Tropy for Research Photo Management: Add Metadata and Notes

Tropy is shipped with the following metadata templates: 

• Item templates
  • Tropy Generic 
    • the default template. It intends to provide a basic framework that applies to many kinds of research materials. It is sufficient for many users.
    • It contains 10 fields. 
  • Tropy Correspondence
    • It is intended for correspondence, a widely used type of source.
    • It incorporates elements from the Tropy generic template, and adds two more fields - Recipient and Location. It has 12 fields. 
  • Dublin Core
    • it contains 15 fields. 
• Tropy Photo
• Tropy Selection

DMC has created two customized metadata templates for exporting metadata to Zotero for citation purposes. Install them if you plan to cite your images using Zotero.

• Zotero Letter
  • It's for exporting Tropy Correspondence items to Zotero for citation purposes. 
  • Download link: Zotero Letter
• Zotero Manuscript
  • It's for exporting generic Tropy manuscript items to Zotero for citation purposes.
  • Download link:  Zotero Manuscript

To install the customized templates, first download them, then open Tropy -> Settings -> Templates -> Import (down arrow), then follow the onscreen prompts.

Select the best metadata template:

• If you plan to export Tropy items to Zotero to take advantage of its automatic citation generation, it’s recommended to use one of the customized templates created by the DMC—Zotero Letter or Zotero Manuscript.
• Otherwise, select a template from Tropy that best suits your needs - you can customize. 

Switching between metadata templates:

You can switch between different metadata templates without losing any information; this is helpful when finding the best option to suit your project.

• Select an item/photo or a few items/photos
• From the Metadata pane, choose the template from the template dropdown menu. 
• When you change the metadata template for an item, whether from a template with more fields to a template with fewer fields, or vice versa, you won't lose the data you've already input. For instance, if you switch a template from Tropy Correspondence to Tropy Generic, you won't lose any data in the fields of Recipient and Location. 
• If your current template does not include certain fields that you have previously input with another template, those fields will display in italics to show you that the data is not lost, but it is not part of the current template's metadata structure.

Add metadata immediately to the last imported photos to ensure you remember where they came from. The default metadata template is Tropy Generic. You can select multiple or all items in the Item Table and bulk edit the metadata in the right-side Metadata pane. This is handy for items with the same basic information, such as Archive, Collection, Box, Folder, Type, and Identifier. You will input item-specific metadata later.

The Rights field at the bottom of the Metadata pane is to encourage you to fill in copyright information for every single item. Input the rights or permissions documentation you may have signed or you can add a link to the institution's or collection's rights policy. This good research practice will make things easier later on if you plan to publish your work. In our example, we put "Rose Library is not the copyright holder of the material within the John Biggers papers. The Michael Rosenfeld Gallery is the copyright holder to at least some of Biggers’s work and may have information on the specific item. They can be reached at INFO@MICHAELROSENFELD.COM. Rose Library Permissions and Citations page contains a guide on how to cite materials from the Rose Library's collections. https://libraries.emory.edu/rose/research-learning/about-our-research-services/permissions-and-citations". This example is lengthy, but more is better than less.

• Click to select an item in the Item Table (middle pane).
• In the Metadata pane, enter the document's individual information, such as Title, Creator, and Date. 
• The Date Added and Date Modified will be automatically populated by Tropy.

When you select Zotero Letter as the template and enter the metadata, your item will appear as shown below. The fields in italics (Box, Folder, Coverage) are data previously input using another template; they are not part of the Zotero Letter template but are still displayed.

You may have multiple images of a single item/object (e.g. a multi-page letter). To combine multiple photos that belong to the same document,

• Drag and drop: drag a photo on top of another photo to combine them into one item, or
• Right-click: select the photos you want to combine, right-click, then select "Merge selected items" from the drop-down menu

All the photos within an item will share the same metadata. If you have previously input other metadata, like titles, those will be moved to notes attached to each individual photo, respectively.

To separate multiple photos in one item, right click over the item -> Explode item. 

Edit photos: Tropy includes basic tools to improve the legibility of your photos. You can rotate images, change the brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation of the images. You can also invert colors to reverse the colors in a negative way, such as microfilm. If you drag the slider on the Saturation all the way to the left, you get a black and white photo. 

Create a selection of a photo:

• If you'd like to highlight or analyze a small portion of a photo, use the Selection Tool (dashed rectangle) on the photo editing toolbar. Draw a rectangle on the photo for the area you want to select. It appears nested underneath its original photo in the Photos pane.
• This is particularly useful when working with newspapers, maps, details of fine art, etc.
• You can rename the selection and add notes to it.
• The selection will share the same metadata template and metadata as its parent item (i.e. if you change the metadata template, you are changing the parent item's metadata template; if you change the value of a field such as title, you are changing the parent item's data.)

Changes to photos:

• Tropy does not modify the original image files. Any edits or transformations that you make in Tropy are just layered on top of the original images. They are saved in the Tropy project file, not the image file itself. 
• If you want to save a copy of this photo with the changes (e.g. rotation, saturation; note: selection is not considered a change that can be exported) as a separate file, you can right-click over the file -> Export photo…

To take notes on or transcribe the content of a photo, open the item to view the image and begin typing in the Note pane beneath the image.

• Notes are automatically saved.
• Notes have to be attached to an item/photo.
• You can't create a standalone note like you can in Zotero.