Hi All, congratulations to both Norma and Jennie on their achievements. I recently finished taking pictures in a large cemetery. 23,000 people and 16,000 pictures. I labelled the pictures in groups of 1000 and suffixed each batch with a letter. So I had pictures labelled a001 to a999, b001 to b999, c001 to c999 etc. etc. up to s001 to s999. I missed the letters "o", "l" and "i" as they could get confused with the numbers. I used the freebie program from the net called "IrfanView" to do batch renames. There are several freebie programs on the net that will do batch renames but I used IrfanView. It takes a minute or two to rename 1000 pictures, it's a bit slow but it's quicker than doing them one by one. I used a $10 program from the net called "EasyImage Batch" to reduce the picture files to around one third to a quarter of their original size. It will also reduce the picture size while it is at it but I didn't use this feature. This allowed me to keep the pictures large but the file sizes small. I download the pictures from my camera card, rename them and then reduce the file size. It is much quicker to download the pictures from your card using a card reader than to do it straight from the camera. You by-pass the camera program thus making it quicker. In the last month or so I've tried well over a hundred programs and these are the two I use now. IrfanView is also excellent for viewing thumbnails of pictures if you are looking for that particular picture of Auntie Mollie. I have no connection with either of the programs or their makers. I'm just a satisfied user. With the graves facing East. What I did was to knock up a framework out of an old aluminium flyscreen, bought a silver car sun shade from the $2 shop and fixed the sun shade to the frame. Hey Presto. A large size reflector that gives a soft light. It's extremely light, at a guess 100 to 200 grams, so it's likely to blow away with the wind. Awkward to use on windy days. I knocked up a wooden easel for it but found it was too much trouble. It was easier to hold it with one hand and take the picture with the other. I had trouble viewing the camera screen in daylight so I made up a hood for it out of a piece of plastic pipe and some rubber plumbing fittings. You can buy hoods for your camera but they cost around $70 and don't work too good. If anyone wants to discuss anything or wants pictures of what I've done contact me off-line. I'm working on converting databases to HTML at the moment for web sites and CD's/DVD's. Yours, Garry Batt. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jennie Staines" <jsbuick8@bigpond.com> To: <australia-cemeteries@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2010 7:54 PM Subject: Re: [AUSTRALIA-CEMETERIES] Footscray cemetery > Subject: [AUSTRALIA-CEMETERIES] Footscray cemetery > Norma wrote: > Hi thought I would let you know I am nearing the end of taking photos at > Footscray if any one is after any I have over 6000 names quite a few that > are not mentioned on the disk regards Norma > > Just wanted to congratulate Norma on such a huge undertaking. Very > impressive and valuable work which would be especially appreciated by > those > who have ancestors buried in Footscray. More power to you Norma ! > I am a member of the Australind Family History Society (WA) and last year, > we set up a project to transcribe thousands of monuments/headstones in the > older sections of the Bunbury General Cemetery (WA). We have had > tremendous > co-operation and encouragement from our local Cemetery Board. I undertook > to do the photography (a big learning experience / graves which face East > / > weather conditions / dealing with shadows / damaged or mutilated monuments > / > hard to read text / capturing text obscured by icons, floral tributes, in > locked glass cabinets/ missing grave markers / solving little puzzles > etc). > I've taken about 12,000 images so far - sometimes necessary to take 2 or > 3 > pics of the same burial plot for clarity and to cover all memorials on a > grave. The headstones come in all shapes, sizes, and condition. It is > quite > fascinating to appreciate the range of memorials at a cemetery. They > generally give information not available elsewhere - except maybe in death > notices in the newspaper. They also document such a lot of social change > and burial practices over many decades. Personally, I have enjoyed the > experience - and we hope to conclude our project by the end of 2010. > > I can appreciate the hard work you have achieved Norma - we did not find > it > easy working out how to display a numbering system which allowed us to > immediately match up an image with an individual gravesite i.e. to > differentiate one grave from another - - and also facilitated easy > location > of each and every burial plot in a large cemetery. I found the most > time-consuming part is re-naming each image file captured - after > downloading from the camera card - in order to quickly identify one photo > from all of the others. Our File Names indicate Denominational Section - > all known grave occupant/s - name of Cemetery - and so on. However, it is > well worth it to have this handy reference when we are requested to search > through the images. Our local Funeral Director sponsored the cost of our > camera and equipment - when we lobbied for a method to record the personal > MI -Monumental inscriptions - at our local cemetery. We simply realised > the > value and importance of the personal memorial information commissioned by > a > family for the grave of loved ones, when linked to family history > research. > It is in fact, hidden heritage, and largely 'missing' from our official > death and burial records. Our Group celebrates their 25th Anniversary > this > year - so we feel that the M.I. transcription database and complementary > photography undertaken at the Bunbury M.I. Cemetery Project is a fitting > way > to record and remember ancestors and to celebrate that facet of Family > History in our district. > I also expect list members are making full use of the digitisation of the > old newspapers by the National Library of Australia 1803 - 1954 to gather > information of deaths, funerals, obituaries and in memoriam notices. > Website has been available since July 2008. > Either: www.trove.nla.gov.au (umbrella search for all types of docs) > or 'beta' newspapers at: http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home > > > Good luck with your future endeavours. > AFHSoc MI Project Co-ordinator, Jennie Staines > Bunbury WA 6230 > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > AUSTRALIA-CEMETERIES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

I too have found Irfanview a very useful piece of software for batch processing of large numbers of photos. And being free is a real bonus for such a useful tool. Kerry