Customizing Photo Collector

Here are just a few things you can do to make life more organized and simpler... your way.

Screen Layout

How about changing the way your main screen looks and flows?
That's easy as pie...

• In the menu, choose View / Screen Layout
• Now choose one from the six available layouts

The Full Height Details is a nice one, especially if you combine it with the "Full Details Blue" template for the photo details.

The Classic layout works well for most people though, which is why I have selected that one as the "default" view.

Oh, I almost forgot: you can resize the individual panels too, just drag the dividers that separate them. This also resizes the photo size in the preview panel.

Templates

Most users like to customize the look of the photo details in the bottom. Here's how you do it:

• Right click the details panel and choose "Details View Template" from the popup-menu that appears. The menu will expand to show you the available layouts.
• Choose a layout and another sub-menu appears with the available styles for that layout.
• Now choose a style and the appearance of the photo details will change to your selected layout and style.

Personally, I like "Full Details" in "Black". Going back to the standard look is easy as well, just choose "Full Details", then "Blue".

Sorting, Columns and Folders

How about being able to list, sort, and group certain bits of information together so you could get to them instantly, just the way you like it? No problem at all. Here's what you do...

Let's start with sorting. "Out of the box", your photo list is ordered by Photo Date/Time, but of course Photo Collector lets you sort on any field, e.g. by Filename, Size...
How? Couldn't be easier, while on the list tab just click on the column header of the field that you want to sort on.

For example, if you want to sort by Filename, click on the header of the Filename column in the list. Instantly your list will rearrange, alphabatically by filename. Want it the other way around? Just click the header again to reverse the order.

Photo Collector even lets you sort on multiple fields, e.g. first by Photo Date/Time, then within each date ordered by Filename. It's a bit more complicated, but I think you will manage :-)

• Right click the column header of the list and choose Sort Order, then Choose Sort Fields.
• In the screen that opens, you can use checkboxes to choose which fields to sort on.

While we're talking about the columns in the list: of course these are configurable too. You decide which fields to show as columns. Just follow these steps:

• Right click the column header of the list and choose Columns, then Choose Columns.
• In the Column Field Selection screen, use the checkboxes to decide which fields to show as columns. Check the ones you want, uncheck the ones you don't want, it's as simple as that.
• Change the order of the columns by dragging the field names up or down.
• When you're done, click OK.

Ok, ready for the final (and most powerful) tip of today? It's about automatically grouping your photos into folders. It's powerful, but still simple... like most things in Photo Collector:

• In the menu, choose View / Folders, then choose one of the available selections, let's choose Event as an example.
• The tree panel of the left of your screen will show Event folders.
• Now click an Event folder and watch how the list on the right shows all photos in from that event.
• See how that lets you browse your photo collection by Event?

You can do the same with Year folders to have your photos separated into year folders. Or use "multi-level" folders, like the Year / Event example selection.

Don't worry about playing around with this, changing folder setting has no effect on your data, it's just a "view" setting. And you can alway go back to a simple long list of photos by choosing View > Folders / No Folders.