Linking pictures to reduce file size

[smillerdad]

We have a database of "pictures," actually scanned documents to replace paper filing. We have been importing the full pictures instead of links (linking seemed too dangerous) and have reached the 2 gig maximum file size within one month. I am exploring finding from multiple files (to retrieve documents) but if that doesn't work out :

1. I will need to get the existing pictures out of the db to make the single file workable. How can I get the existing pictures out and establish "references" for them without re-doing a month's work?

2. Change the default in the import picture window to "store only a reference to the file."

3. If the refrences get lost, is there any way to re-establish many at the same time. For example, Quark Express needs links to pictures and if they get lost and I find one in a folder the program asks if I want to re-establisk links to others in that folder. This risk of losing everything is the reason I put the pictures in the db to start with.

Any advise would be appreciated. The system works great but I'm stumped on how to continue to build it.

Thanks

[LiveOak]

There is really no good way to "get the pictures out" of FM. That is why (in addition to file size) we seldom store the pictures, only the reference.

The real answer to migratingting to this approach is to collect up all the source files and put them in one folder and use the Troi File plug-in to mass import all the references. If you also stored the file name in FM for each picture, this should be straight forward. If you didn't and there is no way to associate a file with a record, you will have to manually do so.

-bd

[helfire]

Actually there is a way to do this. You could Applescript FMP to copy out the image from a record, activate an action in Photoshop to create a new file (PS will create the new file based upon the dimensions of the image on the clipboard), paste, flatten and save as untitled.TIF etc, then tell FMP to set the name of untitled.tif to the filename of the current record. Saved me a lot of work doing it that way ...

As regards pulling data back in the Troi Graphic 1.1 plugin will create a preview image and allow you to open up the full image in Photoshop, Picture Viewer etc, or alternatively you could script Quicktime to create a Sorenson-compressed image from the orginal picture (good quality and VERY low file size).