It has been a while since I uploaded a large batch (i.e. more than a few obs.), so I don’t know what might have changed.
What happens is even though I have the correct spelling of a taxon in my Title/Object field, some show up blank. I think “Formicidae” was one of them, and there were more than one or two different ones in a batch of 80-something images. When I clicked in the field, it brought up that family, and subfamily. Sometimes it showed a couple of unrelated taxa that happened to have the same word. Ok, I guess I get that, but why does that happen to unique ones? I’ve already spent several weeks on these, and having to redo some of it in a screen that isn’t easy to deal with is time-consuming. At least if they were all together in the front of the line, it would be quicker to go through.
Is there something I can do that will avoid this? (I was going to try smaller batches this time but that was how many there were for this higher classification–thought I’d try doing batches that way since I’m also having trouble with the editing software.).
The other thing is I wish that the images would appear in some order (or allow sorting–it seems like they don’t even come in in the order that I’d selected them for upload) so that it it’s easier to combine images for one observation. I had one that was the first, and for some reason the associated image (which was actually a variant of the original file) was at the end. With 80-something, I had to drag the last one up a couple of rows, then repeat until I got to the top. Sometimes I can zoom the browser view out to squeeze more in but there were too many this time. And I prefer to see things in the order that I took them, at least to start with so I can compare in vs. out if I need to (which I often do, if at all possible).
Again, if there’s something I’m missing in the process, please advise.
I’ve never uploaded more than about 8 records at a time, certainly not dozens. I recall that errors can happen with big uploads, perhaps due to internet connection problems.
I think you’d need to share the exact photos with us so we can take a look at them, if you’re OK doing that. And you’d have to share them via something like Google Drive, Discourse strips metadata from images if you post them here.
Are you dragging and dropping files, or using the file picker?
Can’t help you with a solution I’m afraid, but I have experienced the same problem with uploads of more than, say, twenty images at a time. Now I’ve changed my workflow and upload just a couple of obs at a time which seems to work OK.
And if you are like me, you can add “mostly due to human limitations”! I can’t cope with too many uploads at the same time without mixing them up or forgetting something. Sometimes less is more and chi va piano, va sano.
I use Firefox on High Sierra and I don’t think I’ve run into this. I drag-and-drop and the files appear in the same order they were in Finder, usually sorted alphabetically.
For adding taxons, are you waiting for the drop-down to populate and then clicking the one you want to use? Or are you moving to the next observation after typing it in? I’m under the impression you have to click to assign the ID, even if you already typed the exact name.
I generally use Chrome in WIndows 10 and the uploader does routinely move the order of at least one pic so that it isn’t in alphabetical order by file name. It’s just something I’ve come to expect/account for.
Looks like I need to use the file picker and select from the most recent capture date/time to the earliest, for them to show up in ascending capture order, in the batch upload window anyway.
It didn’t work to order the drag-and-drop.
@tiwane
It seems to accept what I’ve already typed into my metadata (Title/Object) in my software prior to uploading. When there is what it thinks is an ambiguous name, it leaves that field blank and I have to click in it. One of those was Hyalophora euryalus. Another was a plant in which I had the genus, and the suggestions that it came up with after blanking that field were a couple of plants but also a totally different taxon (crayfish with no matching text in the name). For this particular situation I want a human to evaluate, so I’m not picking from the list. If it’s going to do that when it doesn’t agree, is there a way to make it use what I have and not blank it? Or at least make it use the correct taxonomic category?
When I was still using Lightroom, I’d put the known taxon name in the Title or whichever field I used, but I also had (for my info/finding my photos) other metadata (keywords) that were higher taxonomic levels for that particular observation, e.g. Insecta and/or Lepidoptera for that moth. But I found that made the uploader use those instead of the species name. So I did something else. Photo Mechanic has some fields that don’t get included so I’m using those.
I tested a couple that I remembered the taxon names coming up blank in the upload page. I made screen prints. If by wanting to see the files it’s the metadata that shows up in the Windows Explorer file properties, which looks like it’s the fields that I selected for Capture One to include for metadata in the jpg export and that I typed in, I can show you that (or the xmp file). Or I can put the exported files where you can access them.
It takes me a lot of time to edit and enter the metadata, especially when I have to look up the name of something I know but can’t remember or want to check the spelling. Maybe I should just plug in some higher level just to get them in, but either way I want the IDs in my metadata. I can make lists in PM for some of the fields so I don’t have to type them in each time, so I’m working on that.
I too have species/family (and other) information in my metadata, but I find it’s easier to add this AFTER I’ve uploaded the photo to iNaturalist, so the iNat database becomes a lazy way of checking and if necessary copy/pasting difficult to remember spellings .
I’m even lazier - I don’t label my photos at all, except to put them into folders that are labeled by date and location. I figure if I need that one good photo I took of a skink, I can filter my iNat observations to find the date of observation, then go to my photo folders to find the original photo. But then, I didn’t really start taking photos and saving them until I stumbled upon iNat.
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