This Guide walks you through the steps to count manually using the CountThings from Photos app.

What is Manual counting and how it differs from automated counting

Manual Counting
With manual counting, the user ‘tags’ each item in the image using left mouse clicks and can remove tags using right mouse clicks.

Automated Counting
With automated counting, the software automatically places the tags on the images.
To ensure accurate results the user needs to review the count and make corrections as needed by adding or removing tags from the image.

For both manual counting and automated counting, the software counts the items based on the tags. The resulting image with the tags documents the counting. You can zoom-in the image to see the tags to confirm what was counted.

For automated counting to work, the software needs a Counting Template optimized to the type of things being counted.

Manual counting is useful for cases when Counting Templates are not available.

Benefits of using software for manual counting:

• You can see what was counted
• Accuracy of counting can be visually confirmed
• Faster than counting without the software
• Document your counting

Typical uses are for counting irregular items and aerial surveys.

Step 1 - Check Settings Open the Settings window by clicking on the Settings icon (top right). Go to Saved Settings, and check the ManualCounting setting. Click Save.

Step 2 - Open Image From the CountThings from Photos app, open the image file.

Step 3 - Add, Delete, or Move Tags In Manual Counting, Edit Tags is automatically turned on.

You can add, delete, or move tags: left click to add, right click to delete, and left press and drag to move a tag.
Make sure the "Edit Tags" button on the left side is selected. Left click to add a tag: Right click to delete a tag: Left press and drag to move a tag to a new location:

Step 4 - Tag Size Use the Tag Size option on the left, to decrease and/or increase tags' size.

Step 5 - Review the Results It's very helpful to use the "Count Review," which divides the image into cells that can be reviewed one cell at a time. For more details, see the Review large counts using grid guide.

Step 6 - Save results Click Save.

Step 7 - Saved Image The results are located on your desktop in a folder named CountThingsResults.
To open the results folder, click on the green Saved button. The results folders are structured by date: the top level folder is named by year, inside each year folder are folders by month, and inside each month folders are folders by day.

Step 1 - Sort using forms Open the Settings window by clicking on the Settings icon (top right). Click Forms In the next window, do the following:
Click on Add new form and give a relevant name to the newly created form.

1. From the right, add "Count Radio Group" by clicking on the plus sign
2. Select the Count Radio Group to enable editing options
3. Based on your sorting criteria, add items to the list (e.g. standing, sitting, swimming)

Click Save & exit button to apply the changes.

Step 2 - Review the Results The count results are shown on the right, sorted by your criteria (as specified in the form created above).
You can add, delete, or move tags: left click to add, right click to delete, and left press and drag to move a tag. In Manual Counting, you have to select the criterion first, and then add the tags. In the image below, the "Standing" criterion is selected.
Use the same steps for each option you may have defined.

If you need help, email Support@CountThings.com and send us a few images from which you would like to count.
Make sure to send images with the highest possible resolution available to you. Do not resize the image to save space.