Technical Notes                  

Installing IMAPI2 Disc-Burning on Windows XP

You can find information about installing IMAP2 on XP here. The XP SP2 link is about halfway down the page. For XP SP3, click on the "View and request hotfix downloads" link at the top of the page. (Apparently, IMAP3 for XP SP3 has not yet been thoroughly tested by Microsoft.)

IMAP1 is available in XP without an update, but it's unsuitable for ImageIngester because, among other things, it limits file names to 31 characters. So, ImageIngester uses only IMAP2.

Disc burning on OS X doesn't require an update.

Running as Administrator on Windows Vista

The easiest way to do this is:

1. Right-click on the Start menu ImageIngestrProBeta shortcut and choose Properties:

   

2. In the Properties dialog, click on the Shortcut tab and then the Advanced button:

   

3. Check "Run as administrator."
4. Press the OK buttons for the Advanced Properties and ImageIngesterProBeta Properties dialogs.
5. Grant administrator permission when prompted.

When you subsequently start ImageIngesterProBeta from this shortcut, you'll be promted for administrator permission, and then IIP will run as administrator, allowing you to read GPS data. You may have to repeat these steps each time you install a new version of IIP.

If possible, the requirement to run as administrator will be removed in a later beta version.

Accessing the ImageIngesterPro Database

See the User's Manual (link at left).

Raw File Types

The following file types are passed to DNG Converter: CR2, CRW, DCR, EEF, KDC, MRW, NEF, ORF, PEF, RAF, RAW, SRF, TIF, and X3F. In addition, the following types have been added in the following versions:

DNG: Version 2.2.03 (Mac or Windows)
ARW: Mac Version 2.2.04 or Windows Version 2.2.03
SR2: Version 2.3.01 (including all betas)

Camera Compatibility

There are two ways to get images from your digital camera into your computer:

1. Attach the camera to the computer with a USB cable or, rarely, with FireWire.
2. Take the card out of the camera and connect it to the computer with a card reader.

In both cases, ImageIngester can access the images only if the folders and files follow the DCF standard (offsite PDF), which nearly all cameras do. This is the folder arrangement you may have seen on the card that has a folder named "DCIM" at the top level.

Method #1 works with ImageIngester if the camera is can mount as a mass-storage (or removable) device, which many cameras can. On some, such as the Nikon D70, it's an option you set. However, if the camera connects as a PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol) device, then ImageIngester can't access it. If that's an option, then your choices are to set the option to Mass Storage (or whatever your camera calls it) or to use Method #2.

Method #2 is almost always a better choice, even if Method #1 works, because the transfer is usually much faster, you don't have to plug anything into the camera, you don't run down the camera's battery or risk it running down while you're ingesting, you don't forget to turn the camera off, and you don't tie up the camera. More importantly, Method #2 is the only practical method if you have several cards from a shoot. You don't really want to load them back into the camera to ingest them, do you?

The main reason for preferring Method #1 even when Method #2 will work is that the camera comes with a dock, perhaps one that also charges the battery. In this case Method #1 is actually the more convenient of the two.

A potential reason for not using Method #2 is that you don't have a card reader. They're cheaper than you might think: I use a SanDisk ImageMate 12 in 1, which takes just about every card made, and it costs only about $30. Readers that take fewer than 12 kinds of cards sell for even less.

The Leica M8 and some Canon SLRs (maybe all) support only PTP, so for these the only way to use them with ImageIngester is to remove the card (Method #2).

Launching a Viewer

On the Mac, ImageIngester tries to launch the viewer app so the folder that contains the newest ingested images is opened, and this works well for Adobe Bridge, and probably other viewers also.

On Windows, the folder name is supplied only for Bridge, but not for other viewers. I'm planning to supply the folder path for other viewers. Most likely, an option to supply the folder will have to be added to the Preferences panel.