Thanks to both of you, @wayne_j and @luotz. Your replies show that there are still some details about that photo sequence on the Edit observation page that need clarification. It makes sense that the thumbnails would be arrayed by their assigned sequential iNat photo ID. In an ideal world, that should correspond to the sequence of the photos I intend at upload, whether from original (metadata) filename, user-supplied filename (attached during offlline cropping and editing), or iNat user-supplied sequencing at upload. But these three ID categories will commonly array a set of images in different alphanumeric sequences. Let me see if I can illustrate this with an oversimplified example:
Suppose I take five images in the field of a sunflower plant. I’m careful to capture details of what might be important for identification (flower array, flower close-up, leaf array, leaf underside, whole plant). In the field I take these images in the following sequence: (1) flower array, (2) flower close-up, (3) leaves, (4) leaf underside, (5) whole plant. The metadata for my little point-and-hope camera might assign filenames something like IMG_001 through IMG_005. So the metadata sequence from the above list would simply be “1-2-3-4-5”.
But in my post-processing offline, for convenience in a folder of observations, I assign the following filenames (Apples Photo calls these “titles”): Sunflower_flowers, Sunflower_close, Sunflower_leaf, Sunflower_under, Sunflower_plant. So in the file system on the computer, in alphanumeric order the set of images would be listed in the sequence “2-1-3-5-4” (from “close, flower, leaf, plant, under”).
At upload, I make the choice to array this set of photos in the following manner: whole plant, flower close-up, flower array, leaves, leaf underside. This choice results in the sequence from the above list as “5-2-1-3-4”.
After uploading the observation to iNat, the desired sequence is the last of these, and in theory, that should be numeric sequence of the iNat photo ID numbers and in the Selected photos panel on the Edit observation page. But is it??? What if iNat is actually assigning photo ID numbers based on the raw metadata attached to each photo uploaded (possible)? Or the alphabetic user-supplied title (unlikely)? What if the iNat photo ID number is just sequential based on which images complete the upload process by mere milliseconds (e.g. smaller images quicker, larger images slower)? (I’ve long suspected the latter is the case.)
Photo editing and processing is slightly simpler using the iNat app (iOS) versus doing uploads on my computer, but the concepts and resulting uncertainty are the same.
“The Devil is in the details!”
