photos and videos using the desktop uploader at photos.google.com/apps.

Finally for developers, we will also be retiring some functions of the Picasa API. Developers can learn more here.

Please note, you’ll still be able to access all of your photos and videos in Google Photos at https://photos.google.com/. If you want to upload photos and videos to Google Photos, you can use Backup and Sync at photos.google.com/apps. ...

Copied from: Picasa Blog - <http://googlephotos.blogspot.co.com/>

There's nothing to stop you from using Picasa as an image management tool/database, and shipping up the photos to Google Photos, as required. (I had thought that was what you were intending doing.)

[tomos]

@Tomos: Sorry, but I thought Google's blocking this [API] was already quite clear from the Picasa blog:

-IainB (April 06, 2018, 03:05 PM)

clear from their blog as of March 26th 2018 (it may have been clear earlier, but I dont think so) -- either way, I, and lots of other people using Picasa this way didnt know about it.

There's nothing to stop you from using Picasa as an image management tool/database, and shipping up the photos to Google Photos, as required. (I had thought that was what you were intending doing.)

-IainB (April 06, 2018, 03:05 PM)

the nice thing about Picasa is you can create as many albums as you like:
Family photos are a good example -- using Picasa's face-recognition 'face-tags' I created albums for each family within the extended family; an album for my mother's family; an album for each brother and sister; for each aunt/uncle; etc. They're all subsets of the full collection of photos. AFAICS these albums are now useless (because I hadnt synced them yet).

I am unable to reproduce them in google photo without starting from scratch (it doesnt recognise Picasa's face-tags). I guess I'll just copy them from the Picasa album to a new local folder and offer them as zipped downloads -- not so accessible, especially to non-computer-literate people. Although...
I wonder if I upload an image twice to google photo -- to two different albums, will it recognise that it has the images already, and just 'tag' the copy it has already with the new album.

[IainB]

@tomos: Well, don't despair, because you can probably still have your cake and eat it.

IF you create Picasa albums out of the Tags (this was an innovative experimental feature that works beautifully), Picasa places the photos in sort of "virtual folders" according to each Tag - these virtual folders are created within the Picasa database. Picasa doesn't care where these Tagged photos are physically stored on disk (in logical folders). It can always find them again. So, once you have a Tagged album, you can use Picasa to drag and drop the pix it contains, as a group, into a newly-named logical folder on disk. Picasa will keep track of which photos have been moved where. You can then use Google Photos to upload/sync that album folder to the Google Photos cloud as an album/collection, and then share it to whomever you want. After that, maintain those album folders on your hard drive, so you can remove photos, or add new photos to an album (using Picasa, as above). The additions/changes to the album will be reflected in the Google Photo sync.

The Tags are magic because they are metadata which is attached to the data (the images).
If the Picasa database crashes or gets corrupted (it can happen - though I haven't see it in the "Sunset" version yet), Picasa can rapidly rebuild/recreate the Tagged virtual albums, because the Tag will have been written as metadata to each of the the photos' IPTC info. One of the things that doesn't get written to EXIF/IPTC fields are the face IDs of the people in the photos - which data only seems to exist in the database, and which needs to be rebuilt after a crash/corruption (which takes a bit of time). But the thing is, it can all be rebuilt/recreated.

So you keep maintenance at a low state and can almost have it as easy as it was in the original Picasa approach. To achieve this, all you have to do is use the Tagged virtual albums in Picasa.

[IainB]

It might also be worth considering using the Libraries feature in Windows. I've tended to steer clear of making too much use of Libraries and their "active" folder cousins, including (say) GodMode, AllGames, Briefcases, as they seem to be virtual folders about which the rules are ambiguous/undocumented and subject to change with OS updates, and the Libraries themselves seem to be kind of "broken" links. However, if one understood them more fully, I suspect that there could be some way in which one could usefully assign logical folders (a collection of photos in an album) to (say) the Photos Library. The trick then would be to see if there was some way one could reliably/consistently sync these virtual Library folders to Google Photos as albums/collections for sharing.