Organising ipad photos into folders

[alexh110]

I'm a very experienced PC user, and very computer literate; but even I can't figure out how to do this!
I know it's been covered on these forums before, and I thought I understood how it was done; but it's not working!

What I thought you were supposed to do was go to the photos tab in iTunes, check the "sync photos" box. Then select a suitable folder on your PC, and click "Apply".
I then expected it to copy all the ipad photos to my PC, where I could organise them into folders, and re-sync them to the iPad.

Unfortunately it didn't work, because none of the iPad photos appeared on my PC in the folder I'd selected. The only thing that did appear was a folder called "iPod photo cache" containing a 2 kB file called "photo database".
What am I doing wrong?

 

[Jockscrap]

I have my photos on my iPad in folders, using the following method. I created a folder on my pc called 'iPad photos'. In to that folder I created sub-folders eg, New York holiday, Summer 2011 etc, and copied the photos I wanted in to these sub-folders. After connecting my iPad to iTunes, I then copied this one main folder on to my iPad. The photos are all in their sub-folders in the photo app.

So the method is, sort them in to sub-folders on the pc first. If you want to make any changes to these folders (including deleting any photos), you need to make them to your main iPad photo folder you've created on your pc, and then re-sync it to the iPad.

 

[alexh110]

Ok, thanks.

The problem with that method is that the photos are currently on the iPad in Camera Roll.

I can copy them to my PC using the scanner/camera application built into Windows XP.
Then organise into folders as you said, and sync them to the iPad.

But then I end up with duplicate copies of all the photos on the iPad, because I'll still have the original photos in Camera Roll (all 2,000 of them), plus the new directories containing the sorted duplicate copies.

I can't be bothered to delete all 2,000 photos individually in Camera Roll, and I don't know of any way to delete them en masse.


I naturally assumed that syncing photos would be a two-way process, in which photos on the iPad would be copied to the PC folder I'd selected, and photos on the PC in that folder would be copied to the iPad. That way the folder's contents would be the same on both the iPad and PC (which is what synchronising means to me; but obviously that's not what it means to Apple!)

 

[Tim SPRACKLEN]

The trouble with this definition of synchronising is then how do you delete photos? So if, when I synchronise my iPad and PC I start off with identical photos on both. Now I delete a photo from my, say, my PC. When I next synchronise what should happen?

Should the synchronisation process - to make both the PC and iPad identical - copy the photo from the iPad to the PC, thus re-instating it? Both platforms would be identical.

Or should it delete that photo from the iPad? Both platforms would be identical again.

I don't think it's intuitively obvious which of the two scenarios above you'd necessarily want to happen. Maybe you deleted the photo from the PC accidentally, so you want to have it re-instated. Maybe the photo is of no value, so you want it deleted.

So a synchronisation process that makes both platforms identical is faced with what appears to be irresolvable issue.

Tim

 

[BobDenny]

alexh - Yeah, this was just one of the "really?" moments I've had with my $800 iPad.

 

[alexh110]

Well I figured out how to delete photos en masse:
1) connect iPad to PC
2) open Windows Explorer on your PC where you will see an iPad icon below the hard-drives
3) right-click on iPad and select "explore"
4) select all the image files in right-hand pane, and press delete

Alternatively you can right-click on the iPad and select "open", the click "delete all photos" in the left-hand pane.

That solves my problem; but I'm a little worried that the photos may lose their GPS location tags once I sort and re-sync them to my iPad.
Can anyone reassure me that the GPS data will be retained, as I find it very useful to use the "Places" tab on the iPad's photo app?


Tim: the reason for my confusion is the misuse of the word "sync" by iTunes.
Instead of saying "sync photos from <local folder>", it ought to say: "copy photos from <local folder> to iPad", or "duplicate photos in <local folder> onto iPad".
Otherwise most people will assume the sync is bi-directional (as it is for Dropbox).
It's very confusing for most users, because how are we supposed to know that the sync is unidirectional?

 

[alexh110]

Well I followed the method and it worked. The GPS data is still there.

The only problem is the video .mov files, whose preview-panes have been completely corrupted by the re-syncing process.
Presume this happened during the optimisation phase, and I wondered if there's any way to force iTunes to skip this phase? (Since the videos were taken on the iPad, they really shouldn't need to be optimised!)

Alternatively perhaps if I used Picassa this problem would be avoided? Has anyone tried it?

 

[Tim SPRACKLEN]

I agree with you entirely and I avoid iTunes like the plague. It's one of the worst programs I've ever come across. Apple should be ashamed.

Tim

Well I figured out how to delete photos en masse:
1) connect iPad to PC
2) open Windows Explorer on your PC where you will see an iPad icon below the hard-drives
3) right-click on iPad and select "explore"
4) select all the image files in right-hand pane, and press delete

Alternatively you can right-click on the iPad and select "open", the click "delete all photos" in the left-hand pane.

That solves my problem; but I'm a little worried that the photos may lose their GPS location tags once I sort and re-sync them to my iPad.
Can anyone reassure me that the GPS data will be retained, as I find it very useful to use the "Places" tab on the iPad's photo app?


Tim: the reason for my confusion is the misuse of the word "sync" by iTunes.
Instead of saying "sync photos from <local folder>", it ought to say: "copy photos from <local folder> to iPad", or "duplicate photos in <local folder> onto iPad".
Otherwise most people will assume the sync is bi-directional (as it is for Dropbox).
It's very confusing for most users, because how are we supposed to know that the sync is unidirectional?

 

[blucente]

^+1, I thought it was just me!

5.0

 

[Expidia]

Great thread. I had the same questions regarding creating folders. I've always hated itunes right from the start years ago with my first ipod!
It is the most user unfriendly program I've ever used. Glad to see others feel the same way.
I think itunes is singlehandedly responsible for users shying away from Apple products like a Mac etc.
Too bad too because I've found the ipad OS to be great.

I've saved this thread and will try the OP's steps as I too need to create a few folders and itunes was driving me bonkers when I tried to do it yesterday!