Digital Photography

[Richard111]

DW received a Kodak EasyShare P725 7" picture frame veiwer for a birthday present. Works a treat, makes your own pictures look much better than viewing on the computer screen even if they are smaller.

So I was entrusted with creating a slide show (boy, are we going to bore our guests ).

The on board memory can store 4,000 pictures!!! Can you imagine trying to step through 4,000 pictures to find the one you want to show???

So, having a spare USB flash drive to hand, (who hasn't? ) which can be used on the viewer, I set to and created a slide show that works fine on the computer, but when I loaded it on to the flash drive and looked at it through the viewer, the slides did not appear in order I wanted.

The viewer has three display modes, random, sequential and single step. It is the sequential mode I want. Looking at the slide show on the computer and the pictures display in the order of loading, fine, but on the viewer some of the pictures do not show up at all in sequential mode but will show in step mode! I'm baffled.

Reading the destruction manual and I am informed the sequential display is in date-order of the pictures. Looking at the pictures on my computer picture edit software I see each picture has a "Shot Time" indicator which does not always agree with the "Picture Taken Time" shown by Windows XP Home file folder veiws.

Does anyone know if it is possible to edit the embedded time on a digital photo?

[Mike Davis]

Richard:
Right click properties on the file and see if there is an option there!
I just got the wife a Digital photo book as we wanted a portable method of showing photos! That way we can bore people in their own homes!
As for playing with this new toy! I will leave that up to wife so she understands how to work it!!!

[Richard111]

Thanks Mike, been there. A couple of pictures have been resurrected from old web pages of mine, the originals are lost, and these pics have NO embedded date stamp and show up last on the slide show when they should be first. Other pictures have the wrong date stamp because I ran out of battery power and never reset the date/time before taking some pictures.

Unless the picture sequence can be controlled this toy will end in the junk box.

[Mike Davis]

Try using a photo edit program to save them in a separate folder in the order you want them to appear. By saving them as a different name you might rearrange the time stamp. Kathy does a lot with music files and changes the properties. I just opened a photo in my computer and was able to modify the date taken on some pictures! Right click photo and select properties. Select details and highlight date taken, that allows the date to be changed!

[Richard111]

(06-14-2010 04:58 AM)Mike Davis Wrote:  Try using a photo edit program to save them in a separate folder...

That's what I've been doing. It's my photo edit program that shows the date stamp. The date in the folder does indeed change if you edit and resave the picture, but not the date embedded in the picture.

Have had a reply from Kodak. Not able to check it out yet as my laptop video processor packed in and it's now in the repair shop.

Kodak says don't use numbers, use letters, i.e. AA, AB, AC, .. etc. will let you know if it works when I get my laptop back.

[Mike Davis]

Richard:
I was able to do the change in Windows vista using system explorer. I do not have more than the basic Windows photo gallery. I made the change at the file level under file properties.

[Richard111]

(06-17-2010 04:51 AM)Mike Davis Wrote:  Richard:
I was able to do the change in Windows vista using system explorer. I do not have more than the basic Windows photo gallery. I made the change at the file level under file properties.

I have XP Home and it won't let me do that. I found the AA, AB, naming did not make any difference.

After making a list of the slide show and recording the sequence shown it does appear to follow the "Date Modified" list. I can change that date by making a small change with the photo edit package.

First attempt, doing the change on the flash drive, did not work.
I will redo the whole slide show and ensure "Date Modified" sequence is valid and copy the lot to flash drive and try again.

[Mike Davis]

Well! Richard:
I have Vista Home premium and maybe that is why you do not find a details tab under photo properties in Windows Photo Gallery. Or it may be just regional differences. Sorry I could not help!

[Richard111]

No problem Mike. Thanks for trying.

To confirm my last post; "Date Modified" is the controlling factor.

What I do is collect a copy of all the pictures I want for the slideshow in a temp folder on the PC and rename or number them in the order I want. Then I open each picture in turn with the photo edit program and make a small change, like add some text or crop etc. and save. This updates the "Date Modified" entry for each picture in turn. Copy all to the USB flash drive and plug into the frame viewer and check display sequence is what I intended. It usually is now.

There is a problem with this. If I make a mistake or want to add a new picture into the slide show at a later date I have to re-edit just about the whole show. Very irritating.

I will let Kodak know their clever picture viewer needs work to make it more user friendly.