Application Guide

This page describes how to use the main features of the Naturtag desktop application.

Typically there will be three steps:

1. Select photos

2. Select an observation or species

3. Tag images

Note

Currently, the UI is meant for tagging one set of related photos at a time, but batch tagging features are planned for future updates.

Selecting Images

The Photos tab is the main interface for selecting and tagging images:

To select images:

• Drag & drop images or folders into the window

• Select files with the Open button in the toolbar (or Ctrl+O)

Mouse actions:

• Left-click an image for a fullscreen view

• Middle-click an image to remove it

• Right-click an image for a context menu with more actions:

Use the button in the toolbar (or Ctrl+Shift+X) to clear all selected images.

Selecting a Metadata Source

Next, you will specify an observation or species to use as a metadata source There are a few ways to do this:

• Use the Observation Browser page

• Use the Taxonomy Browser page

• Paste an iNaturalist URL anywhere (with Ctrl+V or the Paste button from the toolbar)

• Enter an iNaturalist observation ID or taxon ID

Tagging Images

Once you have selected images and a metadata source, click the Run button in the toolbar (or Ctrl+R) to generate and save image metadata.

Refreshing Metadata

In many cases, you might upload an observation with only a rough identification (order, family, etc.), and later get a more specific (or corrected) ID on iNaturalist. In these cases, you can use the Refresh button in the toolbar (or F5) to quickly update all of your selected images that have been previously tagged. When using Refresh, you can select images for multiple observations and taxa.

Refresh has the following behavior depending on the metadata source:

• For observations, this will update your image metadata with the latest observation details from iNaturalist, and fill in any additional missing information.

• For taxa, this will update your image metadata with any missing taxonomy information (for example if an image has been tagged with only a taxon ID)

Note

If you would like to use a different tool to add taxon IDs to your photos, and then use Naturtag to fill in the rest of the details, you can add it as an EXIF or XMP keyword in the format:

taxon_id:12345

Taxonomy Browser

The Taxonomy tab contains tools to search and browse species to tag your images with:

This can be used to search for any taxonomic rank (genus, family, etc.), not just species. Elsewhere in the docs these will be referred to as taxa (singular: taxon).

Once you’ve found the taxon you want, press the Select button to select it as a metadata source.

Basic Search

You can start by searching by name, with autocompletion:

Full Search

Or you can also run a full search using additional filters:

• Categories filters by iconic taxa (Birds, Amphibians, etc.). Ctrl-click to select multiple.

• Rank filters by taxonomic rank (Family, Genus, Species, etc.).

  • Select an exact rank, for example to search only for species

  • Or select a minimum and/or maximum rank, for example to search for anything between a species and a family.

• Parent uses the selected taxon as a filter, and searches within children of that taxon.

For example, a search for flies (Diptera) with ‘ornate’ in the name will look like this:

Navigation

• After selecting a taxon, you will see a list of its Ancestors and Children

• The Back and Forward buttons (or Alt-Left/Right) navigate through recently viewed taxa

• The Parent button (or Alt-Up) selects the immediate parent

• View on iNaturalist will show more details about the taxon on inaturalist.org

• Click on a taxon photo (or the thumbnails to the right) for a fullscreen view

Taxon Lists

The additional tabs next to search results contain:

• Recent: Recently viewed taxa

• Frequent: Most frequently viewed taxa

• Observed: Taxa observed by you, sorted by observation count

Observation Browser

The Observations tab displays your recent observations that you can to tag your images with:

The list of observations will update every time you launch Naturtag. To manually refresh, press F5 or click the Refresh icon in the toolbar.

Once you’ve found the observation you want, press the Select button to select it as a metadata source.

Photo Viewer

You can click any of the observation photos to open the photo viewer in a fullscreen window. You can use the Left and Right arrow keys to navigate, and the Escape key to exit.

Settings

See the Settings menu for some settings to customize the metadata that your images will be tagged with, iNaturalist info used in search filters, and other behavior:

Note

The settings in the Metadata section also apply to the CLI.

Image Directories

Under the File menu, there are submenus with shortcuts to commonly used image directories:

• Open Recent Will show the most recently used directories

• Open Favorites Will show the directories you have marked as favorites

Adding and removing favorites

To add a directory to favorites select Add a favorite from the favorites submenu. You can also Ctrl-click a directory from the recent submenu.

To remove a directory from favorites, Ctrl-click the directory from the favorites submenu.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Some keyboard shortcuts are included for convenience. These are listed below, along with the tab or screen they primarily apply to:

Key(s)	Action	Tab/Screen
Ctrl+O	Open file browser	Photos
Ctrl+V	Paste photos or iNat URLs	Photos
Ctrl+R	Run image tagger	Photos
Ctrl+Shift+R	Run image tag refresh	Photos
Ctrl+X	Clear selected images	Photos
Ctrl+Enter	Run search	Species
Ctrl+Shift+X	Clear search fields	Species
Ctrl+Left	View previous taxon	Species
Ctrl+Right	View next taxon	Species
Alt+Up	View parent taxon	Species
F5	Refresh observations	Observations
Ctrl+Left	View previous page	Observations
Ctrl+Right	View next page	Observations
Left	View previous image	Fullscreen image (local photo or taxon)
Right	View next image	Fullscreen image (local photo or taxon)
Escape	Exit fullscreen view	Fullscreen image (local photo or taxon)
Del	Remove image from selection	Fullscreen image (local photo)
Ctrl+Tab	Cycle through tabs	All
Ctrl+Shift+F	Add a directory to favorites	All
Ctrl+Shift+T	Toggle toolbar visibility	All
F11	Toggle fullscreen	All
Ctrl+Q	Quit	All