Storing Camera and Film Details for Scanned Images

[John Whittington]

Hi everyone!

I've now got over 19,000 images loaded in IVMP 3.1 of which about 12,000 are high res scans of slides or negatives in DNG (originally TIF) format.  For these scanned images I'd like to get your opinions on the best way of storing the following data with each image:
Camera type
Film type and speed (where available)
Original slide or negative number
Scanner type and software (perhaps also scanning resolution)

Ideally I'd like at least the camera type, film type, and film ISO in the EXIF data so it would be consistent with the digital images, but EXIF data is read only so I can't see a way of doing this.  I could put the data in custom fields but then it would only be accessable in IVMP and not on other apps such as Lightroom and Photoshop which I also use.  I could also put the data in the Instruction field in free text but then I wouldn't be able to select images based on one of these variable (eg looking for Kodachrome 64 images which enlarge particularly well).

Any suggestions?

Many thanks

John

[peterkrogh]

John,
I put most of this stuff in custom fields. The custom field is a single-value field, so it works well for stuff like film format or camera model where there is only one value.  Once you make the fields, you can drag multiple images to the entry at one time.

I put my neg page numbers in a custom field as well. The name of my image file reflects the neg/slide page.  So Krogh_BW_1234_36 is frame 36 on neg page 1234.

If your numbers are significantly larger, you might want a different arrangement.

Peter

[John Whittington]

Many thanks Peter.

Is the info in the custom fields only available in IVMP or can it be read by other apps?

Regarding numbering, all my slides are coded with a two letter code followed by a five digit sequence number (eg AX00456) in red in the top right hand corner of the slide.  This scheme predates your book by 20 years so it wasn't worth changing.  It also works well - if they come out of the slide page or you have to send them somewhere they can still be clearly identified.  Most of my negs however aren't yet scanned so thanks for the reminder that I should use the page/frame numbering scheme for them - that will make that job a lot easier.

Thanks again

John

[peterkrogh]

John,
First, formats - The custom fields can be embedded.  They can also be translated by scripts like Beardsworth's.
If you want to make the information more universally available, you could put it in keywords, but the advantage of custom fields for info like this is that all images will have an original format, and no image will have more than one original format.

This can help you make sure you assign one and only one original format to each image.  Of course, it would be easy at some point in the future to select all images with in the "35mm transparency" custom field and assign the keyword "35mm transparency".

As to name, as I say in the book - if you've got a name scheme that is already in use for film, keep using it.  I'd keep that image number as the filename, or perhaps a portion of a filename.

Peter

[John Whittington]

Thanks again Peter.  I should have thought of that (that I can create a keyword based on custom field values at any point if I need it).

And yes, my existing name scheme (ie two letters followed by five digits) is the file name - it also has other benefits such as you don't need much space to see the complete ID, it fits in an 8.3 short file name format, and I can insert up to 26 images (for those times when extra slides are found somewhere!) between sequence numbers just by adding a letter in the the 8th character position.  So it's great for slides but I think your suggestion is far superior for negs.

John