Help Photo Organization... am I missing something?

[elwray]

On my HTC Incredible, I'm having a bit of trouble organizing my photos. At this point, I'm not even sure what I'm trying to do is possible... so hopefully someone can confirm my disappointment, or [more hopeful] point me in the direction of a solution.

What I am trying to do is create convenient photo album folder hierarchies to be used in the default "HTC Corporation Photo" application.

I have been successful in creating individual albums on the SD Card root directory.

For example, let's say I have these individual albums:

-Car [pictures of my car]
-Motorcycle [pictures of my motorcycles]
-Trips [pictures from various trips]
-Work [pictures from various work related job sites]

Now, let's say I want to make it easier to index my Work photos, since there are photos from multiple job sites that are not related to each other.

The only way to do this I have found is create multiple albums at the same level. For instance:

-Mantoloking Well Drilling [work album]
-Marlboro Site Assessment [work album]

Now when I'm in the Photos application, I see these two albums in the SD Card section of the app, along with Car, Motorcycle, etc.

You can see how this would get cumbersome, if I end up organizing my Work photos into individual albums, or my Trips photos into individual albums. It would become very cluttered having all of these albums organized alphabetically in the Photos app.

I have tried creating "parent" folders, for instance:

-Work
---Mantoloking Well Development
---Marlboro Site Assessment

-Trips
---Ringing Rocks Park July 2010
---New Hope May 2010

However, when I then unmount the phone from the PC (organizing all the photos on the computer for the sake of efficiency) and open the Photos App, it seems like it ignores the "parent" folder and I am left with the same list of individual "child" album folders as if they are not contained in parent folders at all.

Is there any way around this, or is it just the way that the Photo app works?

Alternatively, are there any third party photo organization applications on the market that will accomplish what I am trying to do (hopefully with the same speed that the native Photo app provides)?

Thank you for any input!!

PS If this is the wrong board for this, please move it where it would be more appropriate.

 

[kayst]

It appears to me that it's just the way it works. If it finds a directory with pictures in it, it will display that directory in the list. I had my photos organized by year:
2010
-01-Jan
-02-Feb
etc
2009
-01-Jan, etc

It showed all the directories like this:
01-Jan
01-Jan
02-Feb
02-Feb

So what I did was leave the directory structure the way I had it for when browsing on the computer, and rename the sub-directories by inserting the main dir name at the beginning. This way it still lists all the directories in one big list, but they're in a good order:
2009-01-Jan
2009-02-Feb
etc
2010-01-Jan
2010-02-Feb

So, if you preceed all your Work subdirectories with "Work-" they'll all show up together. That's the best I've got.

 

[elwray]

Thanks kayst, that's what I figured. I'm going to have to play by its rules, I guess.

 

[elwray]

I renamed all the folders to sort of group them, and it worked out pretty well. Since the application does not care about parent folders, I was still able to keep stuff organized in parent/child directories on the SD card to make easier to move stuff around in ASTRO/on the PC.

 

[computerpro3]

Bump this drives me frigging insane. Would love a third party app that doesn't ignore folder hierarchy.

 

[stevegrady]

Quick question: I am using the HTC photo album widget. When I select the default folder as "Favorites" I get a message that says "seleced album is missing". Where is the "Favorites" folder supoosed to be and can I recreate it using an app like Astro?

 

[endorice]

I'm having all kinds of problems with photos. My phone refuses to see the pictures I've copied to my micro SD. I can browse to them with Astro, but Android refuses to find/index the pictures.

 

[elwray]

stevegrady, I haven't had good luck with the Photo album widget... after a while of playing with it I finally gave up and relegated the space to other apps/widgets. I feel like the photo album widget would be better suited if it would allow multiple backgrounds on each individual home screen, since it just takes up space otherwise. But that's just my opinion.

endorice, where on the SD card do you have the pictures saved?

I set up my photos under this hierarchy:

SD Card root directory\Photos\Photo Album Name\Photoname.jpg

The app, when displaying photos in albums, ignores every album except the immediate parent folder, hard to explain but it's what I was talking about in the original post.

 

[endorice]

endorice, where on the SD card do you have the pictures saved?

I set up my photos under this hierarchy:

SD Card root directory\Photos\Photo Album Name\Photoname.jpg

Mine are organized exactly like yours.

At first, most of the pictures were recognized. Then, some started "disappearing" from the photo app, but the physical file remained on the SD card. Now, the photo app doesn't recognize them at all. I can browse to, and pull up the pictures via Astro.

I think it's a bug in Android. I called HTC tech support, they were pretty worthless. I called Verizon, they suggested trying a different SD card. I just don't have time to fool with it.

 

[elwray]

Might be stating the obvious but did you reboot the phone? I know when I move stuff around on the SD card via the computer (when mounted), and I unmount and open the photo app immediately, it takes a while for the photos to reorganize themselves. Once I had it completely ignore the SD card as a whole until I restarted.

I never had it randomly stop displaying pictures though ...

 

[endorice]

Might be stating the obvious but did you reboot the phone? I know when I move stuff around on the SD card via the computer (when mounted), and I unmount and open the photo app immediately, it takes a while for the photos to reorganize themselves. Once I had it completely ignore the SD card as a whole until I restarted.

I never had it randomly stop displaying pictures though ...

Oh, yes. I've even pulled the battery. Haven't done a factory reset, too much of a PIA.

 

[elwray]

Really weird... I will play around with mine more and see if I can replicate the problem....

Could you explain the hierarchy you have?

How are you moving photos after they're taken? Are they stored on the internal memory or SD card when first snapped? I'm wondering if it could be an issue with file names.

I noticed that the IMAGxxx.jpg counts are independent when saving to the internal memory vs the SD card. Perhaps you ended up with two photos with the same file name, and when that happens it messes up the photo app?

 

[endorice]

Really weird... I will play around with mine more and see if I can replicate the problem....

Could you explain the hierarchy you have?

How are you moving photos after they're taken? Are they stored on the internal memory or SD card when first snapped? I'm wondering if it could be an issue with file names.

I noticed that the IMAGxxx.jpg counts are independent when saving to the internal memory vs the SD card. Perhaps you ended up with two photos with the same file name, and when that happens it messes up the photo app?

elwray - thanks for entertaining my issue.

These are photos that I've copied (via USB) from my computer. I've updated the settings on the camera to use the SD card (rather than internal), and most of those pictures are OK. Recently, a couple of pictures taken by the camera are "missing" now as well.

I have more than 100 pictures copied to the SD card. Exact organization:
/sdcard/Photos/01_SomeDescript/IMG_xxxx.JPG
/sdcard/Photos/02_SomeDescript/IMG_xxxx.JPG
(etc.)

 

[elwray]

Take a look in (if you're using astro):

emmc\DCIM

That's where pictures would be stored if the camera reverted to internal storage for pictures.

If you're connecting via a PC, it'll be the "other" (i.e. not the SD card external drive) drive. Then the DCIM folder should be right there in the root of the internal memory.

this is about all I can think of at this point .....