Each picture when shot with a digital camera contains extra information, like the date the picture was taken, the picture size, the type of camera, the camera settings, etcetera. This data is also known as the EXIF data and is invisibly stored in the compressed image (usually of jpg format). In some cases also the GPS location is stored.
PictureFrame Wizard is able to extract this information and use it to determine the date label for that picture. In the 'Explorer' tab the overview of a picture folder is seen, and when a picture is clicked, the basic picture date information is shown on the right side of the screen.

 Left: double-click on the explorer will show all picture details

When a thumbnail is doubleclicked, the picture viewer is started and all available EXIF data is shown. Use the button on the top to sort the viewer to 'Date' (oldest picture left-top), 'Name' (alpha-numerical sorting), 'Pixel size' (width x height) and 'Size' (file size).

The 5 steps for date labeling

In the tab 'Picture frame' the controls to set and position the labels are found. The following basic 5 steps must be taken to define, position, set and run the date labeling for a folder of pictures.

Step 1: open the folder that needs to be labeled.
Click on the tab 'Explorer'. By selecting the folder in this (tiny) explorer, or via 'File |Open folder' , a directory of pictures is selected and loaded. In case 'File | Add folder' is selected, the new folder is added to the thumbnails in the tab 'Explorer'. When a thumbnail picture is clicked that piicture is selected in the 'Labeler' window (and tab). Please note that when landscape and portrait pictures must be labeled, the user needs to do the labeling twice (once for each orientation).
Note: for practical purposes (CPU usage, slowing down the process) the amount of pictures should not exceed 10,000.

Step 2: select the dimensions of the picture frame.
The easiest way to find the dimensions of the pictures in the picture frame is to select the Manufacturer and the Model from the drop-down lists.

The size is automatically preset and shown in the two boxes. In case the model is not available, manually 'override' the settings and fill the pixel dimensions yourself. This is a very important step, since all consequent actions depend on these pixel dimensions. When the 'Manual size' tickbox is checked two pop-up windows will appear to indicate the width and heigth of the picture frame in pixels. When unchecked the current model preset size is selected again.

Step 3: select the font.
First select a font and then increase of decrease ('A' buttons) to find the best size. The other buttons are used to align the text on each picture. From left to right: top, bottom, left, center, right. The last buttons are pressed to Bold, Italic, Shade or Outline the text. The shadow can be moved to right-bottom with the two little arrows (these are located in the 'Text' box, see below).

Step 4: define the text content.
The only predefined text is the date of the picture. The 'pre-text' and 'post-test' edits can be used to add additional text to each picture, such as 'Norway' or 'Bitihorn climb'. The date format is chosen from a pre-selection from the drop-down box. The text is live-updated in the labeler window to see the effect. Note: the quality of the text in the preview window is slightly degraded to allow for quick live-update. The quality of the text in the final picture is of hight quality of course!

The colors of the font can be selected by pressing on the colored square. The default is white (head) and black (shade). The shadow can be moved with the little arrows on the right.
In case you only want to label the current picture, don't forget to also check the box 'Only label this picture'.

Step 5: start the batch and save the pictures
By pressing the button Start labeling' the batch is started. You are prompted to indicate where the pictures must be saved. Make sure the original files are not overwritten. The size of the picture will exactly match the size of the picture frame. This way the amount of pictures can increase from 10-50 times more than when original pictures are used to load the memory chip of the picture frame. Do this for landscape and portrait picture separately.

 The save dialog asks where the labeled picture must be saved

By default the files will have new names to avoid accidental overwriting of the original. The name is compiled from the original name with an extension. The default extension is '_Framed', but you can select any extension you wish (or no extension at all). In the tab 'Settings' the checkbox for 'Turn off "file extensions"' determines if a file extension is used. This file extension is turned on (= unchecked) by default.

For safety reasons (avoid overwriting existing files) this setting is not kept at application exit, you need to manually set this extension each time you start the application.