Transition from Windows Live Photo Gallery (WLPG) to ACDSee 2021

Started by miweb, April 03, 2021, 02:15:24 PM

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miweb

Hello everyone,

I have recently transitioned from Windows Live Photo Gallery (WLPG) to ACDSee 2021, becasue WLPG cannot handle .heic files :(.
Now I noticed that ACDSee does not read the face detection information saved by WLPG. This is a huge pain point for me. Reason: I am a photo enthusiast (not a pro) and have meanwhile almost 200k personal photos with a lot of faces detected and saved. Especially important is the data I saved throughout the years where, for example WLPG did not recognized a person automatically but I added this manually. There are many hours (I can't even count it) I invested in this and I really would like to reuse this information. I know the data is saved in the file, this is the good part. I do not know how to convert it for ACDSee to be able to read it. It's not only the name of the person in a photo but it's also about the exact position of the person in the photo (this is important for example for group photos when you want to remember after years who is who in that group)

Long story short: I asked in the ACDSee forum if ACDSee devs are interested in creating a tool to convert the metadata from WLPG to ACDSee (like they did for Adobe). Unfortunately they did not answer. The good part is, a Sr. forum member pointed me to ExifTool.

My question is: would anyone with, deep ExifTool experience, be interested in collaborating for finding a solution for transitioning the metadata saved by WLPG   in the files to the format needed by ACDSee? I can gladly help with testing and/or providing sample files as needed.

After reading through a lot of posts out there, I have the feeling that I'm not the only one having this issue. It would be great to find a solution and post it for everyone (maybe there is already a solution and I did not see it).

Any help is highly appreciated.
Thank you

StarGeek

There's already a config file that will convert Microsoft regions into MWG regions (which are used by Lightroom) but I don't know if ACDSee can read MWG regions.

I've attached an image to this post.  Download it and import it into ACDSee and see if ACDSee can read the regions.  It it can, then the above convert regions config can be used and we can proceed from there.
* Did you read FAQ #3 and use the command listed there?
* Please use the Code button for exiftool code/output.
 
* Please include your OS, Exiftool version, and type of file you're processing (MP4, JPG, etc).

miweb

many thanks. I let ACDSee read the file and it did not display any information related to the persons.
Then I let face detection run and added the names "Person1" to "Person5" from left to right.

I attached the file with the information saved by ADCSee

StarGeek

Thanks, but I already have samples based upon previous work in making a writable ACDSee region config (which is the source of that image).  The problem is in the conversion.  Luckily, the ACDSee region data is almost identical to the MWG regions so I should be able to modify the previously mentioned conversion config file.  I'm mostly done so and just need to test it out on a few files.  Though there might be a problem with rotated images that would need some sort of testing.  I'll see if I can get it done later today.
* Did you read FAQ #3 and use the command listed there?
* Please use the Code button for exiftool code/output.
 
* Please include your OS, Exiftool version, and type of file you're processing (MP4, JPG, etc).

robertklink

Hmmm,

I don't suppose you have a parallel solution for Picasa to ACDSee?

I had Picasa write face tag info (location, size, name etc.) into XMP data, but ACDSee isn't picking that up.

StarGeek

Quote from: robertklink on April 04, 2021, 10:03:59 PM
I don't suppose you have a parallel solution for Picasa to ACDSee?

That is what is delaying me at the moment.  It should be easy but my brain has been a bit fuzzy today and I couldn't wrap my head around it.  Give me a couple more days.
* Did you read FAQ #3 and use the command listed there?
* Please use the Code button for exiftool code/output.
 
* Please include your OS, Exiftool version, and type of file you're processing (MP4, JPG, etc).

StarGeek

The updated ACDSee.config file can be found here.

Save it to the same directory as exiftool.

To convert Microsoft regions, use
exiftool -config acdsee.config "-RegionInfoACDSee<MPRegion2ACDSeeRegion" /path/to/files/

To convert MWG regions, use
exiftool -config acdsee.config "-RegionInfoACDSee<MWGRegion2ACDSeeRegion" /path/to/files/

Since I don't have access to either ACDSee or Windows Photo Gallery, I can't be absolutely certain it works correctly.  If you find any problems, please post in that thread, preferably with an example image.  My main worry is that images that have an orientation other than Horizontal (Normal) might need to be rotated.  I don't think this is the case when converting from IPTC or MWG regions, but might be likely with a WLPG region.
* Did you read FAQ #3 and use the command listed there?
* Please use the Code button for exiftool code/output.
 
* Please include your OS, Exiftool version, and type of file you're processing (MP4, JPG, etc).

miweb

many thanks. I tried the steps on 2 photos as follows:

Details:
82A5406.JPG = horizontal picture, 2 faces detected in WLPG
82A3772.JPG = vertical photo, 1 face detected in WLPG


Commands run:

C:\Users\michi.000\Desktop\test>exiftool -config acdsee.config "-RegionInfoACDSee<MWGRegion2ACDSeeRegion" C:\Users\michi.000\Desktop\test
Warning: No writable tags set from C:/Users/michi.000/Desktop/test/82A3772.JPG
Warning: [minor] Adjusted MakerNotes base by 4084 - C:/Users/michi.000/Desktop/test/82A5406.JPG
Warning: No writable tags set from C:/Users/michi.000/Desktop/test/82A5406.JPG
    1 directories scanned
    0 image files updated
    2 image files unchanged

C:\Users\michi.000\Desktop\test>exiftool -config acdsee.config "-RegionInfoACDSee<MPRegion2ACDSeeRegion" C:\Users\michi.000\Desktop\test
Warning: [minor] Adjusted MakerNotes base by 4084 - C:/Users/michi.000/Desktop/test/82A5406.JPG
Warning: [minor] Fixed incorrect URI for xmlns:MicrosoftPhoto - C:/Users/michi.000/Desktop/test/82A5406.JPG
    1 directories scanned
    2 image files updated


Outcome:
ACDSee was not able to read the person names saved via WLPG and converted through the command listed above.

pls let me know if I should copy the photos, manually tag the faces with ACDSee and share both versions here, or if I should do any other test.

thank you again for your efforts

StarGeek

WLPG uses Microsoft regions, so copying from MWGRegion2ACDSeeRegion (MWG regions which Picasa uses) wouldn't work.

The second command showed that the the regions were converted and embedded, but if ACDSee didn't read the regions, then I need to look closer.

Yes, if you can make copies available that have the ACDSee regions and WLPG regions that would be helpful.  You can send me a message with links if you wish to keep the images private.
* Did you read FAQ #3 and use the command listed there?
* Please use the Code button for exiftool code/output.
 
* Please include your OS, Exiftool version, and type of file you're processing (MP4, JPG, etc).

miweb

many thanks. I am sharing 3 files here - you will know the persons ;)

I run the same command and got 1 error this time:

D:\Photos\2021\changed>exiftool -config acdsee.config "-RegionInfoACDSee<MPRegion2ACDSeeRegion" D:\Photos\2021\changed
Warning: Error reading MPImage2 from file - D:/Photos/2021/changed/20190904_093253511_iOS.jpg
    1 directories scanned
    3 image files updated

here is the first photo as follows:
20190904_093253511_iOS.jpg -> face tag with WLPG
20190904_093253511_iOS - with ADCSee face tag.jpg -> face manually tagged with ACDSee as ACDSee could not read the information
20190904_093253511_iOS.jpg_original -> generated by Exiftool (just in case you need this one also)

I'm posting the next 2 set of photos in the next reply as I can only upload 8 photos per reply


miweb

the forum does not let me to add all 6 in one post due to the max file size... will do this separately

ps: in WLPG I used the "real" names and in ACDSee I user the face Tags "Person1", "Person2", "Person3" to be sure we can distinguish which program saved which tags



StarGeek

Sorry for taking so long to get back to this, been a bit busy.

I took a look at the Master Woo image and compared the ACDSee region to what the result is from converting the Microsoft region and I can't see a difference.  The numbers are a bit different, but that's because the ACDSee region is wider while the Microsoft region is more square.

Here's a comparison of the embedded structured data
Your original file 20190904_093253511_iOS - with ADCSee face tag.jpg
{AppliedToDimensions={H=3333,Unit=pixel,W=1909},RegionList=[{DLYArea={H=0.184885,W=0.440608,X=0.543103,Y=0.204453},Name=Person1,Type=Face}]}


My test file, converting the Microsoft region to ACDSee region
{AppliedToDimensions={H=3333,Unit=pixel,W=1909},RegionList=[{DLYArea={H=0.226523,W=0.395495,X=0.5188585,Y=0.2299735},Name=Master Woo,Type=Face}]}

The only differences are the XY and WH are a bit off and since the Microsoft region had Master Woo instead of Person1, the name is different.

Converting those numbers into pixel dimensions gives 841x616+616+373 (Width/Height/X/Y) for both the ACDSee region and 754x755+613+389 for the converted Microsoft region.  The numbers are formatted like this because this is what ImageMagick uses for it's crop function. 

The resulting crops from ImageMagick, just because I was curious to see the difference.
Original ACDSee region
Converted Microsoft region

Attached is the test image.  It also contains a MWG region converted from the Microsoft region using the convert_regions.config that's part of the main distribution.
* Did you read FAQ #3 and use the command listed there?
* Please use the Code button for exiftool code/output.
 
* Please include your OS, Exiftool version, and type of file you're processing (MP4, JPG, etc).

miweb

many thanks for the efforts. can you please share the link to the file "convert_regions.config" you have used, just to be sure I am using the same. I used the one found on github and it led to following:


D:\Photos\2021\changed>exiftool.exe -config convert_regions.config "-RegionInfoACDSee<MPRegion2ACDSeeRegion" D:\Photos\2021\changed\test
Bareword found where operator expected at convert_regions.config line 8, near ""en" data"
        (Missing operator before data?)
Bareword found where operator expected at convert_regions.config line 8, near ""auto" data"
        (Missing operator before data?)
Bareword found where operator expected at convert_regions.config line 8, near ""light" data"
        (Missing operator before data?)
Excessively long <> operator at convert_regions.config line 18.
Warning: [minor] Possibly incorrect maker notes offsets (fix by 4128?) - D:/Photos/2021/changed/test/DSC02506.JPG
Warning: No writable tags set from D:/Photos/2021/changed/test/DSC02506.JPG
Warning: [minor] Possibly incorrect maker notes offsets (fix by 4128?) - D:/Photos/2021/changed/test/DSC02507.JPG
Warning: No writable tags set from D:/Photos/2021/changed/test/DSC02507.JPG
    1 directories scanned
    0 image files updated
    2 image files unchanged