Images - Annotating Images

Introduction

The Manual page Getting Started includes a section called Viewing Files - Tiff Images which explains the different image tools which may be used with Openlaw. Standard Windows Imaging and G360 Imaging for Windows have identical annotation features which can be used to mark .tiff images. Annotations might be used to make a comment on an image for others to see or, conversely, to blank out a section of the image so that no-one can see what is underneath (this is known as "redaction").

Note that the annotation functions are not available with the Openlaw Image Viewer provided free for use with Windows XP. If this is your main image viewing tool, you will need to buy a copy of G360 Imaging for Windows to use Openlaw's annotation functions. Only the user(s) who will create or work with annotations need to have this.

Openlaw functions relevant to this are:

Making an image editable so that annotations can be made on it

Permanent pagination - page numbers are annotations

Removing annotations

Burning annotations into the image to make them permanent

Recording the existence and purpose of an annotation

Identifying images with annotations

Maintaining multiple sets of images and switching between them

There are cross-references to the relevant Manual sections below.

The over-riding factor is this: it is easy to put pagination, comments and redaction onto images. It is easy to remove all annotations or to burn them all in permanently, and to do so globally for large collections of images. What you cannot do globally is to discriminate between the purposes of the annotation. If you burn in page numbers or redaction, you also burn in comments and cannot remove them. You cannot remove comments without also removing pagination, unless you remove them one at a time. Note, however, that an annotation can be burned permanently into the image and thereby loses its nature as an annotation - what you then have is a new image.

This dictates that care must be taken before making any annotations. In particular, you should be aware that Openlaw supports multiple Image Sets and allows you to switch between them. You can therefore keep public and private sets for different purposes.

Making an Image Editable

Openlaw displays .tiff images in a form which is not editable. To access the image in its own application, either double-click on it or press the key symbol at the bottom of the image window.

See the sections called The Controls on the Image Window to read more about this.

Windows Imaging and G360 Imaging for Windows open by default in Preview mode. Go to Tools / Options / General (in the imaging application) to change to Imaging Mode which enables the image edit functions. This setting persist until you change it back again. You will be told if the image is read-only. Openlaw will offer to open the file for editing anyway and will warn you that it has done so.

When you double-click the image, a message appears to remind you to save your changes. To do this, simply press the disk icon (usually the third icon on the icon bar at the top of the image).

The Annotation Tools

The Annotation sub-menu is on the Tools Menu. It looks like this:

The selection of annotation tools can also be made from the bar at the bottom of the image window.

You can experiment with the annotation tools either by selecting them from the Annotations menu or from the bar at bottom left.

To draw attention to a section, use the Highlighter and drag it over the relevant section as you would with a marker pen on paper. Its default colour is yellow. The tool used for redaction is usually the Filled Rectangle. Select it and mark the area to be covered by clicking in one corner and dragging to the opposite corner. Its default colour is yellow. This is transparent, and no use for redaction. To change the colour, right click on the annotation itself and take Properties from the menu. A colour picker appears which allows you to select, say, black and to make it the default for the Filled Rectangle tool.

In the example below, the date as been emphasised with the Highlighter, and the Addressee of the letter has been covered up with the Filled Rectangle using black as its colour.

Showing/Hiding Annotations

The top option on the Annotations sub-menu allows you to show or hide annotations. This setting persists until switched to the opposite for all images viewed. Hiding annotations is not the same as removing them - another user can turn them on again.

Removing Annotations

You can remove Annotations (as long as you have not made them permanent) even after saving the image file with an annotation. Use the pointer tool (the left-hand icon on the Annotations bar) to click on the annotation. The corners of a rectangle appear indicating the boundaries of the overlay. Press <Delete> and re-save the image file.

See Global Removing and Burning below to see how to remove all annotations globally.

Making Annotations Permanent

An annotation is by default an overlay, that is, a mask which can be switched on or off from the Annotations menu. The Annotations menu also has an option to make Annotations permanent, that is, to burn the annotations into the image file. This alters the structure of the image to include the annotation. You will want to do this if you are intending to send the images to another party and do not want them to see what lies behind the annotation.

Note that if you burn annotations manually, you must do so for each page. The menu option does not operate over the whole document. See Global Removing and Burning below to see how to remove or burn all annotations globally. See Finding Annotated Images below for a means of finding for review any .tif image which has unburnt annotations on it.

Note: we have no reason to believe that the option to burn annotations is not a permanent change as it appears to be and as the makers claim. We do not guarantee that it is impossible to remove such annotations with a suitable level of technical skill.

Press the disk icon as described above to save the image.

Global Removing and Burning Annotations

There are two ways in which you can globally remove or burn in your annotations, including page numbering. One is using the Openlaw Image Tester referred to below and described in detail in its own Manual section called Openlaw Image Tester. It includes an option to remove OR burn in (but not both) any annotations. The same option appears when you are about to print Paginated Image Bundles.

Recording Annotation Information

It is often not enough merely to make an annotation on an image. It may be necessary to record not only that the annotation has been made, but by whom and for what reason. The most usual form of annotation is redaction, that is, the obscuring of a part of an image so that it cannot be read. It is usual to draw such modifications to the attention of the other parties, and to be able to justify having made it. Openlaw provides a means of doing this with a data entry screen.

There is an overlap between this section and the one below about Finding Annotated Images.

Both store information about annotations, one programmatically and other manually, and both flag that fact on the face of the Item Card. It is necessary, however, to distinguish between their functions. The manually-recorded information that an image has been annotated is not the same (or not necessarily the same) as the programmatically-recorded information that an image includes an unburnt annotation.

The Annotation and Redaction Information screen is accessed from the Item Card Image Menu.

The screen provides for the following information to be stored:

Annotated / Redacted

Although in technical terms redaction is merely a type of annotation (the use of an annotation to obscure part of the image), they are usually thought of as different things in user terms. An annotation which is not a redaction is fairly rare in Openlaw's pure litigation context. The boxes allow you to flag an image as either or both. Note that the process for finding and flagging annotations also marks this form as having an annotation. A tick in the Annotated box will result in a yellow highlight on the word "Image" on the Item Card. A tick in the Redacted box will add a black border around that word (see below).

Last changed by / On

This information cannot be edited. It reflects the user's login name and the time the entry was added or last edited.

Reason

This entry must be picked from a closed list of Redaction Reasons. This is accessed from the Control Panel Menu Case / Settings / Pick Lists / Redacted Reasons. Obvious examples are Privileged and Confidential.

Note

The user may enter an explanation for the redaction or some comment as an aide memoire or guide to others. This may in due course be used to justify or explain the redaction.

Once entered, this information may be saved or abandoned.

Finding Annotated Images

The function described here is not available to users of the free Openlaw Imaging Software. To use the function, one user at least must have a copy of G360 Imaging for Windows. See the Introduction to this Manual section.

The most common form of annotation is one used to blank out ("redact") a region of the image to make it unreadable by recipients of the electronic file. If a passage in an image is sufficiently important to hide at all, then it is important to ensure that the other side cannot see behind the annotation which covered the passage.

The actual redaction of images (e.g. by putting a black rectangle over a section) is a task which can necessarily only be done manually and it is easy to forget to make the annotation permanent. Openlaw provides a means to review the images attached to a Selection (such as your draft Disclosure bundle) and flag those which are annotated (bear in mind that once an annotation has been made permanent, it is no longer an annotation but part of a new image).

From the Control Panel Menu, take Data / Images / Set Unburnt Annotations Flag. The screen shown below appears. Take <Set>.

The message which results will depend on the outcome. It may simply report that no annotated images were found. If there were any, it will tell you how to find them (see below). If there were any exceptions or errors (such as Items which had no image to check), you will be referred to a log file which will list the errors.

If the outcome was that annotated images were found, you can search for these in the Query Wizard. One of the search options is <Annotations - Unburnt when last checked>

You can find any Items flagged as "Yes" to this query and then review them. The Images check box on the Item Card will be highlighted in yellow for any Items marked as Unburnt as shown below and the word Image will turn red.

The process also sets a red message on the Image Annotation and Redaction Information screen and puts a tick in the Annotated box - see above. The two colourings on the Item Card derive from two separate things - the red word "Image" means that the image was found to have unburnt annotations when last checked. The yellow highlight reflects the tick in the Annotated box on the information screen.

Bear in mind that the word "Image" in red records the state of the image when last checked by the menu function described in this section. If you subsequently remove or burn in the annotation, the word "Image" reverts to black on the next check (because there are no unburnt annotations) but the yellow highlight will remain (because the Annotated box is ticked). This allows you to retain the information that the image has been annotated even after the actual annotation has been burnt in and is not therefore technically any longer an annotation. If you hover the mouse pointer over the word "Image" a tool-tip will tell you what the current status of the image is.

Image Testing

There is an Add-On called Openlaw Image Tester (available separately) which checks a range of images for a variety of conditions, primarily whether each image is present and can be opened. One of the tests is whether the image has been annotated. An image whose annotations have been made permanent is no longer an annotated image - it is effectively a new image. This test therefore operates as a fail-safe in circumstances where you want to be sure that all annotations have been sealed permanently or removed.

Openlaw Image Tester includes options to remove OR burn in annotations.

Multiple Image Sets

It is clear from what is said above that you must discriminate between images which are to be kept "clean" i.e. without any annotations, images with private comments on them, images with concealed sections for public use, and images with paginated number ranges on them (of which you might want parallel sets for different purposes).

You can define any number of Image Sets in Openlaw and can assign any one of them to any Bundle (a "Bundle Image Set"). You can create a copy of a Bundle Image Set.

You can flip between Image Sets for a single image (and so see in turn the clean image, the commented image, the redacted image and the image from any paginated Image Set). You can have multiple paginated Bundles, each with their own Image Sets. As stated above, you can remove or burn in annotations globally.

Follow the links below to read further about any of these functions.