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Creating and editing you own custom camera profile

We've made every effort to ensure cardWatch supports as many cameras as possible. However due to the lack of information regarding the file and directory structure on any given camera it's difficult for us to ensure we have all cameras. In fact, we only include those we have been told about.

So to get round this issue it's possible for you to add your own profile yourself. What's more, you can send your profile to us for inclusion into our database.

To setup your own profile enter the information below: -

Camera Manufacturer

This is simply the maker of your camera.

Camera Model

This is the model of your camera.

Folders

These are the folders where your camera stores it's images. These folders must NOT include any drive letter.

To find out what your folder is, take a photo. Plug your camera into your PC or the memory card into your card reader then in Windows Explorer (Start | All Programs | Accessories | Windows Explorer) find the drive you just plugged in.

In the next image, you can see Windows Explorer where we've browsed to, in this case, our memory card plugged into a card reader.

As you can see, to access the photographs (NEF files in this case) we need to navigate to: -

X:\DCIM\100NCD50\

Where "X:" means drive X and "\DCIM\100NCD50\" is the folder where our photos (the NEF files) are located.

So if we where setting up a custom profile for this camera then the folder we would add would be: -

\DCIM\100NCD50\

Remembering to start AND end the folder with a "\"

File Types

To get the list of file types your camera can create, you may have to refer to your owners manual.

Almost all cameras can produce JPG files so that's already in the list for you. You can delete it if you camera, in fact, doesn't create JPG's.

You should add each file type your camera can produce.

Some examples are shown below but remember that cameras do NOT do them all but rather do a subset. As we said previously, check your camera owners manual if you are unsure.

• Canon (CRW & CR2)
• Fuji (RAF)
• Kodak (KDC & DCR)
• Minolta (MRW)
• Nikon Raw (NEF)
• Olympus (ORF)
• Pentax (PTX & PEF)
• Sony (ARW & SRF)
• Sigma (X3F)
  
• Tagged Image File Format (TIFF/TIF)
• Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPG)
• Adobe (DNG)

Please be aware when entering your file types into the Custom Camera Profile dialog you must ONLY enter the extension. DO NOT INCLUDE the ".".

Once you're done entering your file types and folders, press "OK" to save the custom camera profile.

Finding The File Type

One note about viewing file types in Windows. By default Windows hides file types from you. This is actually a bit silly because it's easy to trick users into thinking a given file is one type when in reality it's another. This can lead to security problems for unsuspecting users. However that's another topic :)

To view file types: -

• In Windows Explorer go to the "Tools" menu.
• Select "Folder Options".
• In the dialog that appears, go to the "View" tab.
• In the list of tick boxes, find the box entitled "Hide file extensions of known file types" and make sure it's un ticked.
• You can now close that dialog by pressing OK.

From this point on Windows will no longer hide the type of file from you

Sending the Custom Camera Profile to Us

If you want, you can send the custom camera profile to us for inclusion into our Camera Database. Do do so follow these instructions: -

• Navigate to the cardWatch install folder. The default is "c:\Program Files\opcs\cardWatch\"
• In the folder you should see a file called "mycustomcameras.ini"
• Email us this file.
• You can find our contact information here.

We'll get the profile added to the database as soon as it's convenient.