Idea to speed up photos even more!

[Dominic Maricic]

I just finished fixing special for you in 3.1 which I'll release to you beta guys shortly. I think you'll be really happy about how it works for keyboard shortcut guys!

[David A. Andersen]

Oh, Thank You,Thank You,Thank You,!!!!  ;-)

Can't wait!

[Bob Elliott]

Looking forward to it.

[Dana Bostick]

I'm liking some of these ideas but....Since I annotate my photos directly on the photo, it eliminates captioning within the report.  This really speeds up the photo section.  No keyboarding at all, just mouse clicks to assign the pic to the proper section and sub-section. I can blow through 50-60 picks in a few minutes.
This may be a bit much or not work for those that do not complete their reports on their desktop but here is my sequence.

In the office:
1. I start the inspection on the desktop in the office. Sync to Tablet.
On-site:
2. Always take the first pic of the front of house since this is the cover pic.
3. Walk around doing the inspection and taking lots of pics as needed. No particular order. If I'm inspecting one area and see something unrelated, I just snap a shot.  The pics are really just a "visual" notebook. I grab "macro mode" pics of any equip. labels. I frequently do not even take the computer out of my bag on-site. I will, occasionally, take a few written notes about critical issues but find I rarely need them, the pictures I take tell me the story.
4. Debrief the clients on-site, collect payment and leave.
Back in office:
Sync tablet back if I even used it during the inspection. If not, just return to previously started report on desktop.
5. Dump pics from card to computer, resize and fix any exposure issues or cropping if needed.
6. Open batch in Snag-It Editor and annotate with text and arrows/circles etc, save to Job Folder/Edits.  This is the folder that gets "batch added".
7. Open report and enter info as needed while my pics are open on the other screen to use as visual notes. (I have two 22" monitors)
8. In "add photos" section, I add the entire "edits" folder as a batch, un-checking the box to keep the first slot open since my first pic is always the front of house.
9. Run though the tabs and using mouse only, assign each to the correct section and sub-section. No captioning needed since I did that on the pic.
10. Generate report, proof check for errors and correct or save. DONE
11. Send report to client. If it is a morning inspection, they get it by end of day.  Afternoon inspections get it the next day by noon.

This whole process only takes me about an hour or so on-site and another hour or so in the office to complete unless it's a really big house. Then maybe an hour and a half each.
This is also possible since I usually only do one inspection per day.  I'm old and lazy these days and not interested in busting my ass any more. ROFL

[Bob Elliott]

Dana you lost me on why running your pics through a third party software such as snagit is faster than doing so after batch add directly in HIP.
I tried that with snagit and other photo edit softwares just for a different looks years ago but it certainly is not faster and actually takes longer so do yourself a favor and just edit in HIP to get faster.

If there is a reason you feel snagit is faster please let me know and I will do the same in my Serif ,photoscape,or Photofiltre software.

[Dana Bostick]

Hi Bob,
I'm not really all that concerned about the speed. I'm more concerned about the quality and the markup.
I don't do my reports on site.  I like to use snaggit editor because it provides me with more options for the markup
and on-picture captioning. Putting the actual text on the pic with arrows pointing to the relevant item or part makes it possible to
add more than one label to a pic if needed.I know it's an extra step and that takes a little more time.  This is offset by not
needing to add text to the caption line in HIP.

[Bob Elliott]

OK I see where you are at.
I use to be the same way.
Actually I add captions faster in program than outside it.Same goes for arrows,circles,text,etc.
My process is same as yours but over the last few years evolved to using photo captions as physical location descriptions only since the actual text comments do that for me in comment edit.
I also use the program that I keep trying to tell you guys about called Active Words which allows me to shortcut words, sentences,paragraphs that are frequently used.
This allows me to keep my right hand on the mouse to use dropdowns as I type one handed with the left.

The only thing faster might be to slot on mobile ahead of time as I take the pictures.
The issue there however is picture quality as I use a very good camera and look is important.

[Dana Bostick]

Got It!  I use Dragon Naturally Speaking 11.5 extensively when actually writing the reports.
On my desktop computer, it can type faster than I can talk.  I've gotten very good at "voicing"
comments on the fly.  This newest version of Dragon works sweet!  I was having some problems with the older version
and decided to upgrade to 11.5 and that pretty much handled all issues I was having.  

Using 10.5, I had to cut and paste from the dictation box rather than work directly into HIP.  10.5 would frequently crash
when trying to interact directly into HIP. Using the dictation box was an extra couple of steps that was inefficient
and slowed me down.  Now I work directly into HIP.

In fact, I launch Dragon first thing in the morning and keep it running in the background all day and use it almost everywhere
I need to comment or enter text such as here.  I grabbed this latest version of Dragon from Amazon while it was on sale.
It even included a new headset.  The only downside to using Dragon all the time that one can get a bit rusty with their typing skills.
I even have a voice to text application running on my Bionic Android phone that allows me to speak rather than type text messages.
With all this "assistive technology", we will soon become so dependent on it that we will not be able to function without it.

It's sort of a corollary to the old joke about "How do you silence an Italian?  Tie his hands behind his back!"

[Bob Elliott]

You hit dead on why I stopped using dragon.
Plus how do you listen to padora then?

[Dana Bostick]

As mentioned, the newest 11.5 version seems to have handled the issues.  It works fine directly into HIP comments fields.
No more cut & paste.  On sale at Amazon for about $50.

[Bob Elliott]

Does it work with the TV or radio turned up?....
Plus I have a hard time talking with food in my mouth...haha.
Seriously you were correct that it erodes your typing skills and that is a bad thing now that we all use many different devises during the day.
My previous comment was made while hitting Dunkin Donuts for instance.

[Dana Bostick]

LOL, I have the microphone hot keyed and usually remember to turn it off when it's not needed.
I say usually because sometimes I forget and find it typing away a phone conversation or trying to
make sense out of my dogs barking and howling.  The best thing about using Dragon is that it can actually spell!
My spelling isn't that bad but I have a few bad typing habits like using "teh" instead of "the" that I'm finding very hard to break.

[Bob Elliott]

Good thing about the spelling issue is after about 1,000 reports you already know all the common words.
Plus Active words has auto correct.(counterpoint)

[Dominic Maricic]

Dana, you can add text onto a pic as many times as you want and do arrows in HIP. What does snagit add for annotations that HIP doesnt?

[Dana Bostick]

Hi Dom,
Part of the reason I use it SnagIt Editor is familiarity.  I've been using it a long time and am very comfortable with all of its features.
It is also very flexible as to what annotations I use, be it single ended arrows, double ended arrows, circles, ovals, boxes etc. as well as being able to change line thickness, color and position/orientation very easily. I am also able to select various fonts and then use Bold/italic/underline if I wish. It also has transparency and overlay capabilities that I use for my infrared work.  I can take a digital picture and overlay an infrared picture, adjusting its transparency so that the underlying picture still shows through but the problem area shows up via the infrared picture. A straight infrared thermogram can be rather cryptic and difficult to understand if one is not trained to interpret them.  This way the digital image provides a reference for the infrared image that illustrates a thermal anomaly that would not be visible to the naked eye.

There is even a feature by which I can make a particular area a "hotspot" that when moused over pops up a link that can be clicked to step out to another Web page to look at for additional information about that particular thing.  Of course this is something I don't use in my reporting but have used in my web work.  I totally understand that as a small part of the overall program, HIP's picture editing functions are not likely to be as complete or flexible as a dedicated program would be.  It's just me.  I'm a geek and I like geek toys.

[Dominic Maricic]

HIP does all of that except double ended arrows and the hotspot feature. We've had the IR overlay for a few years too.

[Dana Bostick]

Well Cool, I'll have to check it out.  Been doing it this way since way before HIP.

[Dominic Maricic]

I understand. You should at least try it out though!

[Cameron Anderson]

Hey Dom, I just now got this change to the way the drop down categories work.(I hadn't yet upgraded past 3.1, I just got 3.2.3)  I thought there was an option to turn the automatic drop downs on and off.

When I type the keyboard shortcut on the main category the sub category isn't automatically opening like before. How do I turn the automatic drop down on again?

[Dominic Maricic]

After you hit a keyboard shortcut, hit enter and it should auto open the sub.