Importing, hoping to streamline post-import categorizing and watermarking.

bstringy

Hi, I'm a new user in the process of importing 992 galleries. Thank god for Smugglr!!! I'm doing them in batches based on sub-category and it's going pretty well. However, upon import, each gallery needs to be changed to the correct category and sub-category. Although the sub-cat name is correct, it doesn't seem to work when changing just the category using the re-namer; a bug perhaps. This means having to go through each gallery manually, not that a big deal.

Next, I need to watermark them and it appears this can be done as part of a Gallery Quick Setting, "Apply to existing photos in gallery?" But I have yet to see this work. I'm left going through every gallery twice.

I'm hoping there may be a way to create settings that will apply the watermark upon import, but haven't been able to make this happen either.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Brian

jfriend

bstringy wrote: »

Hi, I'm a new user in the process of importing 992 galleries. Thank god for Smugglr!!! I'm doing them in batches based on sub-category and it's going pretty well. However, upon import, each gallery needs to be changed to the correct category and sub-category. Although the sub-cat name is correct, it doesn't seem to work when changing just the category using the re-namer; a bug perhaps. This means having to go through each gallery manually, not that a big deal.

Next, I need to watermark them and it appears this can be done as part of a Gallery Quick Setting, "Apply to existing photos in gallery?" But I have yet to see this work. I'm left going through every gallery twice.

I'm hoping there may be a way to create settings that will apply the watermark upon import, but haven't been able to make this happen either.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Brian

You should definitely set the watermark on the new gallery before you upload. That way, the images will be watermarked automatically when uploaded without any further steps. I don't know about the UI in Smugglr (never used it), but you can set any gallery setting right after creating a gallery before uploading in Smugmug.

SamirD

If Smugglr is creating the galleries on-the-fly like I think it is, and you're having to change each gallery to the correct category/sub-category, I'd set the watermark setting while you're there as soon as the gallery is created. This way, most of the files will be watermarked upon upload. And while you will have to go through each gallery a second time to manually tell it to watermark the images using Tools-->Many Photos-->Watermark, it will minimize the amount of work to be done as it will be much faster.

bstringy

Post-Smugglr workflow
Thank you both. I appreciate the responses.

Here is my current workflow. Maybe there is something else you all might be aware of that could help me skip some unnecessary steps.

- Import a sub-category with, say, 12 galleries.
- Go to Set Prices and change them all at once.
- Open each gallery in a separate tab and set watermarks individually, leaving tabs open
- Go back and change each gallery's category/sub-cat
- Go to new category and set new Gallery Settings for all at once by adding each individually under the Multiple Galleries, Select Galleries drop down.

It would seem that while changing the category/sub-cat individually, I should also be able to select the Gallery Setting preset to make it apply to the Gallery, but I haven't gotten this to work. Maybe I don't understand what is supposed to happen when selecting a preset from the drop down.

Are there any keyboard shortcuts to get to the Watermarking page or Gallery settings?? I did search, but only found one for hiding photos, which is great, by the way.

SamirD wrote: »

If Smugglr is creating the galleries on-the-fly like I think it is, and you're having to change each gallery to the correct category/sub-category, I'd set the watermark setting while you're there as soon as the gallery is created. This way, most of the files will be watermarked upon upload. And while you will have to go through each gallery a second time to manually tell it to watermark the images using Tools-->Many Photos-->Watermark, it will minimize the amount of work to be done as it will be much faster.

SamirD

bstringy wrote: »

Here is my current workflow. Maybe there is something else you all might be aware of that could help me skip some unnecessary steps.

- Import a sub-category with, say, 12 galleries.
- Go to Set Prices and change them all at once.
- Open each gallery in a separate tab and set watermarks individually, leaving tabs open
- Go back and change each gallery's category/sub-cat
- Go to new category and set new Gallery Settings for all at once by adding each individually under the Multiple Galleries, Select Galleries drop down.

Are the watermarks different for each gallery? If not, I'd change the watermark and gallery settings, as well as the gallery category/sub-cat all at once as soon as the gallery is created in SM. Then I'd return to each gallery and set the pricing and watermark any remaining photos.

bstringy wrote: »

It would seem that while changing the category/sub-cat individually, I should also be able to select the Gallery Setting preset to make it apply to the Gallery, but I haven't gotten this to work. Maybe I don't understand what is supposed to happen when selecting a preset from the drop down.

When you select the preset, it doesn't affect the category/sub-cat, only the settings below and the watermarking setting.

bstringy

If Smugglr wasn't so fast, I might have time to make changes before the photos are imported. From the time I click Go, to refreshing the category page and pulling up the gallery, there are already 30 photos in it. By the time I get to the next album, there would already be three albums completely filled with photos.

The issue is not waiting for watermarks to complete, it's the 'touching every gallery' multiple times...

Thanks again for the help

SamirD

There's not going to be much of a way around touching the galleries multiple times.

jfriend

SamirD wrote: »

There's not going to be much of a way around touching the galleries multiple times.

Unless someone writes a script to touch the galleries in an automated way.

SamirD

jfriend wrote: »

Unless someone writes a script to touch the galleries in an automated way.

Yep. All of this can be done via the API. Didn't someone write a command-line interface to the SM API? That may be quicker than mousing around everywhere. I need to find that so I can use it to mass delete galleries...

bstringy

jfriend wrote: »

Unless someone writes a script to touch the galleries in an automated way.

I went through your list of scripts and used about half of them. Incredible work you've done!!!