To #39...

To me, that's a ridiculous scenario for a number of reasons:

1. I hope that you would configure RoboImport to your liking while you're not in such an exhausted, can't see straight, must-take-bath state. That would include not turning on its ability to clear your card if you so desire.

2. If you're PC really just got hit by a virus, that according to your scenario deleted or corrupted the files on your hard drive, you have a lot more to worry about than the fact that RoboImport did exactly what you told it to do. Why is this RoboImport's problem?

Did you know that your operating system comes with the ability to format your hard drive and a sharp knife has the ability to cut you? Are those things "scary"? I certainly hope not. They're simply tools that, when used correctly, solve particular problems.

That's exactly how you should view some of the features in RoboImport. Sure, they're potentially destructive, but as adults, we're supposed to be able to handle such things appropriately.

Considering such features as dangerous or "scary" is ridiculous. If you don't want to use them, simply don't turn them on.

My $0.02...

I pass this one... dont really trust programs like this one and btw there is some scary parts too...

Auto-erase the CF card, auto-tagged with GPS coordinates and more...

The scenery:
You come home from a long day of shooting 1st class photos. You´re so tired that you like to take a bath right away. But the photos have to be transfered to the PC... Your deadline is only 8 hours away, so getting some sleep first is out of the question.

Well, as a routined PC user, you know what to do... RoboImport could become your best friend ever... $40 is nothing compared to the 12 hours of shooting 1st class photos. Ohh... the bath, yeah, dont forget that you´re tired... as many times before you connect your camera to the PC and activate RoboImport.

Now you can take a good long bath and let the PC do all the work. After 20 minutes you return from the bath to the PC and you can see that RoboImport is done with its job...

BUT you can also see that there is something else... something very wrong... your PC have been hit by a virus... and RoboImport have just cleared your CF card, so in case that you cant backup your photos from the PC at this point then is all your work been lost !!!

#16 Tranmontane
[Of course, if I am wrong about this, I will get dozens of negative votes — but I will be glad to be wrong! Don’t think I am though….]

Just comment what you want to say.
Don't worry about the positive or negative vote count. If you peruse most of the past GOTD offers and the related comments to each, it is clear that some astute and sensible comments got plenty of negative votes.
And some dumb remarks got many positive votes.

Sometimes the audience does not really understand what you are talking about in the comments.

Don't forget that the positive or negative vote count may also be a reflection of the quality of the audience on a particular day about a particular topic in GOTD.

This is a specialised tool for photographers and not many understand its use. They would understand Daminion even less.

this might be why the picajet/roboimport site is lagging:

from http://daminion.net/company/about-us :

Daminion Software (formerly known as PicaJet.com), based in Stavropol, Russia, is a fast growing company which specializes in media document management software solutions.
The company’s flagship product, Daminion, is a low-cost digital asset management system (DAM) focused on small teams and featuring a revolutionary new platform and product structure, the software is based on experience gained from many years in the digital media management industry; PicaJet.com has been around since 1999. The company is also the creator of PicaJet Photo Manager and RoboImport, digital photo management solutions for photographers and designers.

FREEWARE: http://photoscape.en.softonic.com/video/photoscape-introduction-to-photoscape-209

giveaway version is RoboImport 1.2.0.72
roboimport website version Version: 1.2.0.66
so .... this is apparently an updated version

does what it says on the box and effectively

@ #30- nick after installing,don't launch program rather run activate from DL'ed folder. registers to giveawayoftheday single user.First stsrt says you need to register. Close,restart app-it now says registered.(Help tab>about)

First of all,a very prosperous new year to all concerned in bringing this progame to us today
I am a photographer and on using this I cannot see how this can be actually be worth $39,95, now if it came with a photo editor now you may be talking.
Thanks any way

@Rick #30: Did you follow the instructions to activate?

I highly recommended also to check out Daminion - the multi-user photo management application. Daminion Standalone version is Free.

I downloaded and installed, and it said "this is a 30 day trial" of the program. BIG DEAL -- I thought these were REAL programs w/o support and updates, but not just "trial" versions -- not worth the effort to download.

Surprisingly helpful in sorting some photographs from my daughter-in-law's camera and arranging them by the date taken. Now I know the age of my granddaughter in the photograph from the folder the photograph is stored in, like it! Sadly it is overpriced.

Because of all the confusion I see in the comments regarding loss of quality I conducted an experiment; I imported a photograph into an old version of paint shop pro and checked the properties before and after rotation, the file size remain the same, hence there is no loss of quality during rotation. The dimensions of the photograph did not change this, however, when it comes to saving many programs do not have an option regarding the compression. This means that the photographs are compressed yet again on saving, on the other hand programs that allow you to set the compression level mean that you can really save with no loss of quality.
Thanks #1 for some excellent links, much appreciated.

Downloaded and installed without problems on my Win7/64 laptop. Nice little program. Transferred, created 9 files (rotated a few pics)and created a destination folder for 83 images in less than 2 seconds. Offers the option to "Rollback" the transfer. Would be nice if it offered some editing options. I'll be keeping this program for awhile anyway. Thanks GAOD and PicaJet.

@Tranmontane – Looking at it for a bit, there is a setting where you can either leave the create and mod dates alone or set either or both of them to automatically match EXIF settings.

Thanks GAOTD - great app! If you understand the purpose of this app (no, it's *not* a photo editor) and you have a need for an extremely flexible photo file naming scheme and/or transfer task automation - this app may well be your ticket.

Most of the negative comments above seem to be coming from people who simply don't understand the purpose of the app or don't know enough about DAM organization to use it properly.

Overall, a very well designed and flexible app, yet simple to configure and use. Nice job PicaJet and GAOTD!

A definite thumbs up from me.

#22Fred3, read #22Janet. Lossless rotation is conditional upon dimensions.

This looks like a Festivus Season special, a couple of years too old.
But the program for these purposes you should use is WLPG, Windows Live Photo Gallery. It's a superb suite for managing and handling your snaps, and for minor editing. From Microsoft, available free.
It's just dropped its 2011 designation, so get to know it now for the likely new release in 2012. Highly recommended.

@Tranmontane - In looking at the web page, it says that it 'auto-corrects' the file create and modified dates based on the EXIF/IPTC date. That tells me that all of your modified files will have their dates reset to the date the picture was taken, hence putting it in the correct folder. Personally, if that is how the feature works, I would rather it leave the modified date alone so that I can easily sort the originals from the modified pictures.

#22

Fred, you know that JPEG format might lost its quality after each resaving. And if you'll open a JPEG image by Photoshop, rotate them and save - you will loss some quality. RoboImport uses JPEG loss-less rotating algorithm to avoid this.

The developer claims the following as a feature:

"....auto-rotate images losslessly..."

I don't know any software on earth that looses any quality when a rotation, of any picture in any software, takes place.
It is a turn off to even try it when a program claims such simple thing as a feature.

I generally snap up all the free photo editing programs here, but I am not sure I need anything automated. I prefer to edit online whenever possible - several FREE online editing sites at http://jimmohr.blogspot.com/2009/05/cool-sites-for-online-photo-editing.html

thanks GOTD - more photo editing programs please

i think the term a must have tool is not applicable to use in this program because it lacks of important tools used by professional photographers. I will pass on this.

I have to give this two thumbs up. Perfect timing for me as my mom's computer died and i had to extract all of her images ...she has 11,000 plus images and they're completely unorganized. Roboimport worked perfectly! Nicely organized folders by Year with subbed Months. I'm recommending this. If you do image/video recovery this is a must have tool.

I passed because I have two programs already that contain as only one of its features, ALL of this software's features, plus a whole lot more. This seems obsolete, and of limited value to actual photographers, who have had this type of program for years and programs that include editors, and other features not in this one. Reading the comments, and seeing the program's limitations, I will pass.
p.s.
Thanks for those links, some I did not know, and here's one for you:
http://thepluginsite.com/ - look around, there are all kinds of free filters and photo aids; also generates a newsletter, if interested.

Having recently returned from a six week road trip to the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Coast, I have quite a few photos that I have been converting to TIFF format from RAW, and some from JPG one by one. One set of over a hundred with the AWB set wrong was particularly a pain! I choose not to use photoshop, so creating an action there is a no go. Anything that helps me automate the basic tasks is helpful!

This seems to be for people who are more serious photographers, and there is need for products for us, who may be a more specialized segment of the market!

Downloaded and installed. But what I thought at first would be useful, seems could be a bit of a liability. At first sight, sorting photos into sub-directories with the date of photography seems useful. But, anyone who is at all advanced will inevitably want to tweak some of their best photos, before sending them off to friends. I don't necessarily do this for a couple of weeks, or even months.

And it seems that using this system for sorting everything I have shot so far, will end up with all the recent tweaks of older pictures put in entirely DIFFERENT subdirectories -- because it sorts by date! And newer versions obviously have a later date. I am investigating, but if this is the case, it will reduce it's value and utility to me, and I imagine some others who believe that some of their favourite pix need a dash more contrast, or an increase in the gamma. It is well to be aware of this limitation, or all your best pix will suddenly "disappear" -- to be found in another directory than the originals.

Of course, if I am wrong about this, I will get dozens of negative votes -- but I will be glad to be wrong! Don't think I am though....

Applications which provide the JPEG lossless rotation feature:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/gi/o.htmzi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=graphicssoft&cdn=compute&tm=132&gps=376_413_1004_566&f=20&tt=12&bt=1&bts=1&st=11&zu=http%3A//sylvana.net/jpegcrop/losslessapps.html

It is possible to do 90-degree (and 180-degree) rotations and flips losslessly, if the image dimensions are a multiple of the file's block size (typically 16x16, 16x8, or 8x8 pixels for color JPEGs).

I finally got a smartphone recently but when I put the photos on my computer, they are all sideways. With this I can change them all to vertical using the 'auto-rotate images losslessly' feature. Other than that I don't have a use for any of the other features and I definitely don't want my GPS coordinates in my exif data for the world to access. In fact, an option to batch remove exif data would have been a nice feature.

I tested this program for the purpose mentioned above and it did a great job. It not only turned all my pictures the right way but I didn't even have to tell the program which way the pics needed to be rotated. It somehow knew exactly which way to correct them! Lastly, it also put them in folders according to when they were taken so my Halloween pics were in one folder, Christmas in another, etc. (A good example of how exif data is helpful at times.)
Initially I was not excited about this giveaway but now I am very pleased an will be using this program a lot. Thumbs up!

Thanks to PicaJet + GOTD.
This is a specialised software for photography.
The stamping of GPS coordinates into photo can be useful.

On this GOTD page there is a link to Daminion beta - it looks like a solid product when completed.

@#3- at least it downloads this version!

@#3- they offer am e-book to suggest usage:

Working With RoboImport
by Ritchie Kilpatrick

83 pages, jusr £13 per copy- right side of the homepage.

oboy. whatta deal.

yesh, transfer with options only.

@Ken: there's a ton of other possibilities and suggestions at TechSupportAlert.com too: try

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-digital-editor.htm

@Ken: Try Paint.NET. There are lots of addons for smudge and other effects.

Thanks, Michelle. Question: does any free photo editing software that you know of have things like the smudging tool and "set transparent color" tool that Microsoft Photo Editor had? I tried using Photo Editor from an Office 97 CD in Windows 7, but it crashes repeatedly when I try to smudge something.

I'm the kind of person that tends to like KISS, and while this sounds interesting to try- I don't know how much I want done when I copy photos.

I don't even strain the freeware "Transferer" [Version 1.03.16 from 5 Dec 2005], which I offer as a lighter, simpler alternative at 588kb,

http://www.dataproductservices.com/arttransferer

plop into dated folders is about all- runs fine on XP.

This is a camera downloader and photo renamer - it doesn't have image editing capabilities except automatic loss-less JPEG rotation during the importing.

thanks GAOD
but i dont know how to use this programe
and what is it for .
it it just for photo transfer & not for editing

Hm, don't like it when app developers at least don't prepare or update their homepage before giveaway.
It's a bit messy, has older version info, "What's new" link triggers a file download instead of showing version change info, etc.
Seems like this software hasn't been updated for 2 years?
Didn't rate it as I haven't tried it yet.

Thanks to GOTD and publisher. Takes a bit of getting used to. Surprising number of features. Worth playing with just to learn, even if you don't keep it.

@Michelle, WOW! Thanks to YOU. Veritable treasure trove. HIGHLY recommend that anyone who ever works with photos check out those links. Wow. Thank you, thank you

Thanks a lot.

here are some useful links for photographers, includin` free software.

http://mashable.com/2007/07/23/online-media/

http://www.diyphotography.net/32-free-software-solutions-for-photographers

http://www.advancedphotography.net/20-free-tools-photographers/

http://www.irfanview.com/

www.vicman.net/lightartist/

FOR LINUX :

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
http://picasa.google.com/

Merry X-mas everyone :)