Organizing similar slides for multiple shows

[JRR]

As I have mention in various others post, I have been working (for far too long )on a very large PTE project. It involves a Family Tree AV show with, at last count, some 85 individual PTE shows that "inter-link" via OBJECTS.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into, so I followed my usual procedure of having all 85 shows in independent folders, each folder having the images, sound file, pte and exe files for a particular show. I have always done that as it seemed to be a neat and tidy way to do it. That works great for standalone shows.

But in this case, I think it has turned out to be very problematic. I did not expect it at the start, but a good many of the slides/images (i.e. carefully constructed family tree with names and "branches" plus photographs) have turned out to be used in more than one show. With all that data entry via PhotoShop, you can expect to make some typos etc etc. The problem comes with correcting an slide/image - I had to determine where else I had used that slide/image, or a version of it, and ensure I copied the corrections into all the appropriate folders.

If I had used a single folder for all the images etc etc and have each applicable show draw the images from the "pool", as soon as I changed an slide/image all shows would fall in line. Of course in my case, that would mean a list of about 4-500 slides/images on the right (I mean LEFT SIDE! edited 9pm 03.10.23) side of each PTE set-up screen that I would have to search though for the images I want to use in that show.

I hope for your sakes no one else tackles what I have, but if you are building multiple interrelated shows with similar images, you might want to keep this in mind and plan a process before you start.

[think(box)]

I have pushed this a bit further, with several thousand pictures all in the same folder. And I prefer using the same folder to keep things straight, as it appears that you are concluding. My technique involves renaming the photos in groups to make the PTE slide list better for finding photos. By no means would you want to rename thousands of photos one by one. I suggest Bulk Rename Utility freeware. It is very flexible and easy to use first time and every time (no big learning curve). Click here for download page

One tip: If you have several thousand files in one folder Windows slows down in handling that folder. Do whatever operations you can in smaller sets in another folder and then just move or copy the files into the final folder.

[Ken Cox]

Bill, that link no go

so try

http://www.jimwillsher.co.uk/Site/Main_Intro.asp

ken

[think(box)]

Both links work for me. Thanks for the other one that goes to the main page of same site Ken. With Windows and the many ISPs who knows if anyone else will have link trouble....