CLPEX Chat Board

When performing any digital enhancement of a latent print, we include the Photoshop Edit Log in our case file. A question came up today and I was hoping to hear some opinions.

Any camera will obviously name an image based on its nomenclature (DSC_1234 or IMG_1234). I like to change the file name of the image I am using to whatever latent print I'm calling it. For example, if there are several crime scene images or lab images of a latent print, I'll chose the best one and rename the image L1 (or whatever number I happen to be on for that case) .CR2 or .NEF. I realize that even though I'm not changing the content of the image, I am changing it, sort-of. Does this change need to be documented in Photoshop via the Photoshop Edit Log )or elsewhere) or is it such an insignificant change that it doesn't need to be documented anywhere?

Is that the only instance you have of that image?
It's sort of difficult without knowing your procedures from capture to storage.
But one thing you can do that will preserve the original file name in the metadata, is to import your images from the card using Bridge. In Bridge, if you go to File>Get Photos from Camera, a dialog box will pop up. Go to the Advanced Dialog and select the device to get them from (you could even test this with some files on a flash drive). Select your files, create a folder to send them to on your computer, and check "Preserve Current Filename in XMP." There are other options such as custom renaming of the files you can do too. You could also create a custom Metadata template with different fields as well as just entering the photographer's name (this will end up in the metadata).

But once you've done this, the original filename will stay with the image, even though you change the name. But you'd probably want an original, untouched, image to refer back to. It all depends on how you have your procedures. But this is one way you can preserve the original file name in the metadata.

Thanks for the reply Steve. I heard from your appearance on the Double Loop Podcast a couple of weeks ago that you are getting DataWorks for your imaging archiver. We currently are using DataWorks (have been for the last eight years) and the images that I use are always pulled from DW so the original file is always preserved. I don't include that original file copy in my case file but it is always retrievable should it be necessary.

As far as the Bridge import, by the time I get the request (and learn that images exist of the latent), they have long been downloaded in to DW. I just wanted to make sure that I wouldn't be 'hiding' something by changing the file name even though I could still articulate that the actual image isn't being changed. I wasn't even thinking about another, original image, still being available to compare (which, I just thought of this---does changing the file name change the MD5 hash of a file?) that with the changed file name.

If you are using DW now and have any questions, let me know. We've used it for the last eight years and have encountered almost every type of error thusfar. I will say that they have been really good about correcting any issues from its discovery.

If it wasn't your agency using DW, disregard.

We are getting DW, but aren't using it yet. So I'm not sure how the workflow will go once put into play.
If you're going through DW, how do you change filenames on raw files?

DW does a silly thing when you upload the images. We take both raw and jpg with the camera so we are uploading both types of files. As you browse through a case, both images will be displayed. The original file name is preserved within DW but as soon as you export it, it assigns a seven-digit string of numbers as the file name--that's one of the silly parts. You can still find out what the original file name is (was) but looking at in within DW. I'm not sure about the picture CD program that exports with the images, however. It's designed to be plug-n-play for attorneys/investigators so they can stick the CD or DVD in their drive and have a UI similar to how DW looks at the input station. I don't know for sure what attributes are displayed on this CD or DVD but I know for sure if you annotate each image, that will be displayed as well as the the case information that got entered at the time of upload.

The other silly part is if you export one image at a time, you can export the raw file without issues. If you attempt to export all, you will only get the jpg version, but twice. You'll get it slightly compressed and greatly compressed. They are all given the same seven-consecutive digit string for a file name. The normal size of the camera-captured jpg is around 6-8MB; the ones that get extracted with you select Extract All are usually around 2MB and 300K. I still don't know why this is doing it except that if you are extracting all of the images, you are probably just viewing them anyway and not using them for comparison purposes.

When I extract the images from DW, rather than saving and referring to each image as 79864561.cr2, I'll export it then save it as L1.cr2. It's easier to refer to (shorter sequence) and it makes more since in keeping track of what image goes with what lift.

When you get the system in place, I'd be happy to talk with you about some of the other (MINOR) issues we've had and the work-arounds for them. I also don't know which version you will be getting. I think we have 2.17 (but don't quote me on that). It's possible that in later versions, they have fixed some of the issues that we've come up with. We've been fortunate enough to with with Todd Pastorini on this and his IT folks have been really good VPN-ing in to the machines to correct or update as necessary. The audit trail is amazing and you can set almost any permission for any user which is also a great thing.