Batch Photo Upload

Ellington allows for the delivery of batch files of photos into our database via either FTP or WebDAV.

Uploading Photos using FTP

Example: Photographers using PhotoMechanic which only supports FTP batch upload or use an FTP client rather than WebDAV to access templates.

Your Ellington username and password will serve for the login info for the FTP location. Example: username@sitename (omit the .com or .net)

NOTE: The user will need to either be an Ellington SuperUser account or have the permission set “auth|can access webdav”)

For photo uploads, client would need to update their local photo program to the FTP information we’ve given them, such as:

For Mac User using Cyberduck

Clients can upload photos directly from their computer into their FTP or WebDAV client. They will need to upload them into the folder /photo_upload. Ellington checks the /photo_upload folder and loads files once every 5 minutes. 

Batch Upload photo_upload

NOTE: These will be imported as photo objects only; not cropped photos. If photos do not import correctly, they will be moved to the /fail folder (see below)

Batch upload Failed folder

Troubleshooting

If a photo isn’t the correct format (jpeg, png, gif), photo will be placed in a folder labeled “Failed”. To troubleshoot failed photos, you should attempt uploading the photo directly into Ellington’s Photo application in the admin. If this still does not work, there may be an issue with the photo that is preventing this. If it goes in, the importer may be having a problem with that image and should be reported to Ellington Support.

Photo Attributes

Batch Photo Upload tool will grab photo properties from the image itself to tell Ellington more information about the photo. The following properties are listed below, including their fallbacks:

  • width = ImageWidth
  • height = ImageHeight
  • credit = Credit
  • caption = Caption-Abstract (falls back to ImageDescription)
  • creation_date = DateTimeOriginal
  • pub_date = DateTimeCreated (falls back to DateTimeDigitized or CreateDate)
  • reproduction_allowed = Based off settings, default is True
  • status = Based off setting, default is Draft
  • photographer = Parsed from Artist (falls back to By-line) and used if StaffMember found
  • one_off_photographer = Parsed from Artist (falls back to By-line) and used raw if StaffMember not found

Note: Photos uploaded via batch photo upload are sorted in the database by the creation date declared in the image’s EXIF data. For example, if you upload an image on January 1st, 2013, but the image was created on October 17th, 2012, the image will be given a pubdate of October 17, 2012. To find an uploaded image you will need to search /admin/media/photo for the image’s file name or use the date filtering tools to drill down to the photo’s creation date.

Example: Using Photo Mechanic

Batch Photo Upload should work with any photo editing program that supports FTP delivery. Included is an example screenshot of Photo Mechanic as it is the most widely used in newsrooms. Clients will need to have the FTP path and username/password to enter into Photo Mechanic.

NOTE: Setting configurations may differ from version to version, but it’s pretty straight forward. What has been found that worked throughout testing is making sure the passive connection box is checked before sending photo.

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