Version

PHTOOLS by ANB

A bundle of small CLI tools for arranging, renaming, tagging of the photo and video files. Helps to keep photo-video assets in order.

Rationale

PHTOOLS is an instrument intended for photographers\photo enthusiasts who:

  • own tons of photo-video files and want to keep it in order
  • really don't like the way how digital cameras name the files: P1193691.JPG, IMP_1409.JPG, _DSC1459.ARW etc.
  • for photo storage prefer usage of traditional File System (folder structure) instead of "black box" databases of media managers (like iPhoto, Photoshop etc.)
  • would like to have date-time-original info in the name of the file
  • expects that sorting folder content "by name" will arrange photo-video assets in chronological order
  • for some events (wedding, holydays etc.) have photos from different authors and would like to keep visible author name (nik) in the file name
  • appreciate the use of internal metadata (EXIF, XMP etc.) beleiving it is the best way to keep context info of the picture
  • are Ok with the use of Command Line tools

Installation

Install for usage

  1. Get the latest ruby (>= 2.3) installed.
  2. Install ExifTool by Phil Harvey (http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/).
  3. gem install phtools
  4. Get list of phtools: phtools
  5. Get usage info for particular command: phls -h

Install for development

  1. Fork or download from GitHub.
  2. Install dependencies: bundle install
  3. Develop.
  4. Test: sh bundle exec rspec bundle exec cucumber ... or do testing automatically to get real Test Driven Development: sh bundle exec guard

PHTOOLS Use cases

USE CASE 1. Collect photos, videos, raw-photos from different sources into one place (for further processing)

Given

I have copies of SD Cards with photos, videos taken with DSLR camera on my Hard Disk in ~/Desktop/SDCard1 and in ~/Desktop/SDCard2.

And I have empty folder ~/Desktop/assets_staging (lets call it working folder).

And I want all the photo-video files from SD copies (including ones placed deep inside the folder structure of the SD card) to be moved to the working folder.

When

I run:

phls -R ~/Desktop/SDCard1 ~/Desktop/SDCard2 | phmove -a ~/Desktop/assets_staging

Then

I get all photos moved to ~/Desktop/assets_staging.

And all videos are moved to ~/Desktop/assets_staging/VIDEO.

And all raw photo-files are moved to ~/Desktop/assets_staging/RAW.

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USE CASE 2. Renaming files in accordance with PHTOOLS standard

USE CASE 2.1 Mass rename photos in accordance with PHTOOLS standard (and don't forget to backup before)

Given

I have dozens of photo-files in my working folder ~/Desktop/assets_staging.

And my friend Alex it the author of the photos (nikname ALX).

When

I run:

cd ~/Desktop/assets_staging
phls | phbackup | phrename -a alx

Then

I get all photos in ~/Desktop/assets_staging renamed according to PHTOOLS standard.

And I have all original photo-files are backed-up to ~/Desktop/assets_staging/backup.

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USE CASE 2.2 Rename photos back to it's original names

Given

I have several photo files in my working folder ~/Desktop/assets_staging renamed to PHTOOLS standard.

And I want to get all the files renamed back to it's original names (given by DSLR camera)

When

I run:

cd ~/Desktop/assets_staging
phls | phrename --clean

Then

I get all photos in ~/Desktop/assets_staging renamed to it's original names.

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USE CASE 2.3 Change author nickname in the filenames

Given

I have several photo files in my working folder ~/Desktop/assets_staging renamed to PHTOOLS standard. Some photos were made by ANB, some photos were made by Alex (nick ALE)

And I want to change the author NICKNAME ALE to ALX.

When

I run:

cd ~/Desktop/assets_staging
phls '*ALE*'| phrename -a alx

Then

I get all ALE photos in ~/Desktop/assets_staging renamed to ALX nickname.

And all ANB photos are kept unchanged.

Note. phrename is smart enough to let the user to run it several times on one file. Every time phrename -a invoked it overwrites information added by previuos phrename run.

==========

USE CASE 2.4 Adjust date-time in the filename

Given

I have several video files taken by iPhone in my working folder ~/Desktop/assets_staging renamed to PHTOOLS standard.

And I've found out that iPhone gives the wrong value to CreateDate tag (in my case the error is minus 2 hours to real time of creation). Because of that 'phrename' gives the wrong YYYYmmdd-HHMMSS timestamp in the filename. I want to get the correct date-time info in the names of video files.

When

I run:

cd ~/Desktop/assets_staging
phls '*.mov'| phrename --shift_time 7200

Then

I get all mov files in ~/Desktop/assets_staging renamed with correct YYYYmmdd-HHMMSS timestamp (+ 7200 second = + 2 hours than it was before).

PHTOOLS concepts

PHTOOLS Standard file name

PHTOOLS standard file name looks like this: YYYYmmdd-HHMMSS_AAA ORIGINAL.EXT, where

YYYYmmdd-HHMMSS - photo creation datestamp (year-month-day-hours-minutes-seconds). By default PHTOOLS use the value of EXIF tag DateTimeOriginal or CreateDate for this purpose.

AAA - author nikname. 3 character long, only latin alphabet supported.

ORIGINAL.EXT - original file name, created by digital camera.

For example, the digital camera photo file P1193691.JPG, taken by AndrewBiz (aka ANB), after PHTOOLS processing will look like: 20160902-174939_ANB P1193691.JPG