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TutorialGather • Tag • TaggingBrowseBoxes/StoriesShare

Tags—Unlimited Descriptiveness!

Basics

Tags allow you the freedom to catalog your photos in meaningful ways—and it is so easy to do, you'll actually love to tag photos!

Ever try to organize your photos (or your closet)? Maybe by being creative with naming folders on the file system? Or making creative names for the photos themselves?

Or worse, copying photos to more than one place? Yecch. Well, we were as tired of this as you probably are.

Unlike forced hierarchies that don't work, simplistic keywords or simple captions that are too feeble, our tags are sophisticated mechanisms for maintaining semantic clarity.

Once you learn how to create tags, you can go wild with tagging everything in sight! The art of tagging can make it easy to tag 1000s of photos quickly. Of course, the payoff is in being able to browse your photos in ways never before possible — both on your computer and on the Web.

For each photo, you can add useful information in the form of Who, What, and Where tags. You will then be able to find photos with any combination of these tags.

To help make the most out of your tags, we recommend the following guidelines for deciding what tags to create.

who_32 Who tags–for the people in your photos. Well, you can include pets as well as fictional characters. You can even add an email address for the people.
where_32 Where tags–for where the photo was taken. Generally a place with a fixed location (GPS coordinates). Something that might appear on a map. You can add a URL.
what_32

What tags–for all sorts of categories. Something you would find in a thesaurus. You can also add a URL.

when_32 When tags–automatic for the date the photo was taken, though you can create your own if needed.

Basic things you can do with tags:

Make
  • Click on Make Tag: newTag.png, select tag type and enter tag name.

  • Or, select some photos and start typing the tag name.

  • Or, double-click on the dock background.

  • Or, right-click on a thumb to allow for creating a When tag.
Edit Right-click on any tag. Change properties (name, e-mail/URL, icon).
Delete Right-click on a tag, choose "Delete."

Making Tags

You can create new tags using one of three ways - you will find the method that best suits your own style. You can create tags ahead of time, or just as you need them whilst tagging photos.

  • Select multiple photos in preparation for tagging them all with a new tag that you are about to create.

Tag Chooser Style

  • Simply start to type the first few letters of the tag.

  • You should see the Tag Chooser pop up.

  • Choose the proper tag type.

    tagChooserWhere.png

  • Press Enter to create the new tag.

    tagChooserListing.png

  • Now your selected photo(s) get that tag.

New Tag Dialog

  • newTag.png Click on the Add Tag button.

  • Be sure to select the tag type (Who, What, Where)

    addTagDialog(who

  • Enter name of the tag

  • Enter additional information (e-mail, URL, icon, etc.)

Contact List

  • Your Who Tags form the beginnings of a contact list.

  • The e-mail address is used when you share your photos with friends.

  • Your friends will receive an e-mail notifying them to look at the photos you just shared.

  • You can convert email-only contacts into Who tags from the Share dialog.

Double-click on Dock Background

  • Double-click on an empty area of the Who, What, or Where "Docks"

    doubleClickOnOpenAreaOfDockForNewTag.png

  • This will bring up the "Add Tag" dialog (see above)

Creating a When Tag

To create a when tag, you must right-click on a thumbnail:

whenTagFlyoutMenu.png

You can then use the date dialog to create an appropriate date.

popupDateCalendar.png

Edit Tag

Right-click on a tag in the dock to bring up the Tag dialog.

Edit the information, add or change the icon; and select "OK" to save (or "Cancel" to abandon edits).

While editing a tag, you can choose a custom icon or a photo with that tag.

  • Icon Library
    • Select from the available icons, chooseIconButton.png

      For example, for What:

      chooseWhatIcons.png

    • Add one of your own (of type jpg, gif, png), addIconButton.pngor

    • To get more icons, please visit Wacky Pixel for numerous inexpensive and fun icon libraries!

    • Enjoy: whoTagWithIcon.png customIconPinkWho.png, and for Where:

      chooseWhereIcons.png

  • Photos/Regions
    • Select from any photos or regions you have tagged with the current tag

      chooseRegionForTagIcon.png

    • Resulting in a custom tag:

      tagWithRegionAsIcon.png

Lots of Tags

When you have many tags on a dock, you will see scroller buttons appear on either end of the left.png dock right.png. Click these arrows to scroll and see more tags.

Delete a Tag

Right-click a tag, press deleteTagButton.png button.

  • You will get a warning dialog to confirm delete.

    deleteTagConfirmDialog.png

  • If the tag is currently in use as part of a browse (by being selected/pressed in on the dock), the warning dialog will also include:

    deleteTagConfirmDialogWhenUsedInFilter.png

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TutorialGather • Tag • TaggingBrowseBoxes/StoriesShare