18th Jan 2008 by Mark Turansky
HOW TO: Download & sort pictures from your camera using Python
Filed under I’ve got tens of thousands of photos. When I last checked, the size on disk was over 25gb. And why not? Film is free!
How do I keep track of them all?
First, there’s Picasa from Google. It’s awesome. It’s the iTunes of photos.
Second, there’s a little Python script I called “DownloadPhotosFromCameraAndSort.py” (It’s .txt on the server, rename to .py if you download it).
If you couldn’t tell, I like meaningful names for my scripts. Likewise for my Java classes, components, projects, etc. Good code communicates it’s purpose clearly without too much human parsing.
The script does the following:
- Find my camera
- Download all pictures/movies to 1 or more destinations
- Confirm the download before deleting the picture from the camera
- Sort the pictures into a dated subdirectory based on the individual picture’s last modified time
The dated directories give me a running chronology of my life and the lives of my wife and daughter. It’s not a fancy archival system, but it’s simple and easy for me. It may work for you, too.
The archive looks like this:
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This is great - I was about to write one of these to compliment my existing application that makes finding and removing duplicate images easier. Since you did it I don’t have to.
Also, your altruism in sharing this with the world has inspired me to release mine as well:
http://www.mcdonaldland.info/2008/01/21/images/
Look out Picassa…