I was testing trial version, now I am considering to buy PRO version. But first I would like some advice ( my last bought softwer didnt work out for me, and customer service not responding so I dont want to make same mistake again).
I have about 180 GB of old images ( even 20 year old) and trial version did find about 30 000 duplicates. Everything is mixed up and my plan is to get rid off all duplicates and after that sort images by Year and Month.
It is very important to me that I dont erase images that are not duplicates.
After doing scans, I can see I have on average about 4-6 duplicate photos. Some of that Photos have Exif date/time taken so I am sure that this is real time of the photo. Sadly some photos do not have this data becasue I copied them or they were sent to me
My goal is to end up with (1)best copy of all images - original photo ( that has date taken info), or next best thing ( the photo dont have date taken info). I have few questions:
1. Is it best option to go to IMAGE MODE, than chose "Very close match" in IMAGE SIMILARITY. I choosed "Find rotated", "Find Flipped" and "Same ascept ratio", and did not choosed "Same dimensions". IS THIS OK SERACH CRITERIA, WITHOUT FEAR OF DELETING NOT DUPLICATES?
2. When I find all duplicates I have doubts of my preffering to Mark. I know i need to choose "All but one file in each group", but I am confused about "Preferring to mark". So if my goal is to keep only one copy of each photo I understand that my first preference should be choosing "Date/Time Taken" but I dont understand meaning of "Lowest/ blank" And Highest/ non -blank difference. Actualy, I understand "blank/ non blank" difference ( I think i sholuld choose blank if i want to delete photos without date), but I dont understand "Highest/Lowest" diference? That is my question- in case of photos where at least one copy has "date taken" info- should I choose "Lowest/ blank" or "Highest/ non -blank" and what is meaning behind "Lowest/Highest"?
3. In case of photos that dont have "date taken" info, which preference should I choose? I was thinkig that "Newest date modified" is my best bet but I am not sure if this is best approach? I think this way I can keep photo with oldest date modified ( if that photo doesent have date taken info).I think that there is a good chance that "date modified" is my best bet dor photos without "date taken" info, and "date created" is useless for my needs?
I will post picture of how to I plan marking photos for my needs (I think that "Date/ time taken" criteria and "Newest date modified" should be ok to keep photos with date taken, and If photos dont have that info, i would keep "oldest date modified" with this two criteria. If this is not good approach, please correct me.
Marking images confusion
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DigitalVolcano
- Site Admin
- Posts: 1731
- Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2011 10:04 am
Re: Marking images confusion
In answer to your questions
1 - that's ok. You may get some false positives in a large set of images so always check everything before deleting and ALWAYS HAVE A SEPARATE BACK UP FIRST!
2 - Highest/lowest just selects whatever every field you've choses alphabetically (or numerically).
3- Date modified is usually reliable. Date created is often misleading (i.e. it changes when a file is copied, etc).
Generally
-Have a back up first.
-Check everything in the preview before removal
1 - that's ok. You may get some false positives in a large set of images so always check everything before deleting and ALWAYS HAVE A SEPARATE BACK UP FIRST!
2 - Highest/lowest just selects whatever every field you've choses alphabetically (or numerically).
3- Date modified is usually reliable. Date created is often misleading (i.e. it changes when a file is copied, etc).
Generally
-Have a back up first.
-Check everything in the preview before removal