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Destructive question

Started by afeininger, June 07, 2012, 10:51:06 AM

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afeininger

Hi to all,

it's very nice to tag pictures with xmp tags like the "iptcext tags", because they are standardized and the future, but: Does anybody know only one image database or image administration program that can work with these tags? I tried Digikam, Picasa, Windows Search, but they all fail.

So how can I use the structures the tags give to me in real life?

One of my mostly liked tag is "PersonInImage" from xmp/iptcext, but I can't find a software that allows me to filter my albums for pictures that contain this tag or even a defined persons name.

Could anybody help me? Thank you very much!

Phil Harvey

#1
Did you look at this page?

- Phil

Edit: I just checked the list, and it says that Digikam supports the IPTC extensons.
...where DIR is the name of a directory/folder containing the images.  On Mac/Linux/PowerShell, use single quotes (') instead of double quotes (") around arguments containing a dollar sign ($).

BogdanH

Thanks for link, Phil.
As I assumed, it looks bad for IptcExt.

Bogdan

afeininger

Yes, I did. But they just mention software that edits IPTC tags.

What I mean is the more flexible xmp format, e. g. the xmp-iptc-Extensions. And the biggest problem: Most software can edit or create the tags, but who can search or filter a mass of pictures for a defined tag or its content?

How can the completely flexible tag handling of ExiftoolGUI help me when I cannot search for my tags later?

When I want to work with Digikam, it's better to do the tagging with Digikam. The same with Picasa. They only support some primitive kinds of tags. So for using the data later, it seems better to ignore Exiftool's variety :-(


BogdanH

Hi,
I understand you and share your opinion. Ok, we can try to understand why suchs situation:
IPTC oganisation was asleep; IptcExt specification came out too late. Inbetween each software defeloper tried to find (it's own) solution and meanwhile some of them became defacto standard -so, tags used depend on software used.
What I wonder about is, than even some recently introduced (say, still beta) DAM solutions don't use IptcExt. By trying to become popular, the probably think it's better to be "compatible" with existing (no IptcExt) solutions on market.
When I made GUIv5, I was hoping for reactions like yours (default tags in Workspace are IptcExt -where appropriate). I could afford that, because Workspace content is fully customizable: you don't like it? -you can change it. It's been few years since I tried it, but if I recall correctly, only in iMatch user can choose the tags used -it's a feature every DAM software should provide.

Yes, perfect (and affordable) solution doesn't  exist, so pick a software which suits you needs best. And keep ExifTool by hand -just for case  :)
Btw. If you missed it, I have mentioned this issues in article here: https://exiftool.org/gui/articles/where_what.html

Bogdan

afeininger


Hmm,

seems to be high time for the second part of Exiftool(GUI): Exifsearch  ::)

A simple search program that filters the pictures in a folder for strings and shows linked previews of the results... seems to me that nothing like that exists so far.

:-*




BogdanH

The way GUI works, this would be too slow to be usable. You can try that with ExifTool direct by executing some "search" command, for example:

-p "$Filename" -if "$PersonInImage=~/\bPeter/i" *.jpg (before executing, deselect files in filelist -select none, that is).

Above command will display filenames of those files where PersonInImage tag contains value Peter.
Now, if directory contains only a handfull of jpg files, result will be displayed reasonably fast. But if there are hundreds of files, then it can take a while. And it gets worse if we do a "search" on raw files.
In short: for such tasks, program should work with database behind and we talk about DAM (Digital Asset Management) software then. In this case, all relevant metadadata is first imported into database, which can take a while, but any data can be later retrieved, sorted and filtered very, very fast -no matter what kind of files (jpg, raw, etc.) are you using and no matter how many of them.
I must admit, that I am sometimes tempted to start with such project. Out of curiosity, I already wrote "few pieces" of code, where Firebird database (http://www.firebirdsql.org/) is used -and it works, of course. The only problem is time, which I don't have enough. I really hope, that soon, someone else will make that for me  :).

Bogdan