Quick Way to Uniformly Crop Large Number of Racer Headshots

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StevenLawyer
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Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2013 4:00 pm
Location: New Virginia, IA

Quick Way to Uniformly Crop Large Number of Racer Headshots

Post by StevenLawyer »

If you've ever pre-registered racers and had the photos sent to you for use with a racing program (I use Grand Prix Race Manager), then you'll appreciate this tip. You know the problem: some photos are the tight headshot for which you are looking, others are head and torso, and yet others are full body. You can spend a long time cropping all those photos. Here's how you can use Google's Picasa 3 photo software to do it for you, using its facial recognition function:

Save all the racer pictures in a folder. Download and install Google's free program, Picasa 3. Start Google Picasa 3. In Tools, select “Folder Manager” and remove all folders from scanning--this will delete all recognized faces. Make sure there are no folders in the main Picasa window. Then, under File, select “Add a Folder to Picasa”. Add the folder containing the racers photos. On the right side of the add screen, select to scan once and make sure face detection is on. When the scanning is complete, above the folder name on the left hand side of Picasa will be listed “People” with “Unnamed” under it. Click on “Unnamed” and then, in the upper right corner, click on expand group. You will see that you now have nicely cropped headshots of each of your racers. Select all of the headshots (Ctrl-A), and, under File, select to “Export Picture to a Folder.” Save your pictures to the desired folder for later import into Grand Prix Race Manager. They will have the same file name as the originals, but be properly cropped tight headshots. Now you can import into your racing software.

One other nice little tip: If I'm running a race for another group, I have them send me an Excel spreadsheet that Grand Prix can import into registration. I have them just put the photo name for each racer (e.g., "dsc003.jpg") in the "Image" column and send me the photos. After you have done the above to get the photos changed to headshots, you can quickly append the folder path in the excel spreadsheet. Add a new column adjacent to the "Image" one. In the cell in the new column adjacent to the first row below the headers, enter an equals sign, followed by your full path in quotes, followed by an ampersand and the cell reference for the adjacent cell containing the photo file name for that racer (e.g. ="c:\temp\headshots\"&H2). Press enter. Then drag the plus on the lower right corner of the cell downward to clone it for all the racers. Now do a save as to a csv file. Open the csv file and you will find that the new column now has the full path content, instead of the linked reference. Give the new column the appopriate header ("Image") and delete the original column. Now you can import into your racing program and your photos will come along!
Steven Lawyer
Pack 119
New Virginia, Iowa
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FatSebastian
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Re: Quick Way to Uniformly Crop Large Number of Racer Headsh

Post by FatSebastian »

Thanks for joining DT to share your expertise, Steven! :welcome:
StevenLawyer
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Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2013 4:00 pm
Location: New Virginia, IA

Re: Quick Way to Uniformly Crop Large Number of Racer Headsh

Post by StevenLawyer »

Thanks. Glad to join you guys!
Steven Lawyer
Pack 119
New Virginia, Iowa
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