adding an image

[aramac 0]

Hi, I wish to add images (photos) into my TMG project, the images are on my pc running Vista, how do I go about it please.

Many thanks

[Terry Reigel 0]

Babs,

 

Images can be added as Exhibits. They, like any Exhibit, can be attached to People, Events, Citations, Sources, Repositories, and Places. If you are talking about photos of people, you would probably want to attach then either to a Person, or to an Event. Which you would choose depends on how you intend for them to be used.

 

If you want the photos to appear in the Image window in the TMG screen, they must be attached to People. Likewise, if you intend for them to appear in Box Charts, Family Group Sheets, or Pedigrees you also want to attach them to People. If you attach more than one to a Person, only the primary one will appear in these cases.

 

If you want them to appear in narrative reports or in a website built with Second Site, you may prefer to attach them to Events, or at least any after the first to Events. By attaching them to Events you can use the Sort Date to place the Exhibit in the location within the text that you have in mind.

 

Exhibits may be either "internal" or "external." Internal exhibits are stored within the TMG file system. This means they are automatically transferred when you move your Project to a different computer, and they are automatically backed up when you create a backup of your TMG Project. But, it also means that the exhibits, which generally seldom change, are included with, and inflate the size of, every backup. Most "experts" recommend you use external exhibits, which remain outside the TMG file system. Only a "pointer" to the image is stored in TMG. This keeps your backups smaller, and prevents multiple copies being saved should you attach the same image to more than one Person or Event. This does mean that you need to backup your images outside of your TMG backups, and you are likely to have to manage their movement to a new computer.

 

As to actually attaching them ... To attach an image to a Person, make that Person the focus in the Details window, and click the camera icon on the main toolbar. To attach an image to an Event, open the Tag Entry screen for that event, and click the similar icon at the top left of that screen. In either case, the Exhibit Log opens, preset to the Person or Event. Click the Add button, and navigate to the location where the image file resides, select it, and it's attached. You can click on Properties and add a caption if you like.

 

While you can leave external exhibits in various locations on your hard drive, it is generally safer to move them to a common location, or make copies of them in a common location. This much simplifies creating backups, and moving to a different computer. In any case, I almost always find I want to re-size, crop, or otherwise edit images I use as Exhibits, so I do that and save the edited image in my dedicated Exhibit folder.